Ed Chamberlin talks to Steve Parkin, Chairman of Clipper Logistics and leading racehorse owner

Ed Chamberlin: How has lockdown been for you and your family?

Steve Parkin: We’re very fortunate to live on a 300-acre estate so the children haven’t been locked down in the house. They’ve been helping on the farm but have obviously become fractious as they were supposed to be doing their exams so that’s been a bit of a bad time for them but we’ve held up well and hopefully if lockdown starts easing the staff can start socialising with their friends and family again.

EC: What about the business, Clipper Logistics? I read on your website “it’s all about getting the job done no matter how complex.” I guess things can’t get more complex than they have been for the last few months?

SP: I woke up one morning to the news that we were going into lockdown - the whole world was turning off effectively. That gave us many challenges within our business because we are primarily in the retail space. Fortunately, after a brief hiatus to start with, as a lot our business is online, we started to see huge spikes in online shopping which basically meant Black Friday volumes every day for the last month.

From adversity we actually switched with our online business to record volumes. We were also approached by the Ministry of Defence back at the end of March asking if we could help with the distribution of PPE to hospitals. Within four days of getting the phone call we had a distribution network set up with 100 vehicles and 700 staff and now about 1.2 million square feet of warehousing so within eight weeks of not even working with the NHS, we have now been at the forefront of the PPE deliveries to hospitals and I’m pleased to say it’s been a huge success which has been highlighted by the government. So, from adversity, we seem to be doing very well.

We don’t know what’s at the end of this when things get back to normal but at the moment we’ve been very successful and are confident moving forward.

As you can imagine it’s a political hot-potato, there’s been an awful lot of air time about the lack of PPE into the front line, so we felt we were doing a service for the country, not only our own business. We’re delighted with what we’ve done. We employ 10,000 people and the furloughing of staff has actually been very small. The only ones furloughed are the ones who work in geographical areas where it’s impossible to get them to work.

If you look, our actual staffing levels were 20% up on normal times so we’re bucking the trend and recruiting through this process.

EC: Let’s move onto racing. Firstly, where do you stand on the resumption on June 1 - are you waiting nervously?

SP: Absolutely, but I think things are pointing now to us getting under way on Monday unless there’s some curveball in the next few days. The two things I’ve missed in the lockdown are football and racing. My team, Leeds United, are set to get promoted, hopefully, so we’re hoping the season gets concluded and we can go back to what we’d say is our divine right and a place in the Premier League!

The biggest thing I’ve missed with racing is the TV coverage because I work a lot of hours every day and getting home on an evening, flicking through replays, watching the two-year-old races, was my hour in bed before I went to sleep. Fortunately I’ve watched more of Cheltenham and races through the last few years but it will be great to get back to seeing some live sport again. Watching it at night helps me dream about winning Group Ones.

EC: How difficult a time is it going to be for owners not being at meetings like the Guineas Festival and Royal Ascot?

SP: Obviously you’d love to be there but we also know what’s going on in the wider world. If going behind closed doors means getting racing on without owners and racegoers then it’s a step in the right direction. We’ve made a lot of sacrifices, the cost of 80-odd horses in training is a couple of million pounds a year and a big number. These are the first steps and let’s see where it leads us but we have to make sacrifices. I’ll be able to watch them on TV and that’s what me and the other owners will have to do.

EC: Do you fear racing might become less attractive to smaller owners because of all of this and does racing face a challenge to keep all owners interested in our sport?

SP: We do. It’s a challenge and a significant one because at the end of all this there’s going to be a tsunami of financial problems. I think we’re all aware of that. That will affect the smaller owner who maybe has a leg or is in a syndicate of 12. That will be a challenge. I have a lot of friends who are big Leeds fans and I’ve been asked on a number of occasions “why do you put all that money into racing?”

I tell them your horse winning, be it a maiden at Ripon or race at Royal Ascot, the thrill of that is incomparable. I have got many people involved in racing who came to the races with me and ended it by deciding to have a horse. There’s probably been about half a dozen who will take a bit of a horse with me.

