Shoes, shavings and money spent in the pub - how a single racehorse brings huge benefit to the economy
In the first of a three-part series, Lee Mottershead spends time with The Jukebox Man and the local businesses he helps
When last week the horseboxes pulled out of Ben Pauling's yard in Naunton in Gloucestershire and set off on the short journey to Cheltenham, the operation's flagbearer stayed behind. The Jukebox Man's season finished frustratingly early, yet prior to the intervention of bad luck he had delivered a powerful reminder of his importance to the stable. His importance to the local and wider economy is also significant, even when injured.
One of racing's most widely repeated maxims is it costs the same to keep a bad horse as it does a good horse. There is truth in the statement. The price of a bag of oats is the price of a bag of oats, regardless of whether those oats are destined to be eaten by The Jukebox Man or his lowest-rated stable companion. In that sense, the value to the economy of one of Pauling's athletes is the same as all the others. In another sense, a high-profile horse can matter rather more.
For a start, the sport's elite performers collect for their connections the lion's share of prize-money, some of which will get spent and redistributed, including in the celebration of victories. In addition, there are benefits that are unquantifiable but still decidedly real, not least that which interconnected businesses might enjoy from their association with a sporting star.
Nowhere in jump racing is success more coveted than at the Cheltenham Festival. Twelve months ago The Jukebox Man came agonisingly close to securing it when leading everywhere but in the final strides of the Albert Bartlett Novices' Hurdle. For Pauling, jockey Ben Jones and owner Harry Redknapp, it was a reminder that racing can be cruel. A further reminder came in late January when a gallops injury forced the abandonment of plans to seek immediate festival compensation.
More positively, this has been a productive campaign for the exuberant chaser, who on a cold, frosty morning is taking it easy in a particularly smart abode that can be seen from Pauling's office window. Dazzling triumphs at Newbury in November and Kempton on Boxing Day added a little over £100,000 to his career prize-money haul. Some of that money then had to be spent on veterinary treatment in Newmarket but for Pauling, his staff and suppliers, The Jukebox Man has once again proved to be a valuable friend.
Enthusiastic agreement on that front comes from former jockey Ollie Garner and Steve Adams, the two men who provide shavings and haylage to Pauling and therefore also to The Jukebox Man.
The founders of Cotswold Forage have joined Pauling to watch horses schooling. Adding to the icy chill they feel are fears relating to the planned expansion of inheritance tax for farms and an increase in employers' National Insurance contributions. Both changes have sparked concern in the countryside, where racing's imprint is considerable. For that reason, the colossal financial damage caused to the sport's finances by affordability is also a real rural worry.
Pauling's recent average monthly equine bedding bill has been £10,000, with haylage coming in at £4,000. Across the course of a year that turns into a spend of £168,000. With 94 horses in the yard, it boils down to around £1,800 per horse, one of them being The Jukebox Man. Those sums, however, tell only part of the story.
"The first question people ask when you're trying to sell them something is, who uses it?" says Garner. "If Ben's horses are running well and winning, people will want to buy what we're selling."
The problem for Cotswold Forage is they have lost some of the people who previously did the buying.
"Ninety per cent of our work is related to racing but the racing game is getting harder," says Garner.
"Our haylage sales are already down and we don't know why. Maybe there are fewer horses? Oliver Sherwood was a big customer but he retired. Rose Dobbin has done the same and before that we lost Charlie Mann and Joe Tuite. I was in racing at the best time, when there were lots of owners, horses and opportunities. Things have shrunk."
Yet the reality for Garner is he remains reliant on racing.
"You're probably more involved now than when you were a jockey," says Adams, who points out their business employs 20 people and "revolves predominantly around racing". In turn, Garner admits to being fearful about the future. National Insurance increases have added £2,000 to the cost of each employee, while Adams worries changes to agricultural and business property relief for inheritance tax could cause him to lose the family farm. A further threat to Cotswold Forage has come from what ought to have been an unlikely source.
"When we do a 'SWOT' [Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats] analysis, the 'T' includes what's happening with gambling," says Garner, who has reluctantly decided to hire no more full-time drivers. A prudent approach may also now be taken by The Jukebox Man's regular farrier Charlie Sands, who echoes Garner and Adams when highlighting the horse's importance outside the yard as well as in it.
