Owning a Horse | Racing Syndicates

I was chatting with a friend today about a subject I know nothing about and he a lot. He is the creator of Horse Trainer Directory and is an authority in 2yo horse racing. We got chatting about a side subject that was ownership of horses and how that a horse can be owned much like a business with shareholders. In this case a syndicate.

What is a Racehorse Syndicate?

A racehorse syndicate refers to a group of owners of a horse, apparently anything other than sole ownership. So you will automatically join the group of racehorse syndicate if you buy a part share of a racehorse.

Horseracing NOOB

As a noob I know little to no terms used in the industry and an advantage is that I see things with a fresh set of eyes. The whole discussion got me wondering and starting to deconstruct and reverse engineer the parts of the business. So this might be entirely wrong in it's first edit but it could be very interesting too. 

​My expectations if I were to buy a share in a horse would be the following:

• ​That I would not need to come along and take care of the horse
  
• That I would not need to train the horse
  
• That I would take a 'winnings' from my horse if it wins anything
  
• That I would get some perks like an owner might get to be close to the horse when it enters a race, though limited perhaps with percentage share.
  

Lets back up for a moment and deconstruct some of the blocks. We have a horse where did it come from? So we would imagine that there are breeders who look to pair up successful mares and stallions with some kind of pedigree. You get a fresh baby foal- the horse!

At this point does the horse have an owner- does it belong 50 50 to the owners of each parent?

Horses need marketing somehow, there must be publications or news that existed before the internet. I think its very important to ignore the internet for a moment when it comes to research as industry was firmly in place and working before the www came along and usually you will find the same bodies and industries end up owning the same things. I would expect some kind of magazine advertising would allow us to see that a new horse is existing. Shares might go up for sale. Soon after or before the trainer needs to come along into the picture.

The horse trainer is perhaps as important as the horse, I don't know but we see it in football all the time. An experienced horse trainer I am told is expensive and so needs to paid- where will that get funded. Sales of shares of the horse might give a lump sum but training is ongoing..so how does that work. Now with websites we get this info from websites such as HORSETRAINERDIRECTORY

So we got some sales of say 10% 10 owners each who own 10% of the horse. This would be the value of the horse. we went and found a trainer and we are looking like we are getting our racing syndicate going. 2 year old horse are when the racing starts and from now the owners get the excitement of seeing their horse race.

For someone like me it is just races such as the Grand National where we come across owners of horses on the news as the winner gets an interview. I will let you into a secret when I was growing up I hated it when there were just 4 channels on tv and horseracing was on- I found it boring as would a kid!

There are syndicate meetings I would assume or at least newsletters to the stakeholders.

Successful Horses

To conclude, let's look at detail about the success of a particular horse.
One horse in the syndicate of Ontoawinner.com Quiet Reflection, trained by Karl Burke, was purchased as a two-year-old (unraced) for £44,000. So interestingly this answers a question of a typical cost of a horse.

This daughter of Showcasing proved a superstar. She raced ten times at two and three winning seven times. A progressing horse, she took Royal Ascot by storm at three winning the Common Wealth Cup (Group 1). This exceptional bay filly has achieved an official rating of 117 and total prize earnings of over £600,000. Without question, this cheap purchase has resulted in a horse that is worth £1M if not more.
The dream of racehorse syndication tells a story that few regret.

Get in touch with your story on owning a horse.