It’s well known that owning a race horse doesn’t come cheap. A typical horse race can start at £15,000 to purchase and then with the stabling, veterinarian and other costs involved, the expenses can quickly skyrocket.
But owning a horse race can be a wonderful, thrilling experience and it’s something that many people aspire to. Instead of full ownership of a horse, groups of people can be joint owners through partnerships, which can help ease the financial burden of getting a foot on the ladder.
Horse racing is a huge part of the UK betting scene. Punters can easily find highly rated sites from the top review platform Legalbet, who analyse different features of bookmakers to help players with their choices. When it comes to the choice of which type of racehorse ownership is the best, here we discuss the pros and cons of each.
Full Ownership
Full ownership of a racehorse brings the benefits of control and autonomy over training and race entries. Beyond that, down the line any future breeding plans will be at the sole discretion of the owner as well, so it is a big position of power to be in.
The biggest benefit of being the sole owner of a racehorse is that if the horse turns out to be successful, then the winnings don’t have to be shared. Reaping the full financial benefits will naturally have a big appeal because it will go towards offsetting some of the past and future costs of keeping the horse.
Sole Ownership – Sole Risk
Having full ownership of a horse is going to bring a big personal sense of achievement when it does well. But there are a lot of horses who have long racing careers with very few or no wins recorded, and only a handful of them make it to the elite level and are successful there.
That leads to the potential cons of having full ownership, which all boils down to the money, as the financial burden is solely on the shoulders of the owner. All the investments that go into it, from training, care and even travel expenses, are a huge risk if the horse doesn’t perform well and live up to expectations.
Part Ownership of a Racehorse
Part ownership of a racehorse through a syndicate provides a great way for people to own a share in a horse. Because all expenses are split between multiple owners, it reduces the financial burden and risk of ownership.
A person buys a share in a horse, which could be anything really from £25 per share up to more than £100. The price of the share will relate to the ability and rating of the horse, and how many shares a part-owner has, will determine how much they, in turn, get from any winnings.
Horses are stabled by the original owner who cares for them and supplies dietary needs, health care and exercise. The initial owner then sells shares in the horse which helps them out with overall costs and buyers can assess things like bloodlines, background and racing history to make a considered choice over which horse to be a part owner of.
Sometimes as a sole owner, it is easy to get stuck on one path, instead of exploring other options. Having a collective “brain trust” set up to brainstorm things like racing strategies and training, can be quite impactful. Discussing options about the career trajectory of the horse in question, as partners, can be highly beneficial.
Extending that even further, with more people connected to the horse, it increases the likelihood of wider connections to other professionals within the industry for training.
Reduced Control and Sharing of Winnings
However, having more people involved in the decision-making can also cause conflict through disagreements over plans. This is something that has to be carefully balanced with a partnership. The skill of listening to differing opinions without fracturing the harmony of the ownership group itself can be tricky.
Sharing in decision-making doesn’t come easy for a lot of people, so choices over training plans and races, for example, could become a lot more confusing. The other downside of shared ownership, compared to going it alone, is having to divide winnings or profits from the sale of the horse, among the group.
In Conclusion
There are pros and cons of both types of racehorse ownership. But for most people, it is the partnership option that gives the easiest route to having the experience as full ownership leads to much higher financial risks.