A friend of mine and I bought Suedois - he’s taken us all around the world and won £1.5million in prize money. He’s the lucky one. It was his first horse and he’s hooked. We shouldn’t undersell ourselves in racing. The thrill of a horse winning a maiden for three grand at Ripon is as good as Leeds winning the European Cup. We have got a product that is unique.

EC: What would give you most pleasure – breeding a Derby winner or Leeds being promoted to the Premier League?

SP: Funnily my daughter asked me the other day whether I’d prefer to own a Royal Ascot winner or see Leeds go up but to answer your question it would be to breed a Derby winner. I probably have about 150 horses, 80 in training, the rest breeding stock. We’ve had a very successful start to our breeding operation - we’ve got probably 25 elite mares that we’ve bought either privately or as a yearling and raced them. We have our first stallion this year in Soldier’s Call who covered 180 mares. The breeding side is very important to me. In terms of investing, as we know, you can’t make money out of racing horses. It’s a sport and you do it for the love if it.

When you get to the breeding side it’s a huge business and I’ve put an awful lot of investment into my farms and my stock and it’s something my children will be able to take on in future years when I’m no longer here. It probably won’t be in my lifetime but it would be great to be talked about alongside the likes of Juddmonte; that’s our lofty ambition in breeding.

EC: We saw your emotional side at York this year after Living In The Past won the Lowther. It clearly meant a great deal to you?

SP: In 2012 Rosdhu Queen, trained by William Haggas, won the Lowther on the Thursday of the Ebor Meeting. Unfortunately, my father had been taken into hospital. York was his favourite track, I used to take him everywhere with me and it was him who got me into racing by having a bet on a Saturday afternoon when the only sport on TV live was horse racing, with the ITV7.

My father used to sit there and have a bet and I remember being fascinated as he screamed at the television, it seemed he was usually always up against Lester Piggott, and that’s where my interest was born although I don’t gamble.

When I was successful and started buying racehorses my father went everywhere with me. He was quite a character and unfortunately the Thursday of that Lowther he went to hospital and I didn’t think much of it, I just thought it was a routine check.

We then won the Lowther and my father took a turn for the worse and died on the Sunday which was obviously heartbreaking. But he’d watched the race at York in hospital and saw me dancing around the parade ring and then seven years later last year we were very fortunate to win it again with Living In The Past and it was emotional because, although we enjoyed it in 2012, there was a tingle of sadness. I felt last year the old man was looking down on us when we won it again.

EC: You’ve a great team for the new season – which horses are you most excited about?

SP: I went to Richard Fahey’s the other day to see Space Traveller and he’s done amazingly well. He’s a different horse to last year and I think it’s common knowledge but his work has been exceptional this spring. We can’t wait to get him back on track and he’ll go straight to Royal Ascot for the Queen Anne and all the big mile races for the older horses after that.

We’ll probably try to aim him at Juddmonte International at York. He’s by Bated Breath but out of a Galileo mare and in his two-year-old career Richard was trying to turn him into a sprinter. Danny Tudhope and I felt he might get further and when we stepped him up in trip he got better and better and we think he’ll get ten furlongs now. The Irish Champion Stakes is another race we might look at and hopefully by the time we get there he’s won two or three Group Ones and we’re heading to the covering sheds!

We had a very, very good horse last year in Eagles By Day with Michael Bell who we thought might be a Derby horse. He won a maiden at Salisbury by half the track then went to the King Edward VII at Royal Ascot and got beat by Japan, by two-and-a-half or three lengths, but was stopped in his run and would have been closer with a clear passage. We ran him in the Bahrain Trophy with the idea of going to the Leger but unfortunately he bombed out at Newmarket and it turned out he had a fracture in his knee.

We brought him back home for six months of recuperation and he’s flying for Michael again now. We think he’s a Group horse and might be a Cup horse but from a breeding and stallion perspective he’d be better at a mile-and-a-half but I’d love him to be a Cup horse. Jamie Spencer is adamant he’s a Melbourne Cup horse too.

