Racing: Savill produces £5m carrot for horses to stay in Britain

A potential £5m bonus will be available to connections of a single horse running in Britain this summer as measures are taken to reduce the mane drain to valuable races elsewhere on planet racing.

Peter Savill and the BHB yesterday announced details of the Summer Triple Crown and Grand Slam, initiatives designed to keep the best of the domestic horses domestic.

A carrot of £1m awaits any horse which wins the Derby, Oaks or Coronation Cup at Epsom, or the Prince of Wales's Stakes at Royal Ascot, and then goes on the following month to take Sandown's Eclipse Stakes and Ascot's King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes.

The jackpot £5m is on offer to the owner of any horse which goes on to win the International Stakes at York on 19 August. History may tell us that the latter feat is impossible, but nine beasts have won the races which form this Triple Crown.

Most recently, Nashwan won the Derby, Eclipse and King George as a three-year-old in 1989, while Opera House was five when he won the Coronation Cup, Eclipse and King George in 1993.

If no horse completes the treble then the best performer in the nominated races will win £250,000 and the BHB Middle-Distance Championship. It will take a wonderhorse to win the pot. The leading considerations are High Chaparral and Brian Boru, from Aidan O'Brien's yard, as well as Marcus Tregoning's Nayef. They are around 20-1 and 25-1 to complete the Triple Crown. Expect a rather bigger price on the exchanges.

The World Series was built on a similarly dubious premise: that horses could be crated around from one major meeting to another like Grand Prix vehicles, but it did produce good winners such as Daylami and Fantastic Light, albeit the Godolphin horses the competition was organised to benefit.

Now Savill sees his new creation as the best method of keeping the good horses in house. "There is great pressure on our best middle-distance horses to go around the world in search of valuable prizes," he said. "As a consequence, there is no question that this has put pressure on our own middle-distance programme in Britain.

"We want to encourage all the best horses to compete in Britain as much as possible and with this initiative we can put together a strong narrative that has the potential to put racing on to the front page of the newspapers in the way only Cheltenham, Royal Ascot and the Classics do at the moment."

The project is being funded by the BHB, which will contribute £750,000, with a £500,000 marketing budget coming from the Levy Board. The remainder of the prize-money is covered by an insurance policy.

O'Brien, the most likely of the unlikely to win the bonus, was left with a troop of 30 horses in the Derby following yesterday's forfeit stage as he attempts to become the first trainer to win the Epsom Classic in three consecutive years.

Heading the O'Brien team, among a total entry of 143 for the £1.2m contest on 7 June, are the Racing Post Trophy winner Brian Boru, who will attempt to follow in the hoofprints of High Chaparral, also the winner of the Doncaster event as a two-year-old. O'Brien, who took the Epsom showpiece with Galileo in 2001, has other Group One scorers Hold That Tiger and Alberto Giacometti in his party.