Back in June as part of the newly elected UK government’s emergency budget, fiscal penalties cast a shadow; namely capital gains tax, which rose from 18 per cent to 28 per cent for top-bracket earners. 

However, there is at least one way to avoid this: bloodstock. Horses and horseracing is currently beyond the reach of UK finance minister George Osborne, with (incidentally along with betting duty today) a healthy zero per cent capital gains tax rating, regardless of income bracket.

Of course, with all speculation a prerequisite of any plan to exploit the favourable treatment of returns is establishing the returns themselves. As far as bloodstock is concerned, there are several ways in which one can become part of a very rewarding but normally expensive hobby. One route into this market is through the syndicate, such as the European racing ownership company, Highclere Thoroughbred Racing (founded in 1992), along with many other syndicate companies.

The cost of putting a horse through training for one year alone as a sole owner will cost an average of £97,000 (around $154,000). This includes the purchase price of the horse at an average of £55,000, training fees per annum around £30,000 plus the additional costs such as transport, bloodstock agent commission, insurance and vet fees of around £12,000. These costs won’t even guarantee your horse makes it to the racecourse, of course.

The benefits of syndicates are that costs are curbed and members keep your options open, often having more than one horse as part of the syndicate and in training with different trainers.

At one end of the spectrum, at Highclere Thoroughbred Racing, there are a maximum of 20 owners per syndicate and costs starting from £6,950 for two years, while on another side, there is the likes of Elite Racing, where an individual pays a membership fee of £185 for the year as one of between 13,000 and 15,000 other members.

Highclere boasts lifetime revenues of £26.3 million on capital outlays of £18.5 million and profits stem from winnings at the track and ultimately selling on the original stock first bought on behalf of the syndicate owners. According to its website, Highclere says “some seventeen per cent of Highclere's runners have won or been placed in group or listed company, making Highclere the most successful multiple ownership company in Europe”.

One such profitable vehicle, a horse called Petrushka, was not only untouchable on the track – earning nearly £400,000 in the process of becoming one of the sport’s greatest mares of recent time  – but also a world record holder on the basis of the price of her sale on retirement to the Maktoum family for $5.25 million. As a yearling, the filly cost 110,000 guineas (A guinea = £1.05) and earned her syndicate owners a nearly a 600 per cent return on their initial investment.

Over and above a degree of expectation that a person might show a return for an investment, the experience of racehorse ownership takes patrons into the always hugely compelling, sometimes mysterious, often emotionally exhausting but undoubtedly rarely dull world of horseracing. If you are going to take a punt, now would certainly be timely. It certainly pays to consider the syndicate route.