Tom Christensen grew up on H.P. Simonsens Allé. A stone’s throw from Fyens Væddeløbsbane, where as a boy he jumped over the fence on race days to follow the horses on the oval in the south-western part of Odense.
In 1992 he was headhunted as head of racing at Klampenborg and for the past 22 years has lived and worked in North Zealand, but on 1 February he returns to the town of his childhood – as day-to-day manager of Fyens Væddeløbsbane. A position