"The Jukebox Man has already brought all sorts of benefits to us," says Sands. "He has taken us more into the public eye. It makes a massive difference to us when Ben has a big winner. It's publicity for us."
Sands has shod for Pauling since the four-time Cheltenham Festival winner began training. Since then, both men have been on the up.
"Back then there was just me and two apprentices," says Sands. "Now I've got two qualified lads and four apprentices. My business has got much bigger and racing accounts for between 50 and 70 per cent of it. This business wouldn't be viable without racing but a lot of the yards we work at are down in numbers. There are empty boxes where there didn't used to be, even places that send out lots of winners."
Although there are fewer horses to shoe, the cost of looking after them has risen. Pauling's farrier costs have been in the region of £9,000 a month, which means shoeing The Jukebox Man might be expected to cost roughly £1,150 a year.
"Over the last 18 to 24 months there has been a massive increase in what I charge," says Sands, whose prices are destined to be affected by the chancellor's 2024 budget. "If wages and National Insurance keep going up, I won't be able to afford to have apprentices and my prices will have to go up," he admits, adding: "I'm working every hour God gives, looking at the books at the end of every month and finding we're still not as well off as we used to be.
"Something will have to change – and I'm saying that as someone who is very lucky. If you were a one-man band who relied on a single yard, you would be even more worried. I've got four kids and, at the minute, I wouldn't tell any of them to be a farrier."
'Without the customers from the yard, we would struggle in the winter'
Those who win like to celebrate – and when they celebrate, they spend.
After The Jukebox Man made a winning debut at Newbury four months ago, Pauling set aside £500 for his staff at The Farmers Arms, a pub located a shade over two miles from the trainer's base.
"The better a yard is doing, the more you spend, the more you celebrate and the more money is pumped back into the economy," says Pauling's secretary Hannah Vowles.
"Ben thinks it's very important for us a team to celebrate when we've had a big winner, so he always puts money behind the bar for the staff, although it was Christmas when Jukey won at Kempton and half the staff were at home, which meant there wasn't as much going on in the pub. Harry Redknapp and Ben Jones both put money behind the bar during last year's Cheltenham Festival. We also had an owner who landed a punt with a regular handicapper and bought the staff a drink as well."
The Farmers Arms' landlord Tom Moore confirms the importance of racing to his profits. "We're surrounded by the sport, with so many big yards within a squirrel's jump," he says. "Eighty per cent of our business comes from racing. A local Grade 1 winner can mean £2,500 going over the bar. When you're normally taking £250, that's phenomenal. It keeps you going through the quiet times."
Exactly the same message comes from The Den, a small cafe in Bourton-on-the-Water, where owner James Walker and manager Sarah Brammer meet an array of interesting people.
"Nothing shocks you here," says Brammer. "I've seen someone with a rabbit in a pushchair. I've even seen a pigeon on a perch in a see-through rucksack."
Neither the rabbit nor the pigeon was linked to any of the 20 or so Pauling employees who have become regular customers.
"They now play a big part in The Den," says Walker. "They're our bread and butter. Without the customers from the yard, we'd struggle in the winter. I would say they make up ten per cent of our trade in the week, without a doubt. I reckon over a month they must spend over a grand here. That's big money."
'Everybody is part of The Jukebox Man's journey'
Back at Pauling HQ, more numbers are being crunched.
For the first seven months of the operation's current financial year (which began on July 1) Vowles calculates £16,500 has been spent on entertainment. That figure includes things like the Christmas parties given for staff and owners, plus money spent buying drinks at the races, but the majority of the £16,500 has gone to pubs like The Farmers Arms within a ten-mile radius of the yard.
The figures in other spreadsheets might also bring a few beads of sweat to the brow of Vowles's boss, who sits a few feet away at his desk.
