As chairman of British Airways and president of the CBI, Martin Broughton is a
busy man. However, this week, there was only one place for him to be — the
Cheltenham Festival.
This annual four-day celebration of everything that is good about both the
Sport of Kings and, indeed, rural life generally is a must-attend for anyone
remotely interested in racing. And, with nearly 50 years behind him as a
racegoer, punter, owner and, latterly, chairman of the British Horseracing
Board (BHB), Mr Broughton certainly comes into that category.
His lifelong passion for the turf began when he and his twin brother Steve —
who went on to become executive director of RSA Insurance — would receive a
board game every Christmas. For Christmas 1960, aged 13, the brothers were
given Totopoly, a game based on racing. Deciding that it was not quite the
real thing, they used it to develop their own fantasy racing programme,
lasting an entire season, printing their own race schedules and form guides
as well as running the races. They even built their own track.
Mr Broughton recalled: “In order to get it authentic, we started reading the
racing pages, but we didn't actually go racing until we were 16, when our
father took us to Epsom. It wasn't a big crowd — the main race was the Steve
Donohue Apprentice stakes.
“From then on, my brother and I went to every Derby. We weren't regular
race-goers in those days, though. We couldn't afford it.”
Another early racing memory is that of the 1956 Grand National, one of the
most famous races of all time.The late Queen Mother's horse Devon Loch,
ridden by Dick Francis, was way out in front — only to collapse only 50
yards from the winning post after jumping an imaginary fence: “I listened to
it on the radio — we didn't have a TV until I was 17 or 18 — and the reason
I recall it is not just the obvious one. My father's name was Edward Samuel
Broughton and, because the winner was called ESB, you can guess who he
backed.”
As he got to know the sport, his favourite race meeting came to be the
Whitbread Gold Cup at Sandown Park in late April: “It was the one meeting
where you had flat and jump racing on the same card.”
Mr Broughton's business career took off with British American Tobacco (BAT),
where he eventually became chief executive, and his passion for racing was
put on hold at times. He recalled: “I lived abroad for a number of years
with BAT. I went to the Jockey Club in Brazil a few times, but the quality
of the racing was pretty poor.”
In 1991, when he was finance director of BAT, he became a racehorse owner for
the first time: “I paid £4,000 for a one-third stake in a horse called
Grouseman and his trainer was Henrietta Knight. “I had to say ‘Who's she?'
as she was not that well-known in those days. I'd like to say I discovered
her, but it's not true. Grouseman won seven races, but every year he won a
race, he seemed to have the next year off. So one got round to the idea
straight away that horses can be expensive.”
Mr Broughton decided that to thoroughly enjoy racing, he needed to be majority
owner of his horses: “My friend and co-owner would ring and say: ‘We've
entered such-and-such a race on Friday.' And often my diary would not allow
me to come at short notice. So I always like to organise it - but it's nice
to have someone else in it with you to share the pleasure.”
The first horse of which Mr Broughton had majority ownership was called
Easthorpe: “That was my most successful horse. He won 15 races and finished
second in the Grand Annual Chase here at Cheltenham. He was the one that
gave me most pleasure.
“I'd looked at one or two other horses, at auction with Henrietta, and the one
thing she always told me was that you should never trust a horse where you
can see the white of his eye. Most of my horses have been on Hen's advice.”
Mr Broughton has had ownership or co-ownership of so many horses that he
cannot recall the precise number: “At a guess, it's probably something like
30. I've had 65 wins, so have done pretty well.”
Asked whether he has had disappointments as an owner, Mr Broughton laughed
heartily: “Oh yes! I think the best-looking horse I ever owned was Irish
Native. He was an expensive horse but it turned out he had a congenital
heart problem. When he ran, he looked magnificent, but he would be flying
round and then the jockey would pull him up. In the end, I gave him away and
the poor little thing just wasted away. He was my best-looking horse and
probably the biggest disappointment.”
Aside from Easthorpe, Mr Broughton's other favourites down the years have
included Zaffamore — “He was a monster, a big chaser who won five or six
races” — and his latest acquisition, Soixante, a 60th birthday present from
him to his wife, Jocelyn, and from her to him. “He's just won his first
race, having come second six times. We put A. P. [McCoy, 13 times the
champion jockey] up on his last run. He looked like he wanted to come second
again, but A. P. wasn't having that.
“I never see my horses as much as I would like. They are trained up at
Wantage, in Oxfordshire, and we live in Oxted, Surrey. We've been there 30
years and are very happy so we won't be moving nearer.”
Racing also played a part in bringing together Mr Broughton and his wife:
“Jocelyn lived in Zimbabwe — her father was a steward at Borrowdale
racecourse [in Harare] — and so it's something we've always had in common.
