How to Make Racehorse Ownership Great Fun ‹ CrimeReads

Racehorse ownership is reserved for royalty, the rich and famous.

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Right?

Incorrect!

Today, anyone can own a racehorse, or at least part of one, as a member of a “syndicate.”

Syndicate ownership was first permitted by the British Jockey Club in 1975 and has since become the most popular form of racehorse ownership. If you can't afford to buy them individually, you can even become a part-owner for as little as £45 ($60), not that you get much more than a few strands of mane and an ear clip for that money.

However, joining a high-end syndicate can cost a lot more.

Owning racehorses has always been a risky business, at least financially. According to the 2024 US Jockey Club Fact Book, about 45,000 horses competed in all races across North America last year, competing for just over $1.3 billion in gross purses. That's an average of just under $30,000 per starter. While this may seem like a reasonable amount at first glance, it is important to remember that keeping a racehorse in training is not cheap. On average, this will set you back $75,000 per horse per year, which covers training, veterinary and other fees. This is comparable to the cost of sending your son or daughter to Harvard or another Ivy League university.

But of course not every starter wins the average. In 2023, 31 horses earned over $1 million in prize money. But those 31 are just a tiny fraction of the total in practice. And only 8% earned enough to cover their annual living expenses. The average earnings of $14,000 means that a typical racehorse only recovers about 20% of its cost, not to mention the initial outlay required to purchase the horse.

So why do people do this?

Partly because owning a racehorse means committing to a certain lifestyle, a world of glamor and excitement, and partly because maybe, just maybe, you can make a fortune from it.

No one who buys a Mega Millions lottery ticket really expects to win the jackpot, not at odds of 1 in 300 million, but if you don't buy the ticket you have absolutely no chance.

There's a much better chance of getting rich on a racehorse than on Mega Millions, and the jackpot can be just as big.

The colt, Justifywas purchased for half a million dollars at the 2016 Keeneland yearling auction in Kentucky. He only raced six times, all as a three-year-old, but he finished first in all six of those races, including the Kentucky Derby, The Preakness and the Belmont Stakes, becoming only the thirteenth horse in history to do so he was able to win the coveted American Triple Crown. His racing winnings totaled an impressive $3.8 million, but that sum is dwarfed by his potential earnings as a stallion. He is expected to collect more than $150 million in deck fees over the course of his fifteen-year career, making him worth more than eight times his own weight in pure gold. And that might be an underestimate considering this is one of his first offspring. City of Troywon the 2024 English Derby at Epsom, which immediately doubled Justify's 2025 stud fee.

So you may Making mega millions with the Gee-Gees, but that's rare.

While the less wealthy are increasingly using a syndicate to acquire ownership of racehorses, high earners are now also beginning to use them to spread their risk. Why would you spend more than half a million dollars on a single top horse and put all your eggs in one basket when you can team up with a group of like-minded and wealthy individuals to share in more than a dozen?

In 2018, one such high-roller syndicate taught Bob Baffert, perhaps the best U.S. racehorse trainer of all time and winner of a record six Kentucky Derbies and two Triple Crowns. They gave him $9 million to spend at the Keeneland yearling sale to buy a few stallions. He bought seventeen, all jointly owned by the syndicate members.

Of the seventeen, three proved to be true stars of the course.

The first won four of five of its races, two of them in Class 1; another won the Grade 1 American Pharoah Stakes at Santa Anita (and yes, Pharoah is spelled that way in this case!); and the third, Authenticthe best of them all, winning both the 2020 Kentucky Derby and the $6 million Breeders' Cup Classic.

Not to mention the future earnings of the horses at the stud.

Bob Baffert reportedly said he turned the initial $9 million into $40 or $50 million. That's what I call killing!

And when I talk about killing, my latest crime novel, syndicateis now on the bookshelves. In it, Chester Newton, a syndicate manager based in England, celebrates great success when one of his horses wins the Epsom Derby. His eighteen-year-old daughter goes missing at a victory party.

A few hours later she is found nine miles away, drugged but otherwise unharmed. Then Chester receives a mysterious call from someone who claims to have kidnapped her and demands that Chester's horses must follow his orders or the daughter will return home in a body bag next time.

When Chester receives a second call demanding that one of his horses lose an upcoming race, he must decide whether to violate the most sacred rule of racing rulebook or put his own daughter's life in danger.

The slogan on the front of the book states:

Will someone kill to take control?

To read syndicate to find out!

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© Felix Francis, 2024

syndicate by Felix Francis is published in the United States and Canada by Crooked Lane Books