Fred Done’s Betfred Claims Sponsorship Triple Crown
From 2024, all three legs of the English Triple Crown will be sponsored by Betfred. The gambling company, which can be traced back to 1967, is one of the largest independent bookmakers in the UK. Operating 1,350 betting shops, Betfred’s online business boasts over 800,000 active customers. The Warrington-based company already has an extensive sponsorship portfolio.
Betfred has sponsored major races at Newmarket, such as the 2017 Cesarewitch (pictured), before. Next year, it will put its name to the first classic of 2025. ©Getty
In 2023, the Derby, Oaks and St Leger came under the Betfred sponsorship banner. All three races had been sponsored by Cazoo, a British online car retailer listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Once valued at $8 billion, it went into administration in May 2024.
Betfred’s latest sponsorship acquisition is the 1000 and 2000 Guineas. The Newmarket Classics had been sponsored by Qipco – a Qatari-owned real estate, construction, oil and gas, trading and services, finance & health and horseracing company – from 2011 until this year.
Fred Offers £2 Million Triple Crown Bonus
Betfred’s chairman, Fred Done, celebrated his company’s latest signing by declaring his organisation would pay a £2 million bonus to the connections of any horse who completes the colts’ Triple Crown: the 2000 Guineas, Derby and St Leger. The treble has not been achieved since Nijinsky won all three races in 1970.
“Nobody has ever sponsored all five British Classics, and I am so proud to be the first. I am honoured as a bookmaker to be supporting the sport that I love,” Fred Done declared when the sponsorship of the Guineas was announced. Days later he said the backing of the one-mile classics to complete the Triple Crown portfolio “was an opportunity we couldn’t afford to miss.”
Done’s enthusiasm for horse racing sponsorship has not always burned so brightly. In 2015, disgruntled about demands his company became an ‘authorised betting partner’, he appeared in front of Betfred TV cameras to rant: “I’ve put into racing, in media rights, revenue share, levy, I’ve poured into racing £150 million.”
Framed alongside an odds list for a greyhound race where the overround was 129.7 percent, he further declared: “We sponsor 670 races this year, including races like the Gold Cup, Betfred Sprint, Ebor, November Handicap, Cambridgeshire,” and added, “I’ve been paying my dues good and proper more than anyone else in the game.” The video can still be viewed on YouTube.
The English Triple Crown Near Misses
Done’s frustrations only temporarily suppressed his appetite for the sponsorship of British horseracing. His unprecedented £2 million carrot for any horse completing the Triple Crown in 2025 shows the veteran bookmaker sees the importance of top-drawer racing despite the sport’s decreasing share of bookmaker turnover.
So, what is the likelihood of the Betfred £2 million bonus being won? At the start of 2024, online betting sites offered 12/1 odds on City Of Troy landing the Triple Crown. Those who availed of the bet lost their money at the first hurdle when Aidan O’Brien’s Derby winner was defeated at 4/6 odds in Newmarket.
O’Brien did go close to providing the third Triple Crown winner of the past 100 years in 2012 when Camelot took the first two legs and started 2/5 favourite for the St Leger. However, under the trainer’s son, 19-year-old Joseph O’Brien, Camelot found trouble in running and was beaten three parts of a length. The ride earned criticism from many racegoers.[1]
Three years earlier, Sea The Stars also won the first two legs of the English Triple Crown but skipped the St Leger to take in the Irish Champion Stakes and l’Arc de Triomphe during the autumn. 14/1 shot, Mastery won that year’s Doncaster classic ahead of the Derby ninth Kite Wood.
Other than the 1970 Triple Crown winner, Nijinski, the last horse to win the Derby and St Leger but not the 2000 Guineas was St. Paddy in 1960. In addition to Camelot and Sea The Stars, Sir Ivor (1968), Crepello (1957), and Blue Peter (1939) won the Guineas and Derby but not the St Leger.
The £2 Million Target Can Be Missed
Winning the colts Triple Crown is clearly no easy task. However, in the modern era, the final leg, the St Leger, is rarely attempted by a Derby winner or won by a horse that has made the frame in the famous Epsom classic. In many cases, a step up to the one-mile six-furlong St Leger trip – successful or otherwise – can negatively affect a stallion’s potential future earnings.
With the world’s top sires demanding £200,000-plus for a mating – and Frankel, for example, covering 196 mares at £275,000 for each liaison in 2023 – the stakes are enormous. Therefore, it must be asked whether the £2 million Betfred bonus will make a crack at the final Triple Crown leg more attractive. It has to be considered unlikely.
To horse racing’s leading owners and breeders, £2 million represents ‘chump change’. Every year, dozens of untried yearlings are sold at auction for a million pounds and considerably more. Many will never win a race; some will never make it to the racecourse.
Nine of the past ten 2000 Guineas have been won by horses owned by the Smith, Magnier and Tabor partnership, Godolphin, Juddmonte, Qatar and Al-Shaqab Racing. None appear to be owners interested in short-term financial gain. And, mindful of potential stud earnings, these powerhouse owners will only campaign their Group-1 colts in races that best suit their needs.
Sadly, towards the end of a long season, the St Leger over a demanding 14-furlongs at Doncaster is not what many 2000 Guineas winners need. In modern times, it will rarely be targeted by connections of a classic winner, not alone an already valuable dual classic winner.
- Encke denies Camelot Triple Crown with victory in St Leger, (September 15, 2015), The Guardian, Retrieved July 1, 2024.