She loves coming to watch, but when our horses are racing she is always
doing so through her fingers.”
More recently, Mr Broughton has served as chairman of the BHB, which proved as
challenging as anything in his business career. It almost never happened.
He said: “It was a surprise to me. I got a call out of the blue from Andrew
Parker Bowles. I used to be on the board of Whitbread and so I must have met
him a couple of times at the Whitbread Gold Cup. He was an equerry to the
Queen Mother, who used to go every year.
“Then Whitbread decided they didn't want to continue with the sponsorship and
I blew my top — which, as a non-executive, of course, you are not supposed
to do. Andrew realised that I must have been the person who got Whitbread to
change their mind and so thought of me.”
Initially, Mr Broughton had not even been shortlisted, as Peter Savill, the
BHB's then chairman, assumed that he would be too busy: “The other directors
said to Peter: 'Well, have you asked him?' And Peter had to admit he hadn't.
I became the sole non-executive director for four years, after which they
asked me to chair it.”
It proved a busy time. Mr Broughton quickly discovered that the industry was
riddled with factions — the owners, the courses, the bookmakers and so on —
and that reconciling their interests was not easy.
Two issues dominated Mr Broughton's time at the BHB. The first, his greatest
frustration, was a long-running battle inherited from Mr Savill over how
racing is funded. Faced with the abolition of the Levy Board, funded by 10
per cent of bookmakers' racing profits, Mr Savill proposed to make up the
shortfall by charging bookies for pre-race data. That idea was scuppered by
a successful challenge by William Hill, in whose favour the European Court
of Justice (ECJ) and, subsequently, the Court of Appeal both ruled. “We
thought we'd get an agreement to get rid of the Levy Board, as the
Government wanted. We were absolutely staggered when the ECJ found for the
other side.”
The decision threatened to cast a pall over the financing of racing,
particularly when it was followed by a potentially damaging case brought by
Irish bookmakers over the same issue — which the BHB ultimately won. Mr
Broughton said: “My litigation experience, from the tobacco industry, proved
very important here. If we had lost that one, the sport would have been
insolvent.”
The second big issue was over the very structure of racing itself. Mr
Broughton could see no reason for both a governing body, the BHB, and a
regulatory body, the Horseracing Regulatory Authority (HRA). He proposed a
merger, antagonising many.
He recalled: “Some people thought I was trying to double my empire. I can see
why that was an easy suspicion for them to have, but I thought it was the
right thing to do for racing.”
He proved his motives were pure by ensuring that the chairman and chief
executive of the new body should be outsiders and not from either the BHB or
the HRA: “I felt all the way through that there were some very wellmeaning
people in racing but, when they came to the BHB, they came with a mandate.
That's not a way, to me, to run a board. That's why I felt it should change.
“People said to me when I took the job on that I would be lobbied at the races
and there was an element of that. But I didn't fall out of love with racing
and I actually went racing a lot more. Despite the frustration, I enjoyed my
time there. I don't regret it.”
And he still has ambitions within the sport: “It's terrific fun to have a
winner at Hereford, Ludlow and so on, but I've got to have a winner at
Cheltenham. I've never won a graded race. So I would like to do that.”
Mr Broughton is still working four-day weeks, of which at least two are
devoted to BA and at least a day and a half to the CBI, leaving Friday as
his main racing day most weeks. He is trying to stay positive about the
long-term future of racing, despite concerns that it may be one of gradual
decline. Bookmakers are less reliant on racing for their business, making it
increasingly harder to justify the levy, while television companies show
little interest in the sport outside big events such as Cheltenham, the
Derby, Royal Ascot and the Grand National.
Mr Broughton believes that, despite the economic backdrop, racing will come
through: “You have to get a bit worried because we are in a period where
business is in difficulty. Money is difficult and businesses don't want to
be spending it on sponsorship or corporate hospitality when they are making
people redundant.
“Sponsorship accounts for around £15 million, compared with a total income for
racing of around £100 million from the Levy Board. Then you've got another
£15 million or so from takings. There is a danger of courses closing — but
that's happened all through my lifetime. Racing is fairly robust — it's not
catastrophic.”
With that, he was off to the paddock to study the afternoon's runners.
Track record
There was not one single factor that made Mr Broughton fall for racing: “The
horses themselves appealed, definitely, although I've never been a rider.
The betting? Not particularly. It's always nice when you win, but I've never
had an account - receiving the readies is better.
“If I come racing, I never bet on a favourite. I will bet on every race [I
attend], but rarely if I'm watching on television at home. I'm always
looking for something to take on the favourite. I'm looking for value. If
something wins at 6-4, all you have is your stake for the next race.”
He never bets each way, choosing instead to back a couple of horses on the
nose in each race.
