‘We Just About Break Even: Prize-Money Is Ludicrous In Britain’

Mick Appleby will bid to begin the new year with a bang when stable star Raasel lines out in the Dubai Dash at Meydan. Appleby will run four horses in total at Meydan over the coming weeks and months, all of whom cost just over £60,000 combined, which illustrates the Northern England-based trainer's ability to sniff out a bargain at the sales.

   In this week's Starfield Stud-sponsored Conversations Q&A, Appleby discusses his approach to sourcing talent, speaks out on the poor prize-money in Britain and how difficult it is to stay afloat as a trainer as well as expressing a desire to train quality 2-year-olds in the future.

 

Brian Sheerin: It's an exciting time for the yard with four runners in Dubai to look forward to in the upcoming weeks.

Mick Appleby: It is and we've got Raasel (GB) (Showcasing {GB}) running in the Dubai Dash on Friday. The favourite, Man Of Promise (Into Mischief), is a very good horse and he should be hard to beat. But hopefully Raasel can make us all proud and run a good race. If we finish in the first four we'd be delighted.

 

BS: There could be a lot of prize-money to be won with Raasel in Dubai over the coming weeks and months.

MA: There are only two five-furlong races on grass and he'll go for those. We might try him over six furlongs as well because, if he's going to get that trip anywhere, Meydan is where he will get it as it's such an easy track and he'd get quick ground there as well. If he was to run well over six furlongs, there is the possibility of him staying out there for World Cup Night. We'll try him over that trip first and see how it goes.

 

BS: Have you anything in mind for him on home turf this season or does his programme almost map itself out? In hindsight, it was an excellent run to be beaten a little over four lengths in the G1 Prix de l'Abbaye.

MA: It could be a big year for him. He ran very well at Longchamp and the draw did him on the day. He was just drawn on the wrong side and never really had any chance from there so I thought he ran really well that day. If he'd have been drawn on the other side, I think he'd have gone very close. He'll be campaigned very similar to last season and will be targeted at pretty much the same races.

 

BS: It's remarkable that all four horses you are running in Dubai cost less than 20,000gns apiece. What can you tell us about them?

MA: Edraak (Ire) (Elzaam {Aus}) will hopefully run on Jan. 20 in the 0-105 handicap. I am just waiting to hear back from the handicapper to let me know if he is dropping him in the weights or not. He's been off for six months because he did a suspensory in front when he was due to run at Newcastle. He should have been reassessed after being off for six months and, if he does get dropped, I think he'd have a very good chance. United Front (War Front) and Ayr Harbour (GB) (Harbour Watch {Ire}) will be campaigned on the dirt. They are good all-weather horses and Ayr Harbour in particular has shown some very good form on the old fibersand at Southwell so he could do quite well on the dirt out there. Same with United Front, he's been a good all-weather horse for us and I think he'll be fine on the dirt out there.

 

BS: What do you look for in a dirt horse?

MA: The American-bred horses seem to do a lot better on dirt and United Front obviously has an American pedigree. Basically, you need a big strong horse. I found that out when I went to South Korea with Annaf (Ire) (Muhaarar {GB}) last year. The dirt was just far too deep for him. I am going to try and go back out there this year and would try to buy horses specifically to go out there. I'd be looking at American-bred horses to go out there. The prize-money is absolutely amazing in South Korea.

 

BS: And what is it that you look for in horses at the sales in general as few trainers–if any–have a better reputation for rejuvenating tried horses.

MA: The Dixon brothers, Matt Taylor and Richard O'Brien are very good on form. They will pick horses out at the sales strictly on form. They will see things that I can't see. Likewise, I will see things that they can't see when it comes to physical issues with a horse and that's why the whole thing works so well.

 

BS: And what would you not forgive physically when buying at the horses-in-training sales?

MA: Knees are the big thing with me. It's very hard to get a horse right if they have bad knees. It's very hard to get them back if their knees are gone.

 

BS: Too many horses have improved for joining your yard for it to be put down to a simple change of scenery. What routine do they go into and how do you go about finding the improvement?

MA: It sounds simple but you have to find what the problems are and try and manage them. The other thing is, don't train them too hard. Actually, I think that is the key, not training them too hard. Just keep them sweet. You also have to give each horse the individual attention that it needs. Okay, it's got harder to do that with the more horses that we have got but the most I'd ever train at one time is 80. That's the number where you can manage it all and keep an eye on everything that's going on with each horse.

