The Jockey Club of Turkey launched several initiatives over the past two years to improve the quality of the country's Thoroughbred stock, improve its racing and training facilities, and broaden the appeal of horse racing among sports fans. Serdal Adali, serving his third term as president of the Jockey Club of Turkey, answered questions from BloodHorse's Bloodstock Editor Eric Mitchell about the goals of these initiatives and the progress made to date. Adali, 56, is a businessman and the co-founder with his brother Hünkar Adali of Serka Group, which operates internationally in construction, service, logistics, catering, and energy sectors. He has spent his life around horses, first helping to care for the ones owned by his father, Hasan Adali. Presently Adali maintains racing and breeding operations on three farms in Adana, Konya Ereğli, and Adapazarı Hendek. Some of the top horses he's bred include Gazi Derby runner-up Annosh and Turkish One Thousand Guineas winner Silent Cat. Adali previously served as Jockey Club president in 2012-13 and in 2013-15. His most recent term began Feb. 25, 2018.
BloodHorse: The Jockey Club of Turkey has made some significant recent stallion purchases. What types of stallions do you pursue? Are there specific qualities and traits you want these stallions to bring to the Turkish breeding program?
Serdal Adali: As you know, in the last two years we purchased seven Thoroughbred stallions, in order to enhance the variety of our stallion roster. Authorized (from Darley), Bodemeister (from WinStar), Daredevil (from WinStar), Myboycharlie (from Mezeray), Super Saver (from WinStar), and lately Victoire Pisa (from Breeders Stallion Station in Japan) and Kluger (from U Carrot Farm).
We meticulously reviewed the stallions on the market before each purchase. We look for good conformation and different bloodlines that we think suit our country's features. The criteria for importing breeding stock to Turkey are already strict, which ensures a certain quality level. In other words, we cannot import any horse. They or their progeny have to perform at the group 1 level and so on.
Our new stallions' representatives' impressive successes in group 1 races after being bought by our Club showed that we made good choices. For example, after we bought them, Santiago (by Authorized) won the Irish Derby (G1), Bodexpress (by Bodemeister) won the Clark Stakes (G1), and Happy Saver (by Super Saver) won the Jockey Club Gold Cup Stakes (G1).
BH: Daredevil had remarkable success and became a significantly more valuable horse in 2020. I imagine the debate over keeping him to improve Turkish breeding versus selling him. You ultimately retained him but are standing him in the U.S. at Lane's End. Can you talk about this innovative arrangement for the Jockey Club of Turkey? Does the Jockey Club stand stallions in other countries or is this the first?
SA: Yes, this is actually a first for Turkey. As you know, Shedaresthedevil and Swiss Skydiver, first and second in the Longines Kentucky Oaks (G1), are both Daredevil representatives. Following her Kentucky Oaks performance, Swiss Skydiver won the Preakness Stakes (G1) with the second best finish-time of Preakness Stakes and went down in history as the sixth filly to win this important race.
After the extraordinary success of Daredevil's progeny, many farms sent us offers to purchase him. However, considering his young age, we have decided not to sell but to stand him in the U.S. We chose Lane's End because it is one of the most important farms in Kentucky and its reputation in the stallion business is second to none. Daredevil will be serving to the global breeding industry as long as the foreign breeders show high interest in him.
Also, with the two new recent additions from Japan for the 2021 breeding season, being Victoire Pisa and Kluger, our stallion stock will be even richer with some new bloodlines.
BH: Why did the Jockey Club see Daredevil as a promising acquisition?
SA: We did have the good fortune to buy him, but it was not only good fortune since our stallion purchasing committee members work very hard to make these right choices, and I'm thankful to them. Daredevil was already a good sire with promising progeny. I can say that we acted at the right time.
BH: How does an arrangement like Daredevil's fit into Turkey's long-range goals?
SA: Turkey should and will become a more global player with time. We actually haven't been promoting internationally the Turkish racing and breeding sector a lot. We think that this kind of international arrangement is beneficial for both parties, and we believe that this particular one with Daredevil will create some interest toward our local sector from abroad.
BH: Does Turkey hope to appeal to European breeders? What are the opportunities and obstacles?
SA: Yes it does. We think that the geographical closeness, lower costs, and good quality breeding operations are important factors for European breeders. We have been doing business with Europe for a very long time in terms of horse related matters, so we know each other very well.
In that direction, another important development that I would like to mention is that the problematic issue of control of Equine Piroplasmosis as an obstacle for importation of horses to Turkey, was removed from the Health Certificate for EU countries by the end of 2019, in order to facilitate the importation of horses from Europe.
On this occasion, I would like to invite breeders from abroad to send their mares to Turkey to be covered by our stallions. We are ready to assist them with our professional team in organizing their trip, and they can directly contact us for any question or information they may have or need.
BH: Are there any initiatives to recruit new owners and fans to the sport?
SA: We've been trying to change the wrongly adopted perception of horse racing by many as a betting-oriented sector. We always say that betting is not a goal for us but a means to finance this great sector that creates hundreds of thousands of jobs, which also has an enormous socio-economical impact on the country.
