British racing the best in the world – but that doesn't excuse poor prize-money

One of the most common things talked about in racing is prize-money – or should I say the lack of it.

In the 1991 Flat season our yard trained the fastest 100 winners in Britain, beating Sir Henry Cecil's record by six days. The first winner was Regal Quest, who won a mile Listed race at Doncaster on March 21. The 100th was Our Fan on July 17 at Hamilton. Among the winners, thankfully there were a few decent ones, but there were also many more lower class races, such as auction claimers and sellers.

The lowest prize-money earned was on July 11, the day we had a double with Echo-Logical, who won the Maple Graduation Stakes at Chepstow – value to the winner £2,238 – and at Hamilton, where Chateau Nord won the Westwood Auction Graduation Stakes, which netted his owner £2,184. After those two the poorest prize-money was for Bold Arabella’s victory at Musselburgh on June 17, where she picked up £2,317.50