Owners Insight – Setting Up Ownership…

After a short break Phil Boyle (part owner of the Nicky Henderson trained Oscara Dara) returns with the next in his intriguing series of ‘Owners Insight’ articles.

Hello all

Welcome to the next instalment of this rather long and winding journey towards the current day!

We have reached February 2009 and having visited the local Henfold Stables, I decided to look into whether, and if so how, I could set up my own ownership group.  The British Horse Racing Authority website has plenty of down-loadable documents and I was lucky enough to have access to Peter Bickley at High Moor Racing who provided me with loads of information and advice.  You will probably be surprised at how much there is to do to set up and run an ownership group!

First things first however was to look for partners as it was very clear that the most that myself and Sarah could afford to hold was a 10% or 15% share.  I emailed round all my friends, work colleagues and associates who had ever expressed an interest in horse racing and tried to sell them on my plan!

My best friend and a close friend who I played cricket with for many years were quick to sign up for 5% each and another guy who I had played cricket with who I knew had a corporate box at Sandown seemed to like the idea and asked for 10%.  He also had a friend who had shares with him in a horse in the past and he also took 10%.  Our marketing manager was also into racing and took 5% and a friend who had his own company agreed to take a 10% share through his company to involve his staff in the experience.  45% gone in no time and soon I had Alan on the phone to tell me that James who we had met on our first visit to the stables was also interested.  James and some of his friends soon agreed to take 10% between them.  At this point it looked like we would have no problem shifting the remaining shares and I put the wheels in motion to purchase the horse.

I decided to run the partnership on a straight shareholding basis and to operate complete transparency.  All partners were therefore to be registered as owners and each 5% share would carry an equal vote in all matter relating to the partnership.  To ensure that the bills could be paid on time etc, I proposed that everyone would make an upfront payment for the purchase and then would pay a monthly standing order which I would calculate to try to cover all costs.  To ensure that if the worst happened, we would not lose everything, I also ensured that the monthly fee would cover mortality insurance.  The purchase price was £24,000 and each 5% share would pay £85 per month to cover training, vets bills, entries, transport, blacksmith and insurance.  I took the remaining 45% shareholding pending selling the remaining shares on.

Next time I will go through what is involved in setting up and running a partnership and then I will bring you up to date on Oscara Dara’s story so far.  I might need to get a move on as I learnt this morning that Oscara’s seasonal debut could be only a couple of weeks or so away.  Cross everything and wish us luck, we would love to get him back on the track with no further problems!

All the best

Phil

Thanks as always to Phil and fingers crossed OSCARA DARA continues to impress Nicky Henderson at home and the 7yo makes his return to the track very soon 🙂

Ben (NTF)