 

BS: You must have a great team to be even able to apply such individual care to 80 horses. That must be a huge advantage as a lot of yards are struggling to find staff right now.

MA: A lot of the staff that we have here have been with us for a long time. But it is a big problem, getting staff, and we could possibly do with a couple more riders. Getting groundstaff is not as hard. Anyone can muck a stable out. But riding a horse is a completely different skill and we find it hard to get the good riders. When you have the likes of Godolphin offering mega money to work riders, you just can't compete with that.

 

BS: And how have you found competing in the sales ring throughout the past year? Even for those middle to lower tier handicappers, the prices have sky-rocketed.

MA: It's been a lot tougher buying those bottom-end horses the past few years. We are not prepared to pay over the odds. We might go a little bit more than what we think a horse is worth if we really want it but we are not prepared to pay three or four times the true value. Why would you? Some of these horses are not worth what people are prepared to pay for them. The days are gone when I could go out and buy Art Scholar (Ire) (Pyrus) and Lockantanks (GB) (Compton Place {GB}) for five hundred quid apiece. You can't do that now. We're a little bit down on numbers as a result but that's probably not a bad thing because of the staff situation. We've 80 horses in and we're happy with that.

 

BS: The quality of the yard seems to be growing every year. You sent out 107 winners last year and recorded a record haul of £1,438,497 in prize-money in Britain.

MA: We'd 109 winners the year before but only won about £1.2million in prize-money so the quality is growing. But prize-money is a big issue in British racing. Owners are leaving the sport because it's just not viable. It's meant to be a hobby for owners but it's becoming a very expensive one. There's no way that you should be winning a race and it's not covering your costs for the month. If you win a Class 5 or 6 race in Britain, you will be very lucky to cover your costs for the month. It shouldn't be that way.

 

BS: Take Win Win Power (Ire) (Exceed And Excel {Aus} as an example the other day. He won first time up for you at Southwell but won just £3,402.

MA: I bought him for £2,000 at the Ascot Sale in November, so he has paid for himself, but that's ridiculous prize-money. There's no way you should be running for less than £10,000 in this day and age. There's so many owners leaving racing now because it doesn't make economic sense.

 

BS: Is there anything you can do as a trainer to incentivise owners having a horse in training with you?

MA: Not really. We run it to a tight budget as it is. We are only £55 per day and are a lot cheaper than the majority of other trainers in the country. We can't slice it any other way. We just about break even and we're not making money out of it. Put it this way, if I was looking at coming into training now, I wouldn't do it. It's a good lifestyle but, is it a viable business? No, it isn't. Unless you have a bottomless pit of money, it's not viable. Obviously I've been doing it long enough to have built everything up but, if I was coming into it now, there's no way I'd be able to get where I have. Somebody needs to stand up and do something about the prize-money situation, otherwise there will be a lot more people leaving racing in this country.

 

BS: How frustrating is it when you rattle off a series of wins with a horse, feel you've done a great job with it but still haven't cleared what it costs to train the animal for a year?

MA: There's horses we've won five or six races with and they might only have won 20 grand. It's ludicrous. Owners would rightly look at that and think, 'why bother?' Being in horses now, you've got to do it for the love of it.

 

BS: Could you see things changing even five or 10 years down the line?

MA: Unless the BHA, the ROA and the NTF get their heads together and do something to sort this mess out, well then it's never going to change. They just bury their heads in the sand and don't do anything about it. The worst thing that ever happened is the Tote being sold off. The bookmakers need to be putting more money back into the sport. Look at the profits Bet 365 made last year. How much of that went back into racing?

 

BS: On that note, I interviewed Charles Byrnes a few years ago after he recorded a slew of bumper gambles and he was pretty forthright in saying that the money he won was necessary to keep the business in lights. When the money comes for one trained by Mick Appleby it is always very well-respected. Do you bet yourself?

MA: Not really. I don't really gamble because I'm a bad loser. It's not very often I'd have a bet on one of my own horses. If I'm having a bet, it's more likely to be on football. We've owners who like betting. We get our horses fit and well. A lot of the time, they will win first time out. Everyone seems to have cottoned on to that now and you'd see horses of ours who may not even necessarily be that well fancied and they'd be going off as odds-on favourites in races. People think we're going to just improve every single horse and it's going to be winning first time out for us. There's been times when horses of ours have gone off odds-on and we'd be thinking, 'bloody hell, who'd back that.' Then when it does get beat, all you get is abuse from people online.

