Thousands of British racing fans will converge on Paris this weekend for the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, and any who take a copy of The Economist to read on the Eurostar may arrive at the Gare du Nord with less of a spring in their step than normal, reports The Guardian newspaper in the UK.It says: An article in the latest edition - it is available online at http://tinyurl.com/8l3lfyx - suggests that Britain's "traditionally strong" racing industry faces a struggle to compete in the com
Thousands of British racing fans will converge on Paris this weekend for the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, and any who take a copy of The Economist to read on the Eurostar may arrive at the Gare du Nord with less of a spring in their step than normal, reports The Guardian newspaper in the UK.
It says: An article in the latest edition - it is available online at http://tinyurl.com/8l3lfyx - suggests that Britain's "traditionally strong" racing industry faces a struggle to compete in the coming years and decades, as money and power shifts instead to the far east.
Its structure and funding system "is giving way to the Asian model of breathtaking winnings paid for by betting revenues and sponsors", and the future will belong to jurisdictions like Japan, Hong Kong and, from 2014, China, which has the potential to be the biggest racing industry on the planet.
It may be seen as underlining the point if Orfevre, the ante-post favourite, succeeds where El Condor Pasa and Deep Impact failed and becomes the first Japanese-trained winner of the Arc. He will return home to a closed breeding system, where his sons and daughters will continue to improve the quality of Japanese bloodstock for years to come. To some, the autumnal leaves in the Bois de Boulogne may look uncomfortably like a metaphor for European racing and breeding.
A personal view, though, would be that a win for Orfevre on Sunday would be a cause for celebration, rather than concern. The Economist, as ever, is very good when it comes to the finances. It mocks the "miserly" ú750,000 first prize for this year's Derby, and points out that the three richest prizes in world racing are now the Dubai World Cup, the Japan Cup and the Melbourne Cup. What it fails to do, however, perhaps because it is quite difficult, is to put a value on prestige.
Prestige derives from history, and that is a difficult commodity to buy, package and export. The Derby has deep reserves, the result of nearly 250 years of competition on the Epsom Downs, and so too does the Arc, which is why Orfevre, a Japanese Triple Crown winner, is running in France in the first place. It is not about the prize money, although the purse for the Arc is the largest in European racing. They are pursuing something much more valuable than that.
Japan has been a major racing nation for decades, but its owners still appreciate the value of a success on the international stage. Their racegoers understand its significance too, and anyone who was at Longchamp when Deep Impact ran there in 2006 will remember the thousands who travelled from Japan to see him, and what their money did to his price on the pari-mutuel.
China, for sure, will eventually be a major player in world racing, although the legal status of betting in the largest untapped gambling market in the world remains uncertain. But the horses to launch it will have to come from somewhere, and the European bloodstock that is currently finding its way to China has British, and European, racing inked into every line of the pedigrees like an advertisement for Epsom, Ascot and Longchamp.
Britain may be a smaller player in the business of international racing and bloodstock in 20 years' time, but if the business itself is several times bigger, the growth in international competition is nothing to fear. Instead, it could be the basis for the next 200 years of history.
www.guardian.co.uk