Prix d’Amerique -Post Race Observations
As visitors to the 2010 Prix d’Amerique from North America return to work and reality, one can only reflect on the experience. What differences exist vs. North America! What works and what can be applied elsewhere? Why does it work? We had the good fortune to interact with people in the industry from Finland, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, France and elsewhere. We had the opportunity to research and review information from Pari Mutuel Europe and the British Horseracing Authority, and then to pose several important questions to our European colleagues.
- Observe strict compliance with legal frameworks
- Develop and improve responsible gaming tools
- Respect commitment to integrity (EPMA operators only enable betting on successful results)
- Fund horseracing in a maximized and predictable way often enlarged to other components of the equestrian sector (Olympic teams, equestrian centers, schools and local development)
- People – 40,000 breeders, over 300,000 jobs of which 150,000 are directly employed
- Land – 500 racetracks throughout Europe; 4% of European agricultural land is used to produce horse feed
- Events – 80,000 horse races annually, on average 18 horse races per hour from noon to midnight
- Horses – 170,000 race horses; over 390 million euros in public sales of race horses annually
- Betting operators’ contribution: betting revenues excluding returns to bettors and governments
- Race goers’ contribution: expenses incurred by race goers during race days such as admissions and hospitality
- Owners contributions: net expenses to train horses and take part in races excluding capital investment to buy horses and contributions from stallion/broodmare breeding
- Other contributions: revenues for sponsoring (other than betting operators), state subsidies
- The horse racing sector is closely linked with equine sector and beyond with flows through the entire economy
- Horse racing employs directly and indirectly over 300,000 people throughout Europe, or 2.4% of all jobs in the agricultural sector and 1.8 direct and indirect employees per race horse
- Horse racing contributes to the preservation and care of a vivid countryside. Horses contribute to countryside preservation and land settlement. Some European regions benefit tremendously from horse-related activities (e.g., Basse Normandie (France) and County Kildare (Ireland))
- Horse racing fosters social cohesion. Some races are events of national importance attracting diversified spectators. Horse betting attracts numerous and varied punters
- Horse racing fosters social insertion and embodies a truly European activity, such as dedicated equestrian championships for disabled people and racing circuits organized across different European countries (e.g., European Grand Circuit of Trotting comprised of 13 races in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Norway and Sweden)
- Betting is the key to horseracing funding and betting operators have a vital role in organizing bets and funneling economic flows to the industry
- Horse racing employment is closely correlated to horse betting turnover. The higher the horse betting turnover the higher the employment in the horse racing sector. Correlation coefficient = 0.9. France employs over 45,000 on turnover of 10 billion euros. UK employs 40,000 on turnover of 15 billion euros
- Horse breeding dynamism is driven by purses financed by betting. Betting operators contribute to funding purses. The higher the purses the higher number of breeders (correlation coefficient = 0.82), the higher the average purses per race the higher number of foals, mares and stallions (correlation coefficient = 0.94). France has 12,000 breeders and 375 million euros in purses. France has 45,000 stallions, mares and foals and average purse per race of 21,000 euros
- Non-uniform regulation leads to decline of the horse racing sector. The lower attractiveness of the pari-mutuel betting operator destabilizes the entire horse racing sector. The German horse industry has been in decline since 2001 as the legal pari-mutuel framework broke down as off-shore bookmaking gained share and no betting taxes are paid. Since 2001 German number of races are down 31%; owners down 18%’ trainers down 42%; jockeys and drivers down 44%; betting turnover down 54% and number of horses in training down 29%
- The pari-mutuel model is far different from other betting models and succeeds in FR, SWE
“PR work on promoting big races is also very important. Paris has its Prix d’Amerique, Sweden Elitloppet, Norway Oslo Grand Prix and so on. Horse lovers usually want to see all of those events but it is important to get others who are not so interested in horses before to know what those weekends are for. In Scandinavia at least are lots of advertisements in newspapers and posters all around big cities to try to get all people to come to event. And once we get those new people into the track we need to try to make event as pleasant as possible for them so they could come back again on a normal race day. Quite many still think that trotting especially is something only for "Inside" people and it is nothing for everyone but it should be totally opposite! Whole family should be able to enjoy races with good food, nice settings and most importantly exciting sports!”
“It is very important that people keep on betting in races because that is the only way to pay back good price money to horse-owners but that doesn’t still prevent us making races more interesting happenings and also owning a racehorse more attractive. What could be more exciting than following your own horse racing! Most of the people think first the prestige and only after that money. There are too few people that have become really rich by owing horses but there are very many that have had their best times when having their horses winning some classical races or even a small race in a local track and that feeling should be marketed to more new potential horse-owners.”



Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.