Since the start of July, an average of £13,700 has been spent each month on food for the horses supplied by Phipp Feeds, 75 per cent of whose business comes from racing. During the course of a year, that would translate to an annual cost of roughly £1,750 to keep The Jukebox Man fuelled. Similarly not cheap to feed are the stable's vehicles, with an average of £3,000 per month spent in two local BP garages. Across the course of a season meaty sums are also paid to equine dentists, saddlers, vitamin and supplement providers and on the day-to-day maintenance of facilities used by horses.
Another organisation well supported by the stable is the Naunton-based Summerhill Equine Veterinary Partnership, one of whose vets, Emma Marecki, can be seen attending to horses a few metres from the office. The yard's average monthly veterinary bill is £20,000, while £4,000 a month goes to physiotherapists. An additional sum was spent with a Newmarket veterinary practice following The Jukebox Man's injury setback.
Marecki estimates 70 per cent of the firm's work comes from the racing industry, with all eight of its vets working in racing yards. The practice also employs eight support staff and two lab technicians, all of whose salaries are therefore inextricably linked to racing.
"The area is home to numerous independent and corporate-owned equine practices that serve the local racing yards," says Marecki. "We frequently encounter familiar faces from racing yards, such as physiotherapists, equine dentists, and horse owners. It's rare to find someone in the area without a connection to racing.
"Many of our staff have relocated here specifically for jobs in the racing sector, and we all contribute to the local economy through shopping at local stores, dining at cafes and pubs, and supporting small businesses."
Ben Pauling Racing has become a bigger and bigger business, not least since it moved to new lavish premises at Naunton Downs, from where The Jukebox Man will next season seek to restart his halted career. To build and dress the site cost in the region of £3 million, with almost all the money going to local or rural firms.
"Every single contractor was rural-based, from the guys who put in the borehole to the companies who supplied the materials," says Pauling. "Going off to a massive warehouse builder in Manchester might have been cheaper but it wouldn't have been the right thing to do."
Despite seeing some chunky numbers on her screen, Vowels agrees.
"I call this place a bit of a beast now," she says, before expanding on the local theme by pointing out that JB Autos, a "tiny local garage", looks after all the business's vehicles, while Dean's Tyres in Bourton is handed all the tyre work, from wheelbarrows through to horseboxes. However, while tyres are not necessarily cheap, the largest outlay each month is on staff, with net payroll expenditure totalling between £57,000 and £65,000 a month. Moreover, that figure will grow by £10,000 due to the government's revision of National Insurance.
"Our staff are well paid and we like to keep it that way," says Vowles. "We have a good team and good retention. If we were increasing our minimum wage, we would have to increase the pay of all others incrementally as well. That means a minimum wage increase makes a huge difference across the business."
With so much going out, you need a lot to come in.
"I didn't put my fees up last year and we had one of our worst financial years," says Pauling. "We ended up getting through the summer on a needle. Hannah did an incredible job juggling cashflows. We felt guilty about passing on rising costs. This year we realised we had no choice."
When juggling numbers, headline-grabbers like The Jukebox Man are helpful.
"It only takes one horse," says Vowles. "Since The Jukebox Man won at Kempton we've had endless people wanting to come on gallops mornings. Last year we advertised for a maintenance man and had two applicants. We advertised for a maintenance man in the first week of the new year and had 12 applicants."
The chain effect means a horse like The Jukebox Man can also deliver a significant boost far beyond the confines of a yard and the animal's connections. Every racehorse contributes to the national exchequer and their stable's local economy. The best ones contribute that bit more. In the case of The Jukebox Man, looking principally at quantifiable benefits accrued by service providers, and therefore without considering prize-money and the vast majority of Pauling's staffing costs, it is likely he will this season have brought added benefit to the economy of around £10,000, a figure that does not include money spent in Newmarket treating his injury. Given there are approximately 14,000 horses in training in the UK, the total industry contribution is enormous at £140m.
"Everybody who is part of the yard is part of The Jukebox Man's journey," says Vowles. "From our point of view, the whole team is involved with every horse, whether that's the farrier, the guy looking after the gallops or those of us working in the office. We all have a little part to play. We're all part of the same team – and The Jukebox Man is a massive part of that team."
In part two, available to read at 6pm on Wednesday: how rural and urban racecourses play a vital role supporting the economy
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