Jump Racing - weather permitting

I love my National Hunt racing, but it can be very frustrating. Almost every day another top horse is ruled out of some race or other due to a setback. Then you have the weather issues that are becoming more and more of a problem for the sport with each passing season.

I was really looking forward to seeing Ferny Hollow return to the track for the first time since last Christmas at Navan on Sunday, but the ground was too quick and he was withdrawn. The same story with his exciting new stablemate Flame Bearer. Edwardstone, Sizing Pottsie, Monmiral and Luccia were other notable absentees from the November meeting at Cheltenham over the weekend. Low sun was also an issue at Cheltenham on Sunday with the final two hurdles omitted in two contests.

While all of this is frustrating from a fan’s point of view, it must be head-wrecking for the connections, particularly the trainers. It’s becoming virtually impossible to plan with any certainty a campaign for a horse and the logistics for the bigger yards trying to juggle and reschedule without upsetting owners must be a mammoth task.

The tracks must also be finding it very difficult. If they interfere too much with the ground by watering they risk making the situation worse and so far there is no solution to low-lying sun except to omit obstacles.

Despite all of this we did see some very good performances over the weekend, most notably for me from UK-trained runners. Paul Nicholls’ Hermes Allen looks very exciting. He may not have beaten the best of the Irish in Music Drive and Hubrisko, but the manner of the victory was very taking. Oliver Sherwood’s Queen’s Gamble is another for the Horsetracker. She is now two from two in Bumpers at Cheltenham and really does look particularly exciting. On the home front Hollow Games looked a revelation over fences at Navan. If only he had been ridden in a similarly forceful manner over hurdles last season, he might have won a big one.

I find the money at the top end of the breeding industry mind-boggling, but even at the lower end of the scale the numbers are extraordinary. In 2020 Coolmore’s National Hunt sire Maxios covered 298 mares in his first season at Castlehyde Stud. With a modest fee of €6,000 that works out that he earned close to €1.8 million for that season. His fee has since risen to €7,000.

More recently it was announced that Champion Sire Dubawi, who has had his fee fixed at £250,000 for the last six seasons, will now command a stud fee of £350,000 for the 2023 season.

The 20-year-old stallion is the hottest property on this side of the Atlantic ahead of Frankel who’s 2023 fee is also set at a jaw-dropping £275,000.

When you start to work out the numbers these elite horses can earn in a career at stud it starts to make the salaries of Premier League soccer players look almost reasonable. If Dubawi covered an average of 100 mares a season for the last 6 seasons he would have grossed £150 million. At his new fee he can easily bring in £35 million or more a year. In contrast, in his short racing career he won less than £700,000 in prizemoney.

The recent Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Flightline won $4.5 million in an undefeated racing career but is set to earn around $40 million in his first season at stud. A 2.5% share in Flightline was sold last week for $4.6 million, valuing the stallion at a whopping $184 million. If he proves to be a success at stud that 2.5% share could yet look like a bargain.

Finally, I was in my local pub over the weekend for the first time in a few weeks having returned from holidays. Most of the chat was about the upcoming World Cup in Qatar and how the English players won’t handle the heat. There was also a real buzz about next year’s Rugby World Cup with lads talking about hiring two camper vans to support the Irish team in France. One veteran of these trips offered a piece of sage advice - “remove the toilets from the camper vans before you head off. The last thing you want is six lads on the beer for three weeks and no one willing to clean the jacks.”