Trainers owners and prize money

Combination of not being good enough and a reluctancy to vacate their comfort zone 

I think you could add lack of imagination to those two Hayden

Owners of grade 1 racehorses don't worry about prize money.

10k race 1205 Warwick. 2 runners

next race is 7k and has 9 runners.

Honcho

Not all grade one horses  are owned by people who don’t care about prize money ,those that don’t care about it you would think would like the glory .

Yes they are. No owner of a G1 racehorse in his right mind runs him just for the prize money.

All the decent owners i've conversed with via hospitality etc are certainly wealthy enough but have that much in assets that they still love the buzz of winning what is effectively cash.

Why does rich ricci have runners in the Melbourne cup

I have to disagree with you a little there Hayden. Yes of course they love money but I think is the kudos of running and winning that matters most. Jimnast, I think the MC is an icon international sport and just a runner there is something else. Probably even more than the Derby.

Yes sorry Honcho worded badly by me , agree with the prestige they feel but receiving effectively cash still gives them a buzz , so basically suggesting that they get a degree of a thrill from both.

Think the cash side can take them back to the nostalgic days when the cash REALLY mattered.

I would be astonished if anyone other than an Australian would prefer the mc than the derby

You maybe right Jimnast but its a bit bigger than Leopardstown next month.

I think the trouble is that they are putting on too many G1s etc and there just aren't the quality horses to fill them outside of Elliot and Mullins yards. Even with large prize money incentives its tough to get in the frame against them without a proper horse.

Yes it is difficult to beat them but the mare who won over there a few years ago got a brilliant reception and the connections were well rewarded both in prize money and hospitality

You would think a few others would have a try

Pretty much nobody wants to jeopardise their chances of a CF winner by running there, and if they aren't good enough to be running at Cheltenham then they won't be good enough to win at the DRF. Or at least, burst the bubble before abso necessary.

Jimnast makes some very valid points overall and of course the Big question is why not, it seems to me that every day I pick up the R.Post . British trainers are complaining about prize money , yet here we have a Festival less than a hour by plane away with prize money not far off whats on offer in Cheltenham and they simply refuse to come. In all honesty is it any wonder top British owners are flocking to Ireland .

UK don’t have the ammunition to go to Ireland and compete…..

I think we will witness an absolute slaughter at Cheltenham this year,apart from the ornament winning the CH…

Prize money issues are predominately at the middle and lower tiers anyway. ie, winning five races in a season doesn't guarantee covering the training fees for the season. Yes, some of the upper tier races have some relatively poor prize money but that's not the key issue. Everyone 'knows' what the key issue is, too much of everything else. There's no appetite anywhere to actually have that radical hair cut that's desperately needed, in fact they seem to want to put on even more races and fixtures, not less.

I don't think its about less racing, more about appropriate amount of races in each division.

Yes form I fear the worst for the uk trained horses in March from what I’ve seen this will be the worst ever.

Yep the ornament we know will canter round and give the purists a cheap @rgasm Jimnast, but most of the rest will probably go to Ireland loads of laid out dark material….

Green topped hats and racing rags flying around in the air…..bejesus! Ffs

Not what it used to be tho,corduroy suits and woolly polo neck,hair and sideburns like steel wool punting anything that sounded Irish……

British trainers should make a concerted effort to have runners at the DRF. It can only be for the good of the sport in GB. They will, undoubtedly, get battered for a few years, but in time it will lead to substantial improvement. It just needs a couple of top GB trainers with the guts to do it.

Firing blanks,they don’t have the ammo…..

Downward spiral…..

You only get better by regularly competing at the highest level. It will also improve the relative handicapping of GB and Irish horses if enough GB horses run in Ireland. There is plenty of upside, but only after several years.

More GB trained horses run in France than Ireland and why not? Similar prize money and slightly lower level. Ireland is just as much a foreign country as France, Italy and anywhere else to me but just a bit closer.

The whole point of strontium post is competing at the highest level which in the case of national hunt racing is Ireland will improve you ,every other sport those who take part just want to compete at the highest level a simple example if Maidenhead United were in the fa cup would they want to play Liverpool at a anfield or Oldham Athletic at home ?

i think they'd want to play man utd because they'd beat them

Well elise in the past I would have used united as my example but for the reasons you say it not big enough challenge for the other mufc

lol true

The bald eagle will be sacked shortly….imo

The sooner the better form he’s a bluffer problem is other than getting someone of this forum to be manager there going to struggle to find one.

Regarding the racing Ireland take another prize home with banbridge one of the 2nd team

im not sure jim, but i think the owner for that one is uk based, might be a scot from memory

not quite right just checked, he was born in n ire and went to scotland sry

Not sure "2nd team" is entirely fair. Pic D'Orhy is a good horse in today's conditions and was race fit. That was a good win.

Come Cheltenham and when and if ye get a bad beaten ,certain trainers and you know them yourself's, will be bleating about the Irish handicapper etc, yet here is a golden opportunity to show case your talents as a trainer in the very place the rich owners have flown to in droves and you don't take it . Shame on you ...