 

BS: I know you've had some major successes on the grass but do you feel slightly pigeonholed as an all-weather trainer or as a trainer who just does well with other people's castoffs? Is there part of you that would like to start taking on more yearlings with a view to training 2-year-olds?

MA: Obviously we have been pigeonholed. People think we can just train handicappers, basically. Nobody associates us for having nice yearlings or 2-year-olds but that's only because we've never been sent any. There's no other reason whatsoever. We've had 2-year-old winners–I think we'd half a dozen 2-year-old runners last year and one winner. You can't run them if you don't have them. Aquarius (Ire) (Charm Spirit {Ire}) won first time out at Newmarket a couple of seasons ago, beating a Godolphin hotpot, but then there are still some people who think we can't train 2-year-olds. I can only train what I have. I'd love an owner to come along and say, here's two million quid, go and buy some yearlings. Then we'd be able to show people we can train 2-year-olds.

 

BS: You do extremely well with what you train and I know that Martin Dixon plays an integral role in the operation as a race planner. How much of an advantage has that been?

MA: Martin started off doing my entries a couple of years ago as I'd got a lot more horses and I was going racing a lot more so I was finding it hard to do everything. It's working very well.

 

BS: And how will you approach having runners in Dubai over the coming weeks? Will you go over a few times?

MA: We have two lads out there and one of them has been there before so he knows the ropes. They send us What'sApp videos every day and they have all settled in great. I am going out next Wednesday to see Ayr Harbour and United Front running on the Friday. I'll stay out there for two or three days and will continue to come back and forward.

 

BS: Another thing that is close to your heart is the Racing And Pride campaign that promotes racing as being everybody's sport and the LGBTQ+ community. You put yourself out there for that campaign. Do you think it was a good thing or is there much more to be done?

MA: There's always more that can be done but it was definitely a step forward. I came out as gay 15 or 16 years ago. You're always going to get certain people who will look down their nose at you and think you're a bloody alien or something but that's up to them. I just get on with my life and live it as I want to live it.

 

BS: But obviously you're in the public domain so I imagine it helped quite a few people to see a prominent trainer come out as gay.

MA: Quite a few people came up to me at the races actually. A lot of people thanked me for speaking out so I think it probably helped a lot of people. If it helped one person, that's all that matters.

The post ‘We Just About Break Even: Prize-Money Is Ludicrous In Britain’ appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Chris Dixon – ‘I Am Absolutely Certain Raasel Is A Group Horse’

   He may be best known for his role as presenter and pundit with Racing TV, but Chris Dixon has also carved out a reputation for being able to find bargain horses to run under the banner of The Horse Watchers, of which his brother Martin also plays an integral role.

   The Horse Watchers have had a lot to shout about down through the years, with the owners approaching 100 winners all told, but the best may yet be to come on Saturday when the Mick Appleby-trained Raasel (GB) (Showcasing {GB}) lines out in the G3 Coral Charge at Sandown.

   Dixon is convinced that Raasel is the best horse The Horse Watchers have ever owned. From revealing an ambitious plan with the sprinter that could lead to Group 1 races in the autumn to explaining about what the syndicate will be trying to buy at the Tattersalls July Sale at Newmarket next week, Dixon shares all with Brian Sheerin in this week's Q&A.

 

Brian Sheerin: This is a big week for The Horse Watchers with Raasel running in the G3 Coral Charge at Sandown. He is rated 108 after winning the Betfred Nifty Fifty Achilles S. at Haydock and that would suggest you are now dealing with a genuine group horse. Is that how you see it?

 

Chris Dixon: I am absolutely certain that he is a group horse, regardless of what happens on Saturday. I have never believed it as strongly about one of our horses before. In fairness, we have not had many who were genuine group class before–we've had a couple who were listed class–but Raasel is the best we've had. Rhoscolyn (GB) (Territories {Ire}) was listed-placed while Big Country (Ire) (High Chaparral {Ire}) won at listed level and they were operating in a much hotter division. The sprint division is obviously easier and, within it, I think Raasel is a genuine group horse. He's an out-and-out five-furlong horse. Saturday will tell us more but, the way that he won at Haydock, which didn't surprise us at all, suggests that he is up to this level.

