What I Do When I’m Not Talking Horses.

Yearlings 2022
Written By George Allen

Newsletter #64

George talks…

If you read any of the generic marketing books, they say that people are as fascinated about how you build your business as much as they would be about what you actually sell. They tell you to document your journey and build in public. Each week, I’m going to delve a little deeper into our week-to-week here in our newsletter. This week, in the calm before the storm of Cheltenham, I felt was a good time to start.

When I’m not doing Brownsbarn Thoroughbreds stuff, I run the trading office of a beef processing company in Ireland. We sell Irish beef in European and International markets. The key to success is found in quality and price. The better the quality the higher the price you command. Winning new customers is difficult. Most wholesalers, caterers, or retailers are unlikely to change once they have their beef supplier in position.

They stick with what they know.

After hammering down someone’s door for long enough and bribing them with bottles of Irish whiskey, you finally earn the chance to supply the customer. You send a sample. The customer receives the sample and processes it further and sells it to their customer. As long as you control the quality, deliver the product on time, and agree on the price, the customer will be happy, very happy usually. Then you repeat this on a weekly basis. Barring mistakes, you now have the customer’s loyalty and you build the relationship with each delivery. Once in the door, only you can mess it up.

Beef is a natural product so maintaining quality and also guaranteeing supply without mistakes, when shipping hundred of miles to Italy, Spain or Hong Kong is easier said than done.

Syndicating horses is more difficult though.

If you were to ask 100 randomers off the street, would they like to buy a share in a racehorse?

What do you think most would say?

I think 5 would say, maybe, and out of 5 I doubt one person would do it there and then (this might be a cool social experiment actually!).

It’s a niche thing to do, never mind the financial commitment involved! The chances would increase if you were walking in one area compared to another yes, but overall I don’t think my numbers are too far away.

Even with all the nonsense of the vegan movement, all of us who are sane, eat beef! I don’t think I would have any problem selling ribeye steak on any street, in any country!

Say, you get lucky, you did find one person to buy a share in a racehorse. They followed the journey from yearling purchase to running in races on the track. The reality is unless their horse goes and wins, as a business you didn’t fulfill the owner’s primary desire, and you didn’t provide the full spectrum of experience compared to if the horse had won.

Unfortunately, even if you have the bloodlines of Coolmore, mixed with the brilliance of Aidan O’Brien and the facilities of Ballydoyle, the majority of their racehorses still don’t win.

It’s just a statistical fact.

Therefore as a syndicate, you cannot provide the highest echelon experience to the majority of your owners the majority of the time. Some owners realise that horse racing is horse racing, if the horse doesn’t work out, like a footballer in an academy that doesn't make it, s**t just happens. But others feel like the whole experience is nullified if the horse doesn’t win, so they don’t buy into another horse. I get this, I hate losing too.

We put our full focus on giving owners an unforgettable experience even if the horse doesn’t work out as an athlete on the track. Providing educational updates, events, behind-the-scenes days out, trips away, all things that come as part of the package of this sport, we even try to get tickets to the major race meetings for people if we can.

Either way, we aim to be fully transparent and provide clarity to the people involved with us.

Last week, we sent out the syndicate termination email to all our owners involved in our syndicates from last year. We provide all owners with a copy of each month’s BHA statement for their horse. We deduct all debits from the BHA, including heath tax, jockey’s fees, entry fees, etc from credits, which is earned prizemoney. When owners see the statements they can see clearly the credit and debit every month for their horse.

If their horse has been sold, we provide the vendor invoice from the sales company to each owner. They can see sales entries fees, and commissions that the sales houses deduct from the sale price of their horse. Everyone can clearly see the net sales figure.

We then summarise the net prize money and net sales proceeds so everybody can see what the balance is. If there is a surplus we reimburse all owners on a pro-rata basis direct to their bank account, if there’s a deficit we absorb any loss as per our syndicate terms and conditions. We campaign all horses with earnings in mind. If we believe the horse isn’t capable of winning, we won’t run them, therefore the balance is surplus or slightly in deficit.

By being fully transparent we feel it will give owners confidence that they know that they have been involved with a professional outfit.

Owning shares in racehorses is a super premium, luxury investment. It’s only to be enjoyed using discretionary income as a social investment, not financial. Yes, if you get lucky you can make a profit but that is the exception rather than the rule.

Owning racehorses is all about the experience, the journey, these phrases are easily written in marketing material, easily posted on social media, and easily touted in videos.

At the end of that syndication email, we ask owners to leave us a review, read below about what Rob thought about his time last year with Brownsbarn Thoroughbreds.

I’ve followed racing for over 25 years but the leap in knowledge I’ve gained in this past year through Brownsbarn has been massive. Racehorse ownership has always been right at the top of my bucket list and I’ve long investigated different syndicate models but never taken the plunge, until now.

What a great decision it was, even as a small shareholder you feel part of the team with incredible access to all areas of the sport. Firstly the lads who run the syndicate bring a huge amount to the table, deep industry experience on the bloodstock, training, form and media sides of the business. You can really rest assured you are getting the right steer from them at all times and are joining a driven team of winners.

In terms of my highlights? Hard to know where to begin. The thrill of being on course with an owners and trainers badge the day Attrazione won has to be the highlight. Being presented with the race winners trophy and then heading to the winning owners room for some Prosecco and to watch the race replay will be a memory I cherish forever. 

Beyond that the trips to Newmarket were always amazing. Taking a trip round the historic Machell Place stables, seeing the box the 1000 Guineas winner lives in at George Boughey’s yard, being in a stable with super stallion Time Test on a trip to the National Stud. All amazing experiences accessed through joining a Brownsbarn syndicate.

There are no guarantees of track success in racing however much you stack the odds in your favour, of the two horses I was involved in I had the highs of a winner but also the disappointments of a potentially very good horse never fulfilling her potential. What Brownsbarn have done though is control their controllables and delivered incredible engagement, opened doors to meeting some amazing people and taken my engagement with racing to the next level.

Cheers,

Rob

While running a syndicate isn’t easy, it’s for a very niche audience and requires a lot of luck outside of what you can control, it’s seriously good fun. We couldn’t be happier sending out updates, handing out cards to strangers, or shooting videos 50 times because we can’t speak into the camera like Ryan Reynolds.

While I could have made my face less wrinkly by just focusing on selling more beef around the world, I’m happiest talking about my hopes for our newest Newmarket 2-year-old or the first-season sires’ table!

One thing I can assure you, I have never received a review like the above from any customer who has purchased Irish beef from my company.

Cheltenham Sweepstakes

If you are like me and you just enjoy Cheltenham and don’t feel the need to bet on it, we have something for you to have some fun with. We run the BBT sweepstake for our BBT Club Members every weekend. We have decided to open up the Sweepstakes to everyone for the week of Cheltenham. For a 15 euro entry, you pick one horse in each of our sweepstakes races, there will be 4 per day, 16 races for the week in total.

We will be announcing all the details on all our social channels throughout the week.

To keep in touch with the leaderboard and access the real-time info join our BBT Racing Club Telegram group, it’s free to join.

Simply download the Telegram App and then click through to this link.

This week coming…  

  • Naas - 3m½f (3m126y) Bar One Racing Leinster National Handicap Steeplechase (Grade A) (5yo+)

  • Tattersalls Online Sale March

All the Best,

George

P.S.

If you want to get involved with one of our syndicates, check out the two horses we have below.

Connect with us on Social

George Allen https://www.Brownsbarnthoroughbreds.com
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