'Owners, the betting public and love for the thoroughbred are our foundations'

Henry Morshead, 24, had a short riding career with Kim Bailey and Paul Nicholls, before completing a degree in Bloodstock and Performance Horse Management at the Royal Agricultural University while working for Charlie Hills in Lambourn. He is working towards a training career.

Having spent a summer with Michael Dickinson in Maryland the year I left school aged 18, I came into the American phase of the Godolphin Flying Start without complete naivety to the culture and racing here.

I was primarily a work-rider for the summer and have since followed the racing from a distance for a few years now but, coming into my third month in the US this winter, I have come to realise that while so different, the US and UK racing spheres share some key characteristics.

Quite often, people are guilty of rendering things worse or wrong, just because they are different. It becomes hard to change and progress with this mindset and both jurisdictions are undergoing significant change right now, change that needs to go well as pressure surrounding welfare, transparency, image and funding grows stronger.

Pat Cummings, from the Thoroughbred Ideas Foundation, made a lasting impression on the group when speaking to us not long after touching down in Lexington. He spoke of two fundamentals that jurisdictions need to champion in order to promote success: the opportunity afforded to owners, and the commitment to the betting public.

Both are mutually rewarding and, along with the love for the thoroughbred horse, are the very foundations of the sport. If you can attract and maintain owners, there are more horses with a wider spread of ownership as everyone wants a slice of the pie. Bigger fields and an exciting mix of participants leads to a larger betting handle as punters are enticed, which in turn drives revenue and therefore prize-money for owners to chase, and so on.

It’s a cycle that is under significant threat in the UK as punters struggle with restricted accounts and the looming fear of further legislation creating more hurdles to jump in order to place a bet, with the inevitable result being poorer prize-money.

Tilsit and Henry Morshead in Saudi Arabia

Many industry bodies frequently clash heads over the aged prize-money debate that rears its ugly head frequently without resolve. British racing’s core fan base seems stronger. with racecourse attendance and TV viewership a prominent asset of the sport, and in recent years this looks to hold significant revenue potential with international viewership boosting world pools and media rights.

While the US remains a lucrative and economically thriving industry, with prize-money levels far beyond anything recognisable in the UK, their regulation is incredibly varied, as we learnt through completing the Racing Officials Accreditation Programme a few weeks ago.

Regulation varies greatly from state to state, hence the conceptualisation of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Association (HISA) in the spring of 2021, with implementation due in July 2022, as Hank Zeitlin spoke of during a fascinating talk to the group in January.

This would be a significant leap forward for US racing and make it far more attractive to domestic and international participants. However, key decisions surrounding how this will be funded and what authority will oversee it are still very much yet to be answered after USADA pulled out of negotiations in December 2021.

Ultimately, two very different situations but, crucially, going in the right direction in terms of finding solutions - solutions that if well received will secure and promote the sport in the best possible light.

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