Imagine receiving a trophy from the Queen at Royal Ascot. Imagine watching your horse fly down the hill, cheered on by a huge crowd, at Epsom on Derby Day. Imagine picknicking in the summer sunshine during Glorious Goodwood. Imagine standing in the paddock at Longchamp, discussing your horse’s chances with Britain’s champion trainer.

There’s no doubt that owning a racehorse can be, quite simply, thrilling. The world of horseracing is glamorous, exciting and highly social, and you just might be fortunate enough to own a champion which travels the globe, picking up plaudits and prizes.

But to do this, you’d have to be either incredibly lucky, or prepared to spend vast amounts of money buying horses. You’d have to kiss a lot of frogs before you found your prince.

This is why, until very recently, the ownership of top-class horses, those good enough to have a chance at the big meetings such as Royal Ascot and Goodwood, was largely confined to a very small group of people.

However, things have changed. Racing is no longer the exclusive preserve of kings and dukes, and owning a good horse is a real possibility for many people. The forming of ownership syndicates has played a major part in this.

There’s no two ways about it — owning a racehorse is very expensive. It costs about £20,000 per year to keep a flat racehorse in training, and you’ve got to buy the horse first, spending anything from a few thousand quid to as many millions as you fancy. It’s also incredibly risky. Thoroughbred racehorses are fragile — your precious new horse may injure itself at home and never even see a racetrack. It may be as slow as a boat — and you have very little chance of telling until you have bought it. If you’re not very knowledgeable about the finer points of breeding and confirmation, it’s difficult to know what you are buying.

By sharing ownership, you can significantly reduce these costs, and perhaps increase the quality of horse you can afford to buy, and therefore your chances of hitting the jackpot, accordingly.
Harry Herbert set up Highclere Thoroughbred Racing in 1992 with the aim of “putting together small groups of individuals to share in a number of top quality racehorses.” He has done his job well — Highclere Thoroughbred Racing (HTR) is widely recognised as one of the most successful multiple ownership teams in international horseracing.

Harry was born into the highest echelons of racing, and it is no surprise that he chose to make his career in this world. His late father, the Earl of Carnarvon, was the Queen’s racing manager and owned Highclere Stud, established by Harry’s great-grandfather, the 5th Earl, who famously discovered the tomb of Tutamkhamen in 1922.

After leaving Eton, Harry went to work in the bloodstock industry in America, becoming an expert on bloodlines and pedigrees. He returned to Europe in 1985 to set up his own thoroughbred management company. With backing from racing men Michael Smurfit and Nick Robinson, Harry managed one of the very first racing syndicates, Kennet Valley Thoroughbreds, which was formed to try and win the Cartier Million sales race. He nearly pulled it off, finishing second and third, and a few years later struck out on his own and formed HTR.

HTR hit the ground running — in only its second year of life Harry and his brother-in-law, John Warren, who buys all the horses for the syndicates and who took over from Harry’s father as the Queen’s racing manager, bought Lake Coniston for just £23,000, who became European champion sprinter and was sold to stand as a stallion for £2,500,000.