Kia Joorabchian labels horse racing a 'secret society' in bombshell interview as he exposes the sport's pay structure, lack of mental health support and fears of dwindling interest

Before the top hat, the tales. On Tuesday, Kia Joorabchian will excitedly head to Royal Ascot for one of his favourite weeks of the year. He will do so as the talk of the racing world, with his big spending Amo team on everyone’s lips. But first he wants to have his say. What follows are searing words that may well shake the industry to its foundations, just as it is about to put its best face on.

Joorabchian quickly gets to the point. ‘In racing a lot of things are hidden,’ he explains. ‘The real truth never surfaces. It is like a secret society. There is an unwritten rule. In football if you separate from a manager everyone knows why. But in racing if you separate from a trainer you are not allowed to say why. You’d like to say it’s because two horses died, because two got fractures, but you can’t.’

Joorabchian will be known to most for his achievements in another sport. He brokered Philippe Coutinho’s £145m deal from Liverpool to Barcelona and looked after the likes of household names including Carlos Tevez and Willian. But since 2018 he has significantly upped his interest in what he describes as his ‘second love’ of racing.

Amo are already understood to have spent more than £80m, with £24m of that going at Tattersalls October Book 1 Sale in which he outgunned traditional big-hitters Coolmore and Godolphin. A seven-figure sum has also gone on the storied Freemason Lodge, the former Newmarket stables of the Queen’s favourite trainer Sir Michael Stoute and one-time home of Shergar. Millions more have followed on a huge renovation project.

This is investment in the UK at a time when few doing likewise. It all sounds high-powered, glamorous and fulfilling and, for five days as the champagne flows in Berkshire, it will appear that way. But for Joorabchian, a number of sobering episodes have led him to tell the untold.

‘In the last three months I have heard of at least two suicides in two yards,’ he reveals. ‘A sad situation. In one case the boy was discovered in the yard when people arrived in the morning.

'Racing Welfare (The Jockey Club’s charity) was very active and made sure everything was handled correctly at the yard but there’s not enough done about this problem in the industry. You won’t hear about it. People don’t want to talk about it.’

The issue, according to Joorabchian, is a lack of proper pay.

‘There are people in the industry living week to week, let alone month to month,’ he says. ‘A huge chunk. Your general stable lads, for example, the boys who wake up at 4.30am and who are mucking out until 2pm. It’s tough and these people do not get the support they need.

'You’re talking about people who have no happiness and who may need to take drink or drugs to find it. But what happens is, in some cases, they get discovered and they get sacked. But nothing is done to help them. The problem is not addressed. They get another job down the road. Then the same thing happens and they go somewhere else and it keeps happening because there are not enough people at that level in the industry. And it’s not just stable lads, secretaries, riders, general racing staff.’

For Joorabchian, it is symbolic of an industry in a state of denial.

‘You have very big trainers who look upon themselves as a high morale standard,’ he says. ‘But it appears that alcoholism and drug abuse is swept under the carpet and hidden from society.

'The people involved, instead of helping them, they invite them back in again because they are valuable. If you had a footballer arrested for smashing up his car and putting someone in hospital it wouldn’t be hidden, it would be a story but in racing – nothing. These people need to be given support to get better, rather than those involved turning a blind eye.’

Joorabchian believes that the racing media could do more to bring these issues to light but are unwilling to break the omerta. ‘I did an interview recently with Nick Luck and he, in my opinion, diverted these subjects when I brought them up,’ he explains.

‘It seems the racing media does not want to be out there exploring. Racing has its beautiful side, the top hats and tails, Royal Ascot. The sport of kings and queens. But in the UK it is hiding its problems.

'There was someone from the Racing Post on the show. They had done a piece on our spend and where everything is. I called them and said I am absolutely open and happy you have done that but over the years there have been big companies who have spent far more than us but you’ve never done a piece about them. "Amo spends this", but what about Coolmore and Godolphin Juddmonte and other big names? I asked the guy: “Why don’t you do it for anyone else?’ There was no answer.’

Joorabchian is clearly irked at what he has seen and what he has experienced. He continues: ‘Another example – a very big trainer sacked his jockey after the first big race of the season. Felt they didn’t perform. In April! It was branded as nothing to it, end of story. I have never sacked a jockey. I did not renew my second jockey and the headline was “Kia sacks jockey”.

‘They want to create a perception. They are afraid of someone new. This interview is a nightmare for the racing world.’

It is safe to say the former stock market trader feels like an outsider. ‘I am a different breed,’ he says.

