Looking to the future

PHILIPPE AUGIER has been in the room where things happen in the French racing and politics for nearly 50 years.

It may have seemed as if his influence in the racing world was no longer of the highest importance, even though he is a board member of France Galop and is the long-serving mayor of Deauville, one of the centres of French racing and breeding, however, COVID-19 has changed many things for many people and the pandemic created an unheralded crisis for racing all over the world.

Augier’s role in helping France Galop emerge from lockdown as early as May 11, saving millions for both the French state and the racing authorities, demonstrated the influence he is able to wield on both the French racing and political worlds.

At more or less the same time, Bertrand Meheut, the president of the PMU, unexpectedly decided to step down and so, and more or less directly, Augier found himself being put forward as a potential replacement. His appointment for a four-year term as president of PMU was confirmed by the government in June 2020.

“I do not of course know exactly how my nomination came about,” Augier explains.

“Edouard de Rothschild [the president of France Galop] called me to say Meheut had decided to step down immediately and when I pressed him on possible replacements he just said that he had an idea.

“It was a short time afterwards that he told me he wanted to put my name forward as it is the government which appoints the president of the PMU on the recommendation of the racing authorities.

“I hesitated overnight before agreeing. It is a non-executive position and when reflecting I realised it was a challenge I could take up.

“I strongly agree with the new direction the PMU’s chief executive Cyril Linette has taken over the last two years and I believe my role will, above all, be to work on the relations between the PMU and the government and the state, and its relation with the racing authorities.

“There is great deal which needs to be changed in both directions to enable us to realise the PMU’s full potential.”

The PMU is the third-largest pari-mutuel company in the world, and the largest outside Asia. It dominates betting on racing in France, even if a few competitors have been authorised recently, and is a major player in sports betting in France, too.

Aside from organising betting it also owns and runs Equidia, the French racing channel. The PMU is present in one form or another in 100 countries and has an annual turnover of around €10 billion producing a profit of between €600-800 million which, in turn, is passed on to the French racing authorities with half going to France Galop and half to the trotting equivalent.

The French state’s cut of the turnover is a similar amount of around €750 million a year. Needless to say the president of the PMU is an important position for the government, but above all for the racing world which depends upon the PMU to provide and develop its income.

France’s last pre-COVID meeting was held in Marseilles on the evening of Monday, March 16. The following day the country went in to lockdown and all racing was cancelled with no date set for its resumption.

The PMU’s 13,200 betting outlets in cafes and shops all over the country were, of course, closed too. From one day to the next turnover collapsed to about 10 per cent of its usual level, although the PMU continued taking bets on the internet on racing in Hong Kong, Scandinavia and wherever it could find live racing to maintain an income stream.

France Galop then was losing €6 million of revenue every week.

After a month with still no end of lockdown in sight France Galop was determined to ensure the government was fully aware of the implications lockdown had for the racing and breeding business. France Galop wanted to ensure that racing was allowed to resume as soon as the country emerged from its restrictions; by then May 11 had already been put forward as a possible date for the end of the strict confinement.

Towards the end of April a video meeting was held in which the participants included the ministers of the budget and of agriculture, the president and chief executive of the PMU, the president of the trotting authority, as well as Eric Woerth, the mayor of Chantilly, an ex-minister and leading figure in France’s centre-right opposition party, and Augier.

At the meeting it was agreed that given the importance to the whole of the racing and breeding sector racing would be allowed to resume behind closed doors with strict sanitary controls from the first day after confinement, probably on Monday, May 11.

All of the local administrations concerned were informed and all of the formal procedures necessary were put in place. Meanwhile, a programme was devised by France Galop and trainers all over the country began to work, plan and enter their horses.

On May 7, the Thursday before racing was due to resume, Emmanuel Macron, the President of France, held a “Conseil de Défence et Securiteé Nationale”, a formal and relatively rare meeting between the President, the Prime Minister and a restricted group of the most senior ministers to decide matters of the highest importance, including, of course, the end of the strict confinement.

At the end of this meeting it was announced that “racing is a sport like all of the others” and would not be allowed to resume immediately or at any specific moment in the future.

CONSTERNATION at France Galop and among all of those who had taken part in the April meeting was followed by frantic hours of discreet lobbying and explanations. Late in the day the decision was reversed and ParisLongchamp held its first meeting as planned on Monday, May 11.