We’ve got 30-odd two-year-olds and I’m told by the trainers that this is the best crop I’ve ever had – and I bred half of them which augurs well for the mares. We have some very exciting ones. I’m led to believe from Archie Watson, who trained Soldier's Call, that a colt called Identified is going well. He’s like Soldier's Call and he’s by Showcasing from a good family. Archie tells me at this stage he’s better than Soldier's Call. We’ll try and get a run into him when we can and then go for the Norfolk with him. He’s supposed to be very special, I’m told.

EC: Have you got one from team Haggas for me to follow?

SP: I believe our best two-year-old was sent to him. He’s a personal friend and a fellow Yorkshireman, although he doesn’t talk like we do. He doesn’t live here anymore and I don’t know any other Yorkshiremen who supports a Lancashire football team, as he does with Burnley. I suppose he lived in Skipton so it’s just across the border from there.

He’s got a Frankel home-bred called Lady Rockstar. I always thought I’d be a rock star as a kid and she has that touch of arrogance about her. She’s with William and the feedback at the minute is they love her. She’ll be out mid to late summer I believe.

EC: You're famous for your business, your horses but probably most famous for your parties. Is the Prince story true?

SP: I’ll give you a quick resume of what happened. I’m a huge Bruce Springsteen fan and when we bought our estate we decided we wanted to showcase it to people within racing with a massive housewarming party.

Unfortunately, Bruce won’t do private parties but his daughter Jessica is an international show jumper and he buys horses from Ireland. Long story but I ended up getting to him and he asked for a synopsis of my life which I sent through. An ex-mineworker who started a one-man business and built it up into a nearly billion pound operation. So I wrote it and he replied to say he would do the party, for a lot of money obviously, but it was a dream come true to have Bruce playing on my front lawn.

He was on a world tour and they put an extra date in for Rochester in New York on the Friday night and our party was the Saturday. He tried to change it and it didn’t work out so unfortunately he had to pull out. I got the most magnificent letter saying he was sorry and hoped we had a great party. I had it framed and it takes pride of place with my racing trophies.

That put us in a dilemma. We couldn’t get Bruce and next on the list for me and my wife was Prince. We went out and got him after what was the hardest negotiations I’ve ever been involved in - it took about three months. He was flying in from Cincinnati on a private jet and didn’t want any food giving to him and my helicopter was picking him up at Leeds Bradford Airport and bringing him to the house. He would perform, but we could only have one photograph and none of the people could go near him and as soon as he finished he was leaving.

The lake at the front of my house was going to turn purple as he sang Purple Rain, we’d done all the songs he was going to sing, certain ones he wouldn’t. It was a palaver. But eventually we signed contracts. A few days later I was in London doing my roadshow for the city and Joe Foley, my friend and mentor in racing rang me. He was the only person I’d told who we were getting to play.

He called to tell me Prince had died and I gave him a load of expletives thinking he was joking, but he wasn’t. I put the TV on and saw it. It had taken months and months to negotiate the deal so we had to go on the third option which was Robbie Williams. He called himself the sub of subs and he was absolutely amazing.

My plan one day is to get Bruce Springsteen again. We have one every year during the Ebor Festival and it’s a nice way of celebrating York and inviting our friends in racing.

In the first party everyone was asking who was playing but I was keeping quiet so when they came they’d get a shock seeing who it was. But I said to William Haggas I’d tell him if he promised not to tell a soul. He said he wouldn’t but I told him it was Bryan Adams – and he duly told all and sundry.

The look he gave me when Robbie Williams walked out on the stage – and the expletives used – made my night. I’d done him up like a kipper!

EC: How important is this window racing is going to have from June 1 – with the sporting world to itself – for us to help sell the sport to the public?

SP: Absolutely crucial. I don’t think football is going to come back until July, if at all, and the opportunity for racing is there to sell the sport and sell the thrill.

You guys on ITV provide a great show, it’s got people back into racing, brought new people into it. I speak to people who’d never watched racing before but do now.

We have got a window of opportunity that we’ll never have in our lifetimes again. It’s vital for everyone, you guys, owners, breeders, trainers and jockeys to sell the sport to the outside world. I think the viewing figures will be huge – people in the UK want live sport to watch and it’s a massive opportunity.

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