I have read my friend Steve Bennett's pleas in your letters column for action to protect the breeding of thoroughbred racehorses in T&T. Whilst I hold Steve in the highest esteem, I disagree with him entirely on this matter. As he admits in his letters, "Trinidad is a useless part of the world in terms of competitive breeding of racehorses" and this is in spite of millions and millions of taxpayers' dollars having been given to local breeders in recent years to encourage them to produce more and better quality horses. The facts are straightforward-we simply do not possess the conditions which are conducive to the establishment of a productive, meaningful breeding industry in T&T.
Land is needed first of all, and lots of it. "An acre per horse" is the common yardstick in the top breeding areas around the world, but we are two relatively small islands and the land which is available is expensive-you cannot make a return to breeding horses on small pieces of property that costs $100 a square foot. If you have to "make do" with land that costs $10,000 an acre, it is so far from anywhere central that you cannot get enough la-bour, nor can you get a vet-an integral part of the breeding process -to visit your farm quickly, nor frequently. The other thing that you need is good soil. Again, our local soil lacks the necessary nutrients that promote good health and solid bone growth in young horses, so you have to add calcium etc at a further cost and additives are never the same as "natural" ingredients.
So when you add high-cost pastures to high-cost labour, insufficient vets and then you try to come to terms with the poor quality breeding stock available locally, you realise that the local in- dustry is a "non-starter." Steve himself states: "I consider Jamaica to be one of the finest livestock breeding countries in the world and we can never hope to compete with them." If this is so, why should we continue to throw good money away trying to do exactly that to our Caricom partner? Is Jamaica trying to compete with us by spending money on methanol production when it does not have cheap natural gas nor the know-how to do it efficiently? Of course not. Would you set up a plant to make ice in the Sahara Desert?
The Betting Levy Board is expected by government to encourage the local thoroughbred breed- ing industry. It has spent countless millions of dollars in trying to do so and the results-as Bennett observes-have been pitiful, with only 61 lots passing through the yearling sale last month. This despite the hefty breeders and sires premiums begin given, broodmare importation subsidies and T&T-bred horse owners getting a 25 per cent bonus on purses won. Last year the BLB paid purchasers back 10 per cent of the cost of each horse bought at the yearling sale and a lot of this was taken to Guyana with the horses that they bought from us. Thank you, BLB. Bennett suggests the old, tried and discarded "protectionist" answer. A minimum of three races each day for T&T-bred horses only.
Our classic races open to T&T-bred horses only. Heaven help us. If we had done this, there would have been only six horses entered in the St James Stakes last Saturday, with those that finished second, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and last occupying the four Jamaicans' places (first, third, fourth and fifth). You get my drift. So let's stop fooling ourselves and wasting taxpayers' money on a so-called "breeding industry," from which only one or two breeders benefit. In fact, if you study it carefully, it really employs very few people, all of whom would be welcomed at the racetrack itself. Which brings me to the main purpose of this letter, which is to provide the perfect compromise to my friend's concerns. The people who have "suffered" most from the poor state of the local industry is the racehorse owners.
They buy poor-quality horses year after year, a high percentage of which cannot stand up to racing, sometimes because of shoddy farrier work but also because of the lack of proper nutrition in their formative years, bad conformation, uneven track conditions, rough handling etc. Why not maintain the breeders incentive at 15 per cent of the amount the horse wins, but use the money which is wasted every year on all the other subsidies to increase the purses for the WI-bred classic races? Why not promote a $1 million Derby? Owners buy yearlings to win the Derby, not with the hope of it placing in a "Conditional F" race. We could also have a $.5 million Guineas and a $.75 million Midsummer Classic. Then the quality of our horse-flesh would improve, simply because there will be a market for them.
A large increase in the stakes for classic races can be achieved not only by the redistribution of the existing subsidies, but really attractive purses will encourage sponsors to contribute again and the entire industry will get the boost it needs. Don't forget, the owners, trainers, jockeys and grooms-as well as the breeders-will get their percentages of the larger purses. We saw the vast positive difference that increases in the stakes made to the industry three years ago and now that horse racing is again in dire straits, similar action needs to be taken to give owners a reason to bring their disposable income back to the sport. Protecting the pathetic local breeding industry-and by the way, I am also a local racehorse breeder-is certainly not the way to achieve this.
Brian Stollmeyer
St James, PoS