This week in Doncaster, one of the first big horse sales of the year, the Goffs Premier Yearling Sales, is taking place. One of the busiest and biggest buyers at the sales through the years is former England, Liverpool, Real Madrid, Newcastle and Manchester United striker Michael Owen.
Owen's Racing Empire
Owen owns Manor House Stables, home of trainer Hugo Palmer, who recently celebrated a double at the Ebor meeting and a Grade 1 winner in Saratoga with Glacius. For as long as he has been able to, Owen has followed his dream of having a racing stables and created, from scratch, a training centre just outside Chester.
Through the years, he has brought significant publicity to the sport and, in turn, hugely high-profile owners. Recently, it was announced that darts stars Luke Littler and Stephen Bunting were now co-owners of a racehorse called Bunting Mental at Manor House.
Documentary Launch
On Friday, Amazon is launching a docuseries on the Owen family, focusing on his and his family's involvement in racing. The exposure that racing will get from this should not be underestimated.
Disappointingly, not much, if any, promotion of this has been seen from within racing. Given what Owen has put into the sport and what he brings in terms of new owners, profile and air time, the marketing spend value would likely be in the millions.
Call for Support
While Ballon d'Or winner Owen has made more money than most can dream about, it is assumed that, given the size and scale of Manor House, he has invested a fair chunk of that back into the sport he loves. Racing, like every sport, is fighting for exposure and coverage but, in Owen, it has a world-class former footballer with a global profile whose passion and love for racing and horses is gold dust.
Our sport could do a lot worse than support Owen, be it with promotion of the documentary, or using him as a global ambassador for British racing. At a time when racing is constantly battling with other sports to reach as big an audience as possible, why don't we really get behind someone whose love and passion for racing is unquestionable?
Marketing bigwigs would surely say that the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) he can hit would far exceed most campaigns. As a ruthless goal scorer, Michael would relish the challenge.
