Bill Cameron takes a look at the differences between the British and French breeding industries and discovers that there's a lot to like about the way business is conducted across the Channel.

The major difference between the breeding and racing industries in Great Britain and Ireland and in France is that here the emphasis is on breeding to sell, while over the Channel, it is based on breeding to race. Not only is the racing programme geared to different needs and aspirations, it is financed in distinctly different ways, which contribute to the contrast. Where there is some strength in the French system, there are major flaws in the one that has evolved here.

The figures show that in France, less than one third of the animals that are produced are sold as foals or yearlings, while in Great Britain and Ireland over half are offered for sale. Therefore, here one of the major planks of racing is the auction race where the prices achieved at the sales by the horse or the sire's progeny dictate the entries and weights, while in France the prize money is supplemented by owners' and breeders' prizes to a very high level for French-bred horses with auction races being unheard of.

The financing here is still at the moment via a levy on the betting industry which, by its nature, is a limited amount based on figures provided by the bookmakers. The advent of betting exchanges is constricting this turnover and the problems are manifest now that the BHB has failed to get a legally acceptable financing system in place. In France all the funding comes from a pool betting system, the Pari-Mutuel, which provides all the necessary money to fund racing and the breeding incentives. The most popular bet in France is the Tierce, where a major handicap is selected each day and one has to pick the first three home. The amount of money these races attract is phenomenal and the money generated for the sport is its bedrock.

French system favours long-term view

In Britain breeders can earn prizes for successful horses, but only if they race and win at home and only in certain categories of race. The French breeder, by contrast, enjoys a system whereby he will earn money for any race his horse wins, anywhere. Therefore, the sale ring price is not as fundamentally important to a French breeder, although high prices obviously help to keep operations going. His British counterpart will, once he has sold his animal, most likely never reap another penny from it, as so many horses are sold to race in Ireland or further afield. If the horse has run on the Flat first, he cannot even get a prize if the animal later becomes, as so many do, a star over jumps.

This kind of structure alters the whole emphasis for breeders in choosing a mate for their mare, and also about how they develop their breeding programme. Whereas in Britain it is essential for sales ring success to choose what is broadly considered to be a 'commercial sire', which in fact is often one standing at a high fee and sometimes unproven, in France proven stallions are most popular as the ones most likely to reward the breeder and, consequently, the racehorse owner.

Breeding for long-term rather than short-term gain concentrates the mind far more on planning successful matings for producing a racehorse rather than a commercial yearling. This, of course, is a far healthier situation as the whole point of breeding is to produce high-class racehorses, not just high-priced yearlings that are frequently never heard of again. It also alters the way in which mares are kept and managed: the British and Irish system is now leading to a world where mares are bought and sold far more frequently, breeders being worried that if the first three foals, bred on 'commercial' rather than sound breeding lines, have shown little, then their subsequent offspring will suffer in the ring. Gone are the days when breeders developed female families and with their knowledge could produce great horses even from, on the face of it, unlikely mares.

Proven sires struggle

In France if a breeder feels a mare can succeed, he can afford to take more of a risk than his British and Irish counterparts as he will earn in the long run if he is right. In Britain and Ireland the concept of foundation mares and continuous generations of mares in a stud is now limited to only the smallest group of owner/breeders.

It follows that it is harder to launch a new stallion in France, as there is not the same feverish rush to use a new horse as there is over here, where unproven horses cover huge books of mares and can usually pay for themselves before they even have a runner.

France is lucky in having had two outstanding owner/breeders who were able to 'make' their own stallions. They are the Aga Khan, whose support of Darshaan and Kayhasi has resulted in two now popular and proven stallions, and Jean-Luc Lagardere whose Linamix has proved such a phenomenon. But in any case, the proven sire has a much greater future in France than in Britain and Ireland, where novelty seems to be the name of the game and fashion, rather than reason, often seems to prevail.

Here, market forces and the numbers game have promoted first-season sires to the point where proven sires struggle to attract many mares before being banished abroad.

As a result, the size of stallions, books are vastly different here and in France, as are the nomination fees. In France, books of over 100 mares are the exception rather than the rule, which is best for both the commercial and non-commercial breeder. Stud fees are also a fraction of those here. Unfortunately, this also means that only owner/breeders such as the Aga Khan can stand new stallions as the price of horses off the track is way beyond what a French stud can usually afford and still make a profit. Here, any potential stallion has to be identified early in his career and the sight of stallion studs such as the Irish National Stud gambling by purchasing a share in racehorses is increasingly common.

Premiums assist French owners

Competition for colts that do not belong already to the big breeders and studs, such as Sir Percy, is immense and will continue especially when international prize money in Japan and America provides the incentive and basis for these countries to stand very successful European horses.

The shuttling of stallions to the southern hemisphere is another relatively recent innovation, much more prevalent here than in France. Not only does it increase the cash flow, it helps put hooves on the ground and, in the ever more important international racing scene based in the Far East, successful runners are an added bonus.

The attitude of the owner is also completely different here to that in France. Prize money and the owners' and breeders' premiums, up to 100 per cent of the race prize money in some cases, make it very attractive to keep a horse in training there. In Great Britain the training costs especially and the relatively small amounts of prize money on offer mean that a horse must be out on the course as soon as feasible and there is little sentiment if the animal shows limited ability as a two-year-old, completely ignoring the fact that the horse's ability, which is basically a strength-to-weight ratio, is at its optimum between four and six years of age.

Costs haven't curtailed overproduction

It is amazing that in the last 20 or 30 years prize money has stagnated to such an extent here that horses are racing for virtually the same values while costs have gone up exponentially in all aspects of the industry. Training fees are up, transport costs are up, breeding costs are up, especially stallion fees, and the rise of the syndicate is a reflection of this. The loss of the short-lived owners' premium scheme here should be contrasted to the one which is highly successful in France.

Despite the above, there is a major problem developing with overproduction, especially in Ireland where the expanding economy has fuelled a boom in breeding. With the breeding industry basing its expectations on the continued demand for the top lots in the sales ring, rather than the average price achieved, the realisation that most breeders are subsidising the owners is not on the radar, while in France this is less of a problem for the breeder, given the strength of the breeders' premiums.

The French have been generous in having a scheme where a foal by a sire based outside France can be 'assimile' or given French status if the mare returns to France with the foal at foot and the foal then remains in France until becoming a yearling. The horse is then eligible for French owners' and breeders' premiums, a very advantageous situation.

In summary, the French breeding and racing industry is based on surer foundations than here. For all owners there is a major advantage in buying a French-sired yearling in France given that they are less expensive to purchase, as the stud fees are much lower and the breeder is prepared to reap his or her reward with breeders' premiums, plus the owners' premiums are so valuable. The animals are also more often than not by a proven sire from proven families and hence more likely to be successful racehorses. Vive la France!