There are evidently some people who care, but the vast majority couldn't give two hoots imo whether a horse is trained in Ireland or England. Although many Irish people seem to think we care!

The irony I suppose is that the priority for most Irish connections at the upper end is to win races in another jurisdiction. As this thread alludes to, the vast majority of UK connections are not interested in winning in Ireland. Even if they could. CH would lap anything they could put up if he raced there, but he won't be.

Remember a certain Irish trainer saying they like taking the English money…..in recent years it’s been easy,much the same this year…

A second point, I don't see how running in another country if you can't win assists with anything. Do people really think Mullins and Elliot are superior trainers to Hendo and Pumpkin? They are simply sourcing the best horses currently on weight of numbers, and I assume that's because they currently have a grip on the Irish point scene. ie, UK trainers could not get hold of the best horses coming out of the point system there even if they had the resources. They will be wondering how CH managed to slip through the net! Pumpkin had a grip of the French scene at one time, hence those were his nirvana years. Others caught up eventually.

Who cares, ace? Literally. I got as much enjoyment out of Rooster Booster winning the champion as Annie Power, Mater Minded and Moscow Flyer. I like great horses, not too bothered where they travelled to the meeting from.

Most of us agree Cider but in the meantime the Irish have a solid grip on the NH game. For the proud to be British type it’s hide behind the sofa at Cheltenham imo,the south being alone as the north is full of the moderate horses scrambling around for place money….

I'm as patriotic as anyone, but I struggle to see much of it in the horse racing context, which is a sport of individuals. I like watching great horses and I like backing winners, the country of origin is practically irrelevant. Steve Cauthen is probably my fav jockey ever. As I've mentioned a few times on here, my fav horse ever was Montjeu, who happened to be trained in France by an Englishman, ridden and owned by a mixture!

Cheveley Park Stud Is a strange one deciding to send the top grade to Mullins and Elliot,correct me but I can’t remember Paul Nicholls training one for them…

Not many purists in the game now Cider especially since the invention of the pink button…..

My favourite was the late Pat Eddery and he rode for a mixture of owners and trainers…..the list is endless regarding horses you just wanted to see….

The nationality of the participants has practically no impact in horse racing. It is arguably harder to win if travelling long distances, or at least a bigger test for the horse racing in another continent. It's vastly exaggerated for me, the importance it is given at Cheltenham, though obviously some of the domestic trainers might be slightly embarrassed if they can't compete at the top end.

Remember the days when Martin Pipe met them all head on…..no fear of running his,no cotton wool….

A superb meeting

Jimnast, are you going over ?

Have to agree Cider, the constant nationalism on this form is really grating. I care about seeing the best horses race, and finding winners. I don't care in the least where the horse gets its hay. I wish they'd shove the "Prestbury Cup" in a very deep hole.

But why Irish NH racing is so dominant (or, in fact, perhaps why Mullins and Elliott are so dominant?) and what can be done to level the playing field are certainly important topics of discussion.

Nothing to do with dominance the question was why don’t uk trainers have more runners in Ireland

The question about dominance would be equally worth asking if it were Henderson and Skelton dominating, or Nicholls and Elliott. I.e., it's not about who is doing the dominating, but why a couple of yards are able to dominate, and how they manage it.

I've already said above that I think GB trainers should have a lot more runners in Ireland, and that it would be in their medium-term interest.

For many many years the British raided Ireland for top class horses simply because they had the CASH pure and simple , now the money is here and we no longer sell our best horses to the highest bidder, of course the sales companies and breeders  want to get as much for their horses as possible and that's only to be expected , after all its business...The REAL story why British owners are flocking to have their horses trained in Ireland is simply this. Better prize money , more competitive racing,i.e. the best taking on the best there's no hiding place over here, and the owners who race their horses here KNOW theirs are REAL champions who have battled their way to the top...

Yes, I think that's right WR. Horses trained in Ireland before battle hardened just by running in novice races in a way GB horses cannot.

The decisions about where to run seem to be made by trainers as much as owners and at the moment, in both GB and Ireland, being champion trainer seems to be a big driver of those decisions. Mullins and Elliott seem happy to run 3 each in an Irish race to get prize money and Nicholls does the same in GB to fend off Henderson and increasingly Skelton. Back in the days when Tom Dreaper dominated the scene, he ran his best horses in England to get the best prize money. Now there are numerous Grade 1 races in Ireland (far more compared to the number of horses in training than anywhere else) so why come to England apart from Cheltenham and Aintree? The other Irish trainers are more likely to do so such as Hanlon and Joseph O'Brien and, at a lower level, Crawford and others in Scotland. The reluctance to run the best horses more than 4 times in a season means that the number crossing the Irish sea in either direction keeps going down.

Excellent points Sage. I think it particularly applies to Nicholls, e.g. skipping Cheltenham with a lot of horses with the aim of picking up valuable races at Aintree/Ayr/Sandown. Nicholls is excellent at picking targets for his horses. Henderson's issue is extreme innate caution.

Mullins could surely be champion trainer in GB if he wanted to.

Yes Andrew absolutely love the two days been going from the start only death or a pandemic would make me miss excellent racing excellent value and very well looked after