 

BS: Have you got a plan for him beyond Saturday?

 

CD: He goes to Sandown on Saturday and, whatever the result, he then goes to Goodwood for the G2 King George Sprint. He's two-from-two at Goodwood so we know that the track suits him well. After that, he'll either go for the G1 Flying Five S. at the Curragh or he'll go for the G1 Nunthorpe S. at York. He has entries in both races.

 

BS: It's no secret that The Horse Watchers operates on a budget. This horse cost 10,000gns. How much of a thrill is it to have unearthed one like Raasel for that sort of money?

 

CD: You've got to be realistic. Principally, what we try to find are well-handicapped horses who may climb the ranks and become smart handicappers. If they are better than that, then great. With the budgets that we have been working with, and we've never spent more than 50,000 on a horse, you are not really expecting to come across a group horse. But with Raasel, from the moment we bought him, we all felt that he had the potential to become a group horse. A lot of that was based on the fact that he hadn't really been tried. He'd run just twice and looked potentially group-class on his debut effort. He then ran on unsuitable ground at Newmarket and obviously had a problem as he wasn't seen for some time after that.

BS: What sort of a problem did he have? It was obviously something that you and the team were willing to forgive.

 

CD: We got lucky with him. Jason Kelly does a lot of the bidding for us and I sent him in to buy Raasel. I told him to ask me if I wanted to keep bidding once he got into the thirties. We went there with a budget of 40,000gns to buy him and couldn't quite believe it when he was knocked down to us for just 10,000gns. Shadwell are very open with their notes and the reason why he was so cheap is because he had a high suspensory issue. For a lot of people, they are not willing to deal with that problem. When you are dealing with budgets, you have to forgive things, and we got Raasel vetted as we do with every one of the horses we go to buy, no matter what the budget. Having done some more digging, the vet [Eoghan Nagle] realised that it was a high suspensory issue behind, which seemingly is a bit of a game-changer, although I wasn't aware of this at the time I must admit. His prognosis was that, if we just gave him the time, he thought he'd be okay. He was actually very sweet on the horse and that gave us the confidence to go and buy him. Even if we are buying something for 10,000-15,000gns, we will always get them vetted, as then you can provide full disclosure to people and that is important when you are running a syndicate.

 

BS: And what role do your trainers Mick Appleby and David O'Meara play at the sales?

 

CD: We come up with our list and we give it to Mick and David. We go around the sales with Mick but David usually looks at all of the horses by himself or with Jason Kelly. Mick is just excellent. He has a knack and I can't explain what it is. He struggles to put into words what he does and doesn't like in a horse, and he will admit that himself, but he knows what works and what doesn't. He has a fabulous record in getting these horses sound and well. He wouldn't like horses with bad knees. That would be a big turn-off. If their knees are no good, then basically scratch them off the list. But if they have back problems and things like that, he's more than happy to get things like that sorted, and his record speaks for itself.

 

BS: And are there certain stallions that you won't look at or can you afford to be sniffy when operating on a budget?

 

CD: We'll look at anything. There are horses that you just know that you won't afford. We've had discussions about trying to buy horses to race internationally but, ultimately, those horses are hard to buy right now. We look for something that the foreign market doesn't want just yet, because in ratings terms, they are not good enough. We try to buy something that we believe will be able to get to that level and will be of interest to that market one day. We will buy lowly-rated horses as well. For example, we bought Intervention (GB) (Swiss Spirit {GB}) when he was rated in the 50s. He won the prize for being the winningmost horse on the all-weather last season. There are some sires you wouldn't be overly keen on but a lot of the ones that we definitely wouldn't buy are not around anymore. I don't think there's any sire that we absolutely wouldn't buy. Once you're looking at a handicapper, the sire is something that comes into the mix but it would never be the starting point.

 

BS: You have had horses in training for over 10 years now. Have you found it tougher to buy this type of horse of late given the strength of the market?

 

CD: It definitely has been tougher. The market has inflated and you've got to be aware of that when you go into the ring. You have to be willing to push on a little bit for the horses that you like because, at the end of the day, while you don't want to overpay for something, if you buy something just because you quite liked it and it was cheap, as soon as they are a bit disappointing, you will be saying, 'I wish I hadn't bought that.' Even a cheap horse, it's still quite a lot of money to keep that horse in training. I would much rather push on a bit and buy the ones that we do like and that's something we have changed about our approach to the sales in recent years.

