Horses for Sale
Seymourjohn (GB)
- Wednesday, 19 January 2011 08:10
- Written by Chelsea Eggleton
Following yesterday's piece about prize money levels in this country, I thought that I would add a bit of flesh to the bones. I notice that during the nineteen days of racing they have over at Cagnes Sur Mer in the South of France, the average value of a race is £18,400. With eight races on per meeting, it is hardly surprising that more and more trainers are taking their horses abroad in search of better prize money. The drop in prize money in this country is scary - I was looking through some of the old statistics yesterday and I happened to notice that one of our runners won an ordinary Class H Exeter bumper just over five years ago (in late 2005) and picked up just over £2977, while on Monday Mamlook won a Class 3 chase and won only £3252.50 - that's less than £300 more! Something needs to be done to arrest this slide (and quickly) before all our owners and trainers leave these shores.
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I see that A P McCoy is moving house and has put McCoy Towers on the market for £2.5 million. The champion jockey has planning permission to build a house and boxes on a 75 acre site next door to the house that he's selling - imagine living next door to AP with all that Irish dancing going on (remember he has a little daughter and she is bound to be into Riverdance as she grows up)! Pat Eddery also has his yard up for sale - the asking price...a cool £2.8 million. The trainer is now down to 21 horses and he has room for 54 - it just goes to show how hard times have become.
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It's Terry Ramsden's 59th birthday today. Terry was one of the old fashioned punters that really stuck on when he fancied one. Years ago he bought a little horse called My Dominion from Martin and it ran in the Tote Hurdle along with another he owned. MCP told Terry that My Dominion would win but Terry fancied his other runner and backed it accordingly. Of course Martin was right (to Terry's cost) - he even tried to sell me half of the horse for £150 when it first arrived at the yard and I told him that he was mad to have bought it in the first place. The horse went on to win seven races on the bounce and I had to concede that Martin was probably a (slightly!) better judge than me.