Augier is more than familiar with the inside workings of the French state and France Galop and the racing world.

For 30 years he was a director of the Deauville sales, or the Agence Française as it was then known, and was the prime mover in transforming a domestic sales company into an important part of the international bloodstock market.

In 2006, he took a step back from the bloodstock world following the creation of Arqana, while remaining a figure in the racing world not least due to his position as the mayor of Deauville, a post he has held since 2001 and to which he was re-elected in 2008, 2014 and again this year 2020.

Augier’s political career began in 1970 when he became part of the committee of the “young giscardiens” those who believed that Valery Giscard d’Estaing represented the hopes of the younger generation.

In the 1990s Augier took up a formal position in the team of the then mayor of Deauville, Anne d’Ornano, before taking over from her as mayor in 2001.

Connections have always been part of Augier’s life and those within his inner circle would probably include, for instance, both Jean Claude Rouget, one of France’s leading trainers, and Edouard Philippe, the mayor of Le Havre, Deauville’s closest city, and the

Prime Minister of France from 2017-2020. Since racing in France resumed and, coinciding with Augier’s arrival at its head, the PMU has been booming registering a record turnover in July and its chief executive has already upgraded his provisions for the year.

With almost all other sports still cancelled – the French football season was abandoned at the beginning of lockdown – racing is enjoying a particular moment when it is the only live game around.

“What is most encouraging,” Augier says, “is that the gains made in internet betting during lockdown are still there even though our outlets have been open since May 11.

“This suggests the PMU is attracting a new audience.”

Before COVID-19, 85 per cent of turnover in France came through the PMU outlets; on-course betting was only two per cent of the total in 2019.

Internet betting is vital for the PMU’s future and it is planning to make significant investments in new software this year.

“Once I was presented with the figures,” Augier says, “it was an easy decision to take. It will be a significant sum, but we can’t move forward without the right structure.

“As we are today there would be a delay of a year to 18 months to introduce a new bet; thanks to the investment we should be able to reduce this time lag to just months.”

Cyril Linette was director of sport at Canal+, France’s principal subscription television channel, before moving to l’Equipe, the daily newspaper which covers every sport except for racing, and then to the PMU in 2018.

A year later he appointed Arnaud de Courcelles, who was the director of l’Equipe’s television channel, to run Equidia.

Since his arrival the PMU had, before Covid, succeeded in returning to growth after years of stagnation.

His policy had been to refocus the PMU and Equidia on the essentials – reducing the number of races offered and centering Equidia, its marketing and promotions, on real horse players, those who follow racing and know something about it.

His other insight is that betting on horseracing is something which is more often than not passed on from one player to his friends or family.

“I was,” Augier remembers, “one of only a few in the racing world who supported Linette’s ideas when he arrived.

“Now that I have got to know him and the impressive team he has built I am more than ever sure that the PMU is going in the right direction.

“He has succeeded in making the PMU more efficient and closer to its clients.”

Augier says there are no plans to move away from pool betting, but he is keen to introduce some form of betting on jockeys.

“We all know that the equine stars are not around for long,” he explains, “and so we want to make our jockeys better known and appreciated particularly as in France, thanks to the allowances France Galop introduced some years ago, we have several top-class female jockeys.

“Only 30 per cent of the PMU’s current customers are female and so that is one area where there is scope for expansion.”

AUGIER is a strong supporter of the strategic choices the PMU has taken in recent years, but he is happy to leave the daily running of the business to Linette and his teams while he turns his attention to external relations. The PMU is closely linked to various different ministries. The Finance Ministry, which receives a percentage of turnover, the Ministry of Agriculture, which is responsible for breeding and which is part-financed by the PMU, and the Ministry of the Interior, responsible for overseeing betting.

“I shall be working closely with all three ministers,” Augier says.

“I am not certain that in recent years that “Bercy” [the finance ministry] and the racing authorities have really understood each other, we need to build a new, more efficient relationship.

“I believe the racing authorities need to adapt more of their strategy to support the PMU, we all wish to see the PMU and its turnover upon which racing relies grow.”

Augier is by nature a man of enthusiasms. Once he is convinced himself he has always been excellent at communicating and passing on ideas to other people.

Politics, Deauville and racing have been his determining passions for decades and in many ways it seems surprising that it has taken COVID-19 to propel him to place where he can combine his experience and connections for the good of all three.