 

BS: How so?

 

CD: If we do like one, we'll go a bit stronger than we usually would have. Equally, if there is one thing we aren't keen on about a horse, well then we're out. We've become more selective. When we got to the sales, we have a meeting between the four of us, which is myself, Martin [Dixon, brother], Richard O'Brien and Matt Taylor. We would discuss all of the horses on the list and grade them from one to three. The ones are the horses we'd push on to buy but we've actually stopped buying the threes because we realised a few years ago that none of them have ever been any good.

 

BS: What will you be looking for at the July Sale at Newmarket next week?

 

CD: Well-handicapped horses that we think can progress; horses that we believe have an upside, to whatever level we think that will be. We're not interested in horses rated 85 who we think need to get dropped before they can be competitive. We are more interested in horses who might be rated 70 but we feel could end up being rated 85. Then, once they're on the up and if the money is right, we'd let them go.

 

BS: Raasel must be worth quite a lot of money now. Would there be any commercial temptation there?

 

CD: We have always been of a selling mentality. That's how we have kept the whole thing going. We sell horses all the time and that's something we will continue to do. But Raasel is a slightly different case in that he's a 5-year-old and he did have a slight problem earlier in his career. He's completely perfect for us as a racehorse but, if he was vetted to go abroad, something might show up. As well as that, he doesn't stand us a lot of money given he cost only 10,000gns. He is running for quite a lot of prize money so it makes sense to keep him. Now, if he had cost us 50,000gns for example, we might be of a different mindset. But, because we don't have a lot of money tied up in him, he probably won't be sold. Contrary to what a lot of people might think, once a horse reaches a certain level, we are happy to let them go rather than trying to get them back down the handicap. The interesting bit for us is when you first get a horse and you get them on a nice trajectory because you don't know where the ceiling is. Once that horse hits the ceiling, we like to move them on. I suspect that a lot of horses that we sell would be very good buys because their level is there for everyone to see.

Take Warrior Brave (GB) (Twilight Son {GB}) for example, we sold him to Ross O'Sullivan for 100,000gns. We told Ross that we'd be very surprised if he could improve him but that he was a rock-solid 100 horse. They've kept him at that and he's given his owner a lot of fun. If he happens to get dropped five or six pounds, then he'd probably have a big chance in a premier handicap.

 

BS: What is the breakdown of The Horse Watchers and how does it work?

 

CD: There are the four us–myself, Martin, Richard and Matt–who have been involved from the start. It used to be the case that we owned all the horses ourselves and the first horse we syndicated ended up being put down, which put us off the idea of syndicating horses. When Covid hit, it took a drain on the finances of the syndicate and we decided that we either cut the number of horses we had in training or else gave syndicating another go. What we do now is keep between 30% to 40% of every horse we buy and sell between six and seven shares. If they don't sell out, we're more than happy to keep the shares ourselves, but that's the general approach to things.

 

BS: Along with running The Horse Watchers Syndicate and working for Racing TV, you recently added another string to your bow and became a jockeys' agent. Tell us a bit more about that.

 

CD: I took on Jason Watson in November. It happened by accident really and I did it as a trial during the winter. Jason had a very good winter and I really enjoyed it. Cieren Fallon asked me if I would take him on at the same time but I told him I was only doing Jason as a trial to see if I enjoy it and whether I had time to do it all. He came back to me in the spring and I was very happy to take him on at that point. The plan was to do two Flat jockeys for the full season and I would maybe add a third and possibly fourth Flat jockey next year as I have always been a believer that, with that job, you can't do too many. However, when Dave Roberts [renowned agent] packed up, a group of 10 jump jockeys came to me and asked me if I was interested in doing it for them. Martin agreed to help but ultimately it's one person who makes all the calls and I found very quickly that doing 10 jump jockeys on top of my Flat lads was just too much. If I packed up the television work I could have done it but I just didn't feel I could do them justice with the time that I had. I felt I could get away with it but I wasn't doing a good job. Now I just have Jason, Cieren and Alistair Rawlinson on the Flat and Tom Scudamore and Sean Bowen over jumps.

The post Chris Dixon – ‘I Am Absolutely Certain Raasel Is A Group Horse’ appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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