Is it worth my time?

A fascinating week at the Asian Racing Conference, hosted this year in Riyadh to coincide with the world's richest race, the $20m Saudi Cup, brought many of global racing's issues to the fore, and gave some unique insights into how our major event organisers are bucking the trend of static or falling attendances.

According to Asian Racing Federation Chair, Winfred Engelbrecht-Bresges, who oversees the world's most successful jurisdiction in Hong Kong, racing faces some big challenges.

Trends in breeding

The past 20 years have seen a 35% decline in the foal crop, notably in Australia and the United States. In the US, the decline is most marked at nearly 35% to a low of 16,300 per annum between 2005-24. Australia's comparable crop has reduced by 7,000 to 11,000 per annum.

Whilst the trend is less marked in Europe, it tells a story of marginal profitability for breeders.

Yearling sales have always been adjudged a sound barometer of the health of the sport. The top end of the market is doing very well, but the middle market is ailing.

This is also reflected in the volume of stallions and mares. Over that same timeframe, the number of active stallions has virtually halved, to a total of 5,600 globally. The number of broodmares has also contracted by some 123,000. What breeders are remaining in the sport are being more selective with their mares, and are choosing from among the better stallions.

Perversely in this contracting environment, the number of Group I races has increased by 30 to 430. In short, top flight horses can dodge each other to win black type. Indeed, this is reflected at every level of the sport, as sport administrators seek to manage their horse populations to fill races to comply with betting and media requirements.

Trends in Wagering

I can remember a time when racing commanded over 90% of all wagering. The erosion of this figure these past 40 years has been dramatic as betting organisations seek to grow their customer base and defray their reliance upon a single sport, and they've been hugely effective at that strategy. Racing's share of wagering now amounts to just 13%, down from 22% in just 2020.

The big events are bucking this trend however, all seeing growth in betting handle, but the gap between the ordinary and the extraordinary is accentuating.

One glimmer of hope relates to World Pool turnover, which has sky-rocketed ninefold, from $1,085m in 2018/19 to over $9,000m in 2024/25.

A key threat to racing is the growth of illegal operators, who now account for $3.7tr of lost turnover each year, fuelled by crypto currencies, online casino games and prediction markets. The competition for the wagering £ has never been so hot.

The threat & opportunity of AI

AI is the talk of the town. But imagine where AI could more successfully predict the outcome of races. This would present a fatal challenge to racing's leading income stream. Managing AI in this context is critical to maintaining the current relationship between wagering forms and bettors.

Some $3Tr has already been committed to AI investment over the next 5 years, so this is a problem that is not going away.

But AI also represents an opportunity, both to grow data and insights around our global customer base, to enable stadium design that grows spend per head, and to personalize marketing spend through hyper-personalization of customer communications.

The future is already here; it's just not evenly distributed. Racing must manage its way through the AI minefield.

Racing's response to global challenges

All is not lost however. Various jurisdictions, from sport governance to individual event organisers, are pouring energy into overcoming these challenges, all in an effort to widen our customer base.

Everyone in the sport, at every level, faces an obligation to promote the sport, and not merely as a betting opportunity. Indeed, at a racecourse level, the social aspect of racing always trumps the betting element.

The youth of today has been brought up on computer games, so a natural extension of this would be to gamify the sport too. Virtual reality racing, abhored as a betting shop product, can still play a role in making racing mainstream, just as FIFA and EA Sports computer games have done for football.

In Japan, a TV series launched last October, called Royal Family, in which Eiji Kurisu, leads as a tax accountant whose life changes dramatically after meeting a wealthy horse owner.

In the UK, docuseries following the careers of top sportsmen Frankie Dettori and A P McCoy have proved popular, whilst more recently, Champions: Full Gallop brought the National Hunt Trainers' Championship to a wider audience, playing on the rivalry between Willie Mullins, Dan Skelton and Paul Nicholls.

To compete with Formula 1 and Champions League football, racing could bundle together its own premiership of leading races, but this would require global collaboration. That collaboration is occurring between individual racecourses seeking to partner together, but the sport is fragmented, both within national boundaries and beyond it.

Racecourses leading the way in audience development

A panel discussion including Masayuki Goto of the JRA, HE Mohamed Saeed Al Shehhi of the Emirates Racing Authority, Felicity Barnard of Ascot and Kylie Rogers of the Victoria Racing Club painted a different picture to the scene-setting above, and presented an altogether more upbeat message.

Racing's major events can outperform in terms of entertainment value, whether through the pomp and ceremony that accompanies Royal Ascot, or through engaging a younger audience at Flemington.

The Flemington example is apposite. Where standard practice has been to discount pricing to entice a younger market, Kylie Rogers approached this from a different mindset. For today's younger generation, the key question is not "how much?", but "is this worth my time?"

To that end, Flemington set about making it so. They created champions for the younger generation, not among the sportsmen of the racing game, but by recruiting celebrity DJ Fisher, whose public visibility and social media following were a magnet. Through savvy deployment of Fisher, culminating in an end of day gig, they were able to build specific areas to buy into, cool merchandise people actually wanted to buy, and to facilitate younger spectators getting up close and personal with the sport. The 286,000 spectators during the Carnival at large included a disproportionately large cadre of U30s. A tick in the box.

By contrast, the Emirates experience spans the full spectrum of top flight racing to middle market events. Everyone is aware of the Dubai World Cup, a Group I that is well established in the first quarter of the year. But racing in the Emirates also covers Jebel Ali and other smaller venues. With government backing for sport to diversify the UAE's economy, racing is thriving, with a 60% increase in ownership and a significant growth in younger spectators, among them ex-pats drawn to Dubai by its tax regime.

With the notable exception of Churchill Downs, promoting the Kentucky Derby to a global cadre of owners and trainers, the Americas are not represented at this biennial event. That's understandable; it's the Asian Racing Conference after all. However, given so many of the threats to the sport are global in nature, including the Americas would bring significant players to the table. No other event showcases racing so well, across so many different jurisdictions.

Racing has always been beset by politics, and now is surely no different. However, it's hard not to be enthused by the energy brought about by so many advocates for the sport brought together in one place. The sport's unique enduring appeal shines through in every conversation.

Roll on Auckland 2028.