CASTELFRANCHI: "ITALIAN GALLOP NEEDS A REALLY STRONG SHOCK"

Franco Castelfranchi, 71 years old and from Milan, began his adventure in horse racing in 1974 when he joined ANAC in Via Santa Maria Fulcorina, when Enrico Arcari was the Secretary. He became Secretary General in 1981 and remained with the Association until 2003.
Without a shadow of a doubt a historical voice in national horse racing. The first and so far only Italian to hold a top position in a European horse racing organisation, he was Chairman of the EFTBA, which he had helped to create with his close friend Michel Henochsberg. A member of all European thoroughbred forums for 30 years, he currently represents Italy in the European Pattern Committee and participated in the last meeting in February, together with senior handicapper Marco Trentini, recently appointed by MASAF.
He currently collaborates with SIRE, a glorious Milanese horse racing association created in 1883, called upon to collaborate by Pio Bruni in 2010 and he edits the weekly newsletter distributed via email. He has been a journalist since 1982.
So what better voice to try to make a ‘disenchanted’ analysis of the state of health of Italian horse racing. These may seem like ruthless arguments, but they can certainly help to stimulate debate and provoke serious awareness.

How would you describe the current state of our horse racing?
I think that anyone involved in horse racing can only say that they are extremely concerned.
There are many examples of this, but I would like to highlight two that I think are paradigmatic.
1) We are unable to organise Tris Italian races.
2) Especially here in the north there is a group of trainers who are pushing for super minimum races, up to 5500 euros: I will dedicate the next issue of the SIRE newsletter to this ‘world turned upside down’.
 

Are there any possible solutions? And what are they?
I repeat, the situation is absolutely dramatic but we must try to imagine, I use this term because in my opinion this comes before ‘proposing’ corrective measures.

Do you have any specific ideas?
1) REDUCTION IN THE NUMBER OF RACES
This is absolutely essential and should be implemented immediately; my specific idea is to reduce the number by 10% in the second half of the year and by 15% in 2026 and 2027. All this with no change to the prize money. 
2) REDUCTION IN THE NUMBER OF RACECOURSES
I'll attract endless criticism but this is the reality as I see it, compared to the more than 120 racecourses I have seen around the world.
Let's be clear; today Milan, Merano, Florence and Pisa hold up under conditions that it drops to 30 days a year. I'm including Rome out of patriotism but to call it hospitable...
Syracuse is an island unto itself, Tagliacozzo has its own decency. Stop. Excuse me, could a Serie A or Serie B team play in a stadium whose stands are unusable? Answer: NO; Varese, on the other hand, continues to rush to assign the citizen's or ‘training’ income to a handful of trainers. Why? And there would be plenty of others not mentioned. The problem stems from the current conventional system. Merano aside, all the other racecourses have the vast majority of their revenues. It will, however, always be possible to act with regional, municipal or even private contributions...
3) JUMP RACING
This is a delicate subject because it involves the fate of a virtuous racecourse like Merano. It is an objective fact that the prize money goes abroad, that there is no interest among Italian owners, that the betting on steeplechase races is ridiculous: am I wrong? So in such a situation, should we act like ostriches and bury our heads in the sand?
4) LEGISLATIVE INTERVENTION ON TAXATION
The premise is that currently the investments of Italian owners are at an all-time low in number, also to compensate for the drop in national production. Nobody thinks they can compete with the top, but the colts worth between 30 and 100,000 should be within the range of action of our operators. For this to happen, the horses need to have the possibility of winning adequate sums in large numbers, let's say there should be 100 horses winning at least 50,000 euros a year...
Then investments need to be stimulated and I understand that MASAF cannot act in a sector that is in many ways opaque. However, what can be done is to act on the tax lever. My idea is that we need to look at overall taxation. For registered stables with a VAT number, specific investment incentives should be identified; for small owners, a tax deduction for losses of, say, 15/20% of their income should be considered. Among other things, this would have the effect of reducing the non-invoicing that plagues the sector and produces an obvious distortion of competition. To combat this, all we need to do is request a copy of the invoices/receipts from the owners when renewing the trainer's licence, cross-check the data with that of the horses declared in training and verify its congruity. f. Who has the courage to do it? The state, which spends over 100 million a year, should commit itself...
5) JOIN THE WORLD POOL AND ESTABLISH A CONNECTION WITH THE HONG KONG RACES
We need to move in this direction; Hong Kong is on another planet at all levels and we need to enter that orbit. We are the only ones left out of it...

How would you define these proposals? Realistic, utopian, unfeasible?
They are proposals that can in some ways be considered provocative, but I believe that if we want to start again we need a really strong jolt. Then obviously we have to sit down and discuss it, without however looking primarily at particular interests.

Overall, how do you evaluate the evolution of the Ministry's activity?
The overall judgement is certainly positive, a direct consequence of the establishment of a General Management and things are moving, slowly but surely, also from a legislative point of view.
Unfortunately, there is a shortage of qualified personnel. Is it to be hoped that personnel will qualify in such a specialised sector by the grace of God? It is a fact that there is a lack of professionalism and it will get worse and worse with the retirement of most of the last veterans of the historical structures. In particular, it is disturbing that a top manager who is indispensable for the good progress of international relations has not yet been appointed, months after his retirement. On other matters, even if they are commendable such as the reduction of VAT on foals, we continue to wonder why VAT on covering has not been reduced: it is lower for mares used in artificial insemination than for thoroughbreds where natural covering is obligatory.