The Jockey Club of Turkey is a non-profit association for public benefit with a core mission of development of horse breeds. We are not a betting focused organization but a horse and horsemanship focused one.
The saying "the sport of kings and king of sports" is so true, and we constantly try to make people see the beauty and healing power of these magnificent creatures. We've been trying to give our people the opportunity to get in touch with horses with our social activities, such as Equine Therapy Centers for our disabled children and also pony riding areas at our racecourses.
We have attracted a lot of public interest with our last advertising campaign with a title that could be translated as: "This is not a matter of betting" or "Betting is not at stake." It was a very successful campaign.
We are very happy to see that many new owners have been coming into the sector.
For example, in order to support the Turkish breeders and the industry itself, we have been keeping the covering fee of those new stallions relatively low compared to their original fees abroad.
When we look at the number of horses boarding at our facilities, we see an increase by 37% in 2020 compared to the numbers in 2017. As a result, we are planning to increase the stable capacity of our stud farms.
BH: Are there plans for improving racing and/or training facilities, too?
SA: The infrastructure and the tracks are among our top priorities. We regularly invite the best experts from France, UK, and the U.S. to review our tracks. In their reports, they all praise the general condition of the tracks and our maintenance programs. We do not refrain from any investment to keep the good condition of our tracks and renew both the infra- and superstructures immediately when needed.
In 2019, we renewed the training tracks of Istanbul and Bursa Racecourses, and the racing track of Bursa Racecourse. In 2020, we renewed the synthetic and dirt tracks of Ankara, Adana, Şanlıurfa, and Diyarbakır Racecourses.
BH: Is the Jockey Club of Turkey implementing any new or expanded training and education programs?
SA: Regular training of our staff, to keep them updated about the recent innovations and major practices applied in their fields from the leading countries, is another priority for us. In that sense, we conduct trainings for the stewards, veterinary surgeons, farriers, racetrack officials, and the students at our Apprentice Training Center. Those periodical trainings are held through the participation of domestically and internationally renowned experts.
In the last three years, we have organized numerous training programs, lead by 14 experts from Europe and the U.S. We have sent 17 of our veterinary surgeons to the UK and U.S. for training and also have sent our turf track maintenance team to the training organized by the Institute of Groundsmanship, which provides consultancy about turf maintenance, to racecourses and sports clubs in the UK.
As the most important actors of our sport, we've been educating the future jockeys in the Apprentice Training Center at the Veliefendi Racecourse with a two-year, full-time program.
Besides that and for the first time in Turkey, we will start providing training to the future lads at the center we are building at Karacabey. At this new center, while forming the basics of the newly "Lad System," we are planning to implement in Turkey, we will also train new farriers.
We have signed a collaboration memorandum with the British Racing School for establishing the program and training of the trainers to be employed at the center.
BH: What has been the impact of the coronavirus pandemic?
SA: During the pandemic, besides all the precautions we have implemented with utmost care and discipline since day one, we also have taken as many steps as possible to aid and support all the members of our sector financially.
In the first months of the pandemic, horse racing in Turkey was suspended for 82 days, from March 20 to June 10. As a result, sector members were deprived of the prize money obtained from the races, which is their main source of income. So, when the races resumed in June, we immediately increased the number of races, raised the prize money by 5% and increased the owners' premiums from 10% to 15%, in order to prevent the negative effect of the pandemic by compensating the loss of the horsemen during the 82 days without racing.
We also made a second raise to the prize money by 20%, effective from Nov. 1. In the beginning of 2020, the amount of distributed prize money was planned to be 710 million TRY, however, we achieved to distribute 738 million TRY by the end of the year, in despite of the pandemic.
There are, of course, other indirect financial supports that the Jockey Club of Turkey has provided like not collecting rent for the stables on our racecourses, postponing the due payments of horse owners by six months, and not raising the monthly boarding fees of the stallions, mares, and foals at our facilities.
We also asked for the support of our Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry for additional aid to the owners, trainers, and jockeys. As a result of our collective efforts, a cash support of 20 million TRY was distributed directly to all of these important members of the horse racing industry.
Also, to support our 3,000-plus off-track betting shops during the difficult period of non-racing, half of the 100 grams indemnity we have for each OTB, was given back to them. We also have increased their premiums by 36% from 1.1% to 1.5%, which created an extra gain of 9 million TRY.
BH: How would you describe the current state of Turkish breeding and racing and its potential to grow each?
SA: Turkey is one of the top 10 horse racing and breeding countries in the world and one of the top five in Europe, with about 7,000 active horses in training and about €1 billion betting turnover per year. We are trying to constantly improve and we believe that Turkey still has a great potential to achieve and to grow. To realize this growth and development, we try to implement all these mentioned projects one by one as the conditions allow us.
Another first for Turkey, we have been building a training center with a 744-box capacity at one part of the Karacabey Stud Farm, which will be equipped with an equine clinic and two different tracks—one being a dirt track and the other one being a semi-synthetic track with silica sand.
Each owner or trainer will have his/her own private stable yard at the center, and we believe that this newly implemented training center system will have a large and positive impact over the quality of our racing industry, especially for the training of 2-year-olds.
