Twelve Owners, One Sprinter: What Shared Racehorse Ownership Really Feels Like
Washington Heights has won in every season he has raced and taken his owners to five countries. The twelve people who share him will tell you the racing is only part of it.
So much of racehorse ownership happens on a low-key weekday.
Not at Ascot, and not in the winners’ enclosure, but on an ordinary day when the phone goes and your racing manager explains that your horse has an entry, the ground is drying out, and the trainer is happy enough. That is the real texture of it. The big afternoons are genuine, and they are rarer than most people expect before they buy in.
Twelve people understand this better than most. They are the owners of Washington Heights, a six-year-old sprinter trained by Kevin Ryan at Hambleton Lodge just outside Thirsk, and over five seasons they have had one of the more absorbing educations in shared ownership available in British racing.
A Horse Who Has Taken His Owners a Long Way
Washington Heights cost £24,000. He has since run thirty-one times, won five of those, been placed in nine more and earned over £400,000. He has raced in England, Ireland, France, Sweden and Qatar. He won the Bro Park Sprint in Sweden as a three-year-old and was beaten a length into second in the Dukhan Sprint in Qatar. He has won in every year he has raced.
Figures like that are easy to print and harder to feel. What they mean in practice is that twelve people have spent five years watching a five-furlong race somewhere, occasionally in a country they had no particular reason to visit, and have spent the weeks in between talking about it.
This season alone took them from Cumbria to Normandy. On Saturday 30 May he won the Listed Achilles Stakes at Carlisle by half a length under Tom Eaves. On 9 August he went to Deauville for the Listed Prix du Cercle, on the card headlined by the Prix Maurice de Gheest, and finished second of thirteen under James Doyle, beaten two lengths.
Before his most recent start, Simon Turner, Director of Racing at Hambleton Racing, told the Racehorse Syndicates Association: “We were thrilled with Washington Heights at Deauville, and he’s typically come out of the race in good order. He has never minded travelling and is a credit to Kevin Ryan and his team. Kevin thinks Beverley will really suit him so hopefully he can once again do his owners proud and run another big race.”
He went to Beverley on 30 August for the Listed Beverley Bullet and was beaten on unsuitably heavy ground. That is the sport. Five wins from thirty-one runs is a good career by any measure, and it still means most days end without a trophy.
The Access Is the Thing
Ask Hambleton owners what they actually value and the answer rarely starts with the racing.
Every owner receives two complimentary owners’ and trainers’ badges each time their horse runs. Stable visits are unlimited and accompanied, arranged around the owner’s diary rather than the yard’s. There is a professional photograph of the horse on naming day, an Owners’ Day at Doncaster and a Christmas get-together.
“My favourite part has been going to the stables to see the horses, it’s great that I can phone any time and have visits that suit me,” says Gordon, one of Hambleton’s owners.
That is the part that is hard to buy and easy to underrate. A share does not simply get somebody into the parade ring on a big afternoon. It gets them a horse they can go and stand next to on a Wednesday in February.
Who Absorbs the Difficult Days?
Shared ownership is sold on the good afternoons. It is sustained by how the bad ones are handled.
Hambleton is fairly blunt about this in its own account of itself. Asked how the business deals with results going against it, the answer is that Simon Turner and head racing manager Cosmo Charlton are the buffer. Horses get injured. Well-bought ones turn out slow. A season can pass with very little to show for it. The job on those days is to keep twelve people properly informed and to keep telling them the truth.
The owners who stay tend to be the ones who worked out early that they were buying an experience rather than a result. “Thanks for an amazing day at Ascot. Another fantastic run. Cosmo’s hospitality was fantastic and we are still waiting to come down to earth,” wrote Peter and Sarah, two of the syndicate’s owners, after one of the better ones.
What Does a Share Actually Cost?
None of this is cheap, and Hambleton does not present it as an investment.
A share typically costs between £3,000 and £6,500 upfront depending on what the horse made at the sales, followed by a monthly payment covering training, veterinary bills, the farrier, transport and feed. Each syndicate is capped at a maximum of twelve equal owners. Owners keep 100% of prize money with no deductions, every share is insured at the auction purchase price at no extra premium, and owners’ badges are not charged for.
NEW SYNDICATE HORSES
The company has run syndicates for over 20 years and is a founder member of the Racehorse Syndicates Association. Anyone weighing up shared racehorse ownership with Hambleton Racing will find those terms set out in full before committing, which is the part that tends to matter most to a first-time owner.
And Then the Next Entry
Washington Heights is expected to be on his travels again, with a return to Sweden and a second attempt at the Bro Park Sprint Championship on the cards.
Whether he wins it is not really the point. Twelve phones will light up when the entry is made, twelve people will start watching the going a fortnight out, and twelve people will find themselves on some Sunday afternoon shouting at a five-furlong race in a country they would otherwise never have gone to. That is what the share actually buys.