‘I have to work every day. I make my money, I live in the UK. I work hard to do what I’m doing. I’m not from a privileged background. I’ve never had to starve but I have never been fed by a golden spoon.’

Outsider or not, Joorabchian feels he is obliged to speak out for the good of the sport.

‘You had the lowest attendance in the history of Epsom this year,’ he explains. You walked in the place and it was flat. There was no buzz, no excitement. If that happens you are slowly killing the racetracks. The competition in the UK is non-existent right now. You don’t really get huge horses running against each other. It’s imbalanced.

'I was at the Belmont Stakes last Saturday at Saratoga. It was incredible, the crowds, the competition. It was an electric atmosphere. The biggest horses were competing against each other. But I think in the UK people are falling out of love with racing.

'In the US they have all the information and can make informed decisions – every breeze is available, including videos of them, for example - but that isn’t the case here. There is not that transparency.’

That lack of transparency is, in Joorabchian’s eyes, something which needs to drastically change.

‘In the UK there are gambling stables and non-gambling stables for example,’ he says.

‘That needs more clarity. There’s millions and millions and millions going into gambling. When you go into the bookmakers and wager on football you have all the information. Who’s injured, who’s failed a late fitness test. If a footballer had been arrested for smashing up his car and putting someone in hospital it would be a story. It’s all public domain, but in horse racing unless you are deeply involved you wouldn’t know how the horse has been training or if the stable itself is betting on that horse or even if the trainer was betting on it.

'It’s not a problem that trainers can gamble as long as there is transparency. Something like the stock market where if a CEO sells or buys shares the public know. There’s no reason why this can’t be open. Why is it a secret in the UK?’

Joorabchian believes the answers lie across the Atlantic – and in the head offices of UK bookmakers. ‘When I see what is going on in America I come home and think ‘My God, how we can evolve?” he says. ‘I think of how much of a gap there is. There was a race here the other day, £2.5m worth of horses running for the first time. The winner took home two-and-a half-grand. No wonder people are afraid to invest.

'In the US people will buy a horse for $250-300,000 because they know they have the potential of making that and then some in prize money. Over there you have a real chance of a return on your investment. Here, more money has to start coming in to the sport from gambling than it currently does from the levy. You see, for example Bet365 and the salary of its CEO (Denise Coates was reported to have made £95m in the year to March 2024), how much money they make. Ladbrokes, William Hill’s, whomever.

'Why is a bigger portion of that money not coming back into the industry? And by the way, it should be the same with football. If you do it with football your Championship, League One and League Two clubs benefit. The races get bigger, you attract international runners, better competition, that competition creates a better vibe, more people, more money channelling to the trainers, the stables.

'It allows you to pay a stable lad more than just enough to survive that week. The betting companies are getting bigger and bigger and the people richer and richer but the sport facilitating those bets does not get a big enough benefit.’

You may wonder why, given all of the above, Joorabchian is bothering. He is, however, clear with his motives. ‘I’m not trying to disrupt the industry,’ he says. ‘I absolutely love racing. I really believe in the growth of racing. I believe it has tremendous growth potential. We haven’t got anywhere near to touching the surface of what this industry can be. I want to see this sport grow in the right way. People love working in the industry but they can’t make it work financially and that needs to change.’

It is perhaps telling that his first project at Freemason was an upgrade to the stable housing. ‘I looked at the place and there was mould in there,’ he explains. ‘Now, the guys on site live in brand new accommodation. Everything is high quality. TV, WiFi, everything they need.’

It is also telling that, as the interview nears a conclusion, it is again the stable lads at the forefront of his mind. ‘Look, all I want is for the sport to be open, non-hypocritical and to create a competition that can rise,’ he says.

‘To make that happen the gambling sites need to put some money back into the game. I am going to open a charity next year. I will go to every betting firm and ask them to put money into this or any charity which helps the welfare of the industry. When they don’t I’ll have no problem exposing that. You made £600m – congratulations - two people committed suicide. You benefit from that yard, why are you not giving anything back?

'It’s disgraceful that each of these companies are not putting at least half a million each back into a charity like Racing Welfare that struggles to raise the £3.5m it needs to support these situations every year.’

Before he departs, Joorabchian has one more thing to make clear. ‘I just want to get people to understand that there is a much deeper story in racing that you don’t see,’ he explains.

‘I am not trying to throw any individual under a bus, I just believe this needs to be out in the open. My investment and my goal in racing in the UK and Ireland is because I want to make it better.

'I am proud of our achievements this year, that we have managed to raise the bar and make it more competitive. We’ve helped create a healthy marketplace and I’m hoping that improves the competition. I’m trying to help to make it successful.’