Monday 25 September

The joys of managing syndicates and bringing affordable ownership to everyone!! Three horses entered in Market Rasen Racecourse and despite them being very accommodating in the past when Cloonacool has run in, and won their feature hurdle race - things seem to have changed! Last year we had 2 runners on the card - Cloonacool and Apasionado - were were given all the badges that we needed, and indeed their Chairman at the time was very grateful of how many people we bought to the meeting, and in return we were very appreciative of the help that we had been afforded in supplying our owners with badges! This year is slightly different - even with 3 horses entered we would need very few more badges than we were granted last year, and after so much help in years past, we targeted the meeting with 3 runners, and have been offered 6 badges per horse (18), and if we were to take a hospitality suit at the cost of £1200 + VAT we will get an extra 8 badges! All we want is for our owners to be able to enter the parade ring to see their horses - they are the ones paying the bills, and this is surely their right. We don't ask to use the O&T Bar, and are more than willing to pay for the suite, but to just get entrance to the paddock for a further 8 of our owners is not right!! I will continue the negotiations - but racecourses really do need to change their way of thinking - larger syndicates are getting more and more prevalent and if their members are not accommodated on the tracks - then why would they bother. Our members are simply paying their training fees to stand on the outside of the paddock and see their horses walk round - just as they would if they were the general public without paying a monthly fee to have a horse in training! I will keep up the fight and see how I get on - but I have to make everyone aware that it is looking like O&T Badges will be in very short supply, and guests will be limited to one Enclosure Badge.