the horse racing industry divide.

​The horse racing industry comprises the equally important racing and breeding sides of the sport. Although the glory of winning classis races, both jump and flat, and major graded or Group races, go to the racing aspect of the sport, I would argue that at the loftier sphere of the sport it is the breeders who take home more of the bacon.
Breeders, I must admit, have the liability of financial investment before they scoop any reward. The major studs that send their mares to the likes of Frankel or Dubawi are paying, perhaps, millions of pounds in stallion fees, not always with the safety-net of no-foal no-fee or with any guarantee that the subsequent foal will be strong and healthy and will mature into a yearling worthy in stature to its blue-blooded ancestry. It is a bit of a gamble and I am quite certain that the balance sheets at the end of the financial year are not as champagne-popping as many of us imagine.
It has to be said that the breeding industry work with a world-wide canvas these days, with their product, even as yearlings, sought by owners and trainers in racing jurisdictions from South America to the Far East. With Juddmonte, Coolmore, Godolphin etc, able to sell their home-breds to foreign countries as older horses. Yet, I would contend, horse racing in this country benefits little from the sale of thoroughbreds. Neither from public sales nor private.
I am neither quick-witted or intelligent enough to undertake the math, yet instinct screams at me that British racing has no tangible access to the goldmine that is million-pound yearlings and £400,000 sale of jumping stock.
I propose a study be established by the B.H.A. into the possibility of a levy or small tax be applied to the sale of all thoroughbred racehorses sold for above £2,000. Controversial, yes. But insuperable problems require both radical solutions and compromise. If I have one overarching criticism of the B.H.A. – I have so much criticism or the B.H.A. So very much. – it is they are only reactive to situation. Is there a department at the B.H.A. with its members noses to the grindstone attempting to formulate a grand plan to get British horse racing out of its generally recognised nose-ward dive towards oblivion? Thought not!
My hazy, not even hastily thought-out on the back of a fag-packet, idea is that the owner of any horse bred for the racecourse and subsequently sold either privately or at public auction pay a small tax on any sale price over £2,000 which would go towards funding prize-money at British racecourses. I am not suggesting double-digit percentages but only ½ a percentage. If that. It is not my intention to frighten breeders away from British sales-rings but to unify the industry, to have both sides rowing the same boat. The greatest benefit to both divides of the industry would be a massive increase in prize-money.
An article in ‘The Economist’ magazine suggested that British horse racing was in ‘deep trouble’. It is, I would hope, not at the precipice of ‘deep trouble’ but unless we can get beyond our present troubles ‘deep’ might become an appropriate description in the near-future. A long-lasting solution is needed and it is needed today not tomorrow. A sales percentage tax may not be the entire answer and to future-proof prize-money other inventive ideas might need to be sourced to bolster the sport’s finances and, indeed, to allow the sport a future.
Look, unlike journalists and proper writers, I lack the patience to conduct research to establish the data and numbers that would give this piece the overlook of expertise or even normal competence, yet my instinct assures me that a hundred-thousand or more horses are sold annually in this country and a small tax on those sales would substantially help finance horse racing to the point of sustainability. 
It would be foolish for any tax on sales to be so high it drives breeders to the auction houses of Europe and yet equally foolish not to explore the possibility of a sales tax that would help the sport prosper. The tax (V.A.T.?) on sales that goes into the Government Exchequer would be far higher than the half-percent I propose. I also admit I have little idea of how cumbersome it would be for this money to travel from the sales houses to the coffers of the B.H.A. and on to racecourses. There is always expense in even the most compelling of solutions that escape the solutionist. 
What I do know is that something radical is required to halt the nosedive toward stupefaction and it is needed now. NOW! It is simply humiliating that a sport with its formative roots and history embedded in the soil of this country has been allowed to become the poor relation in the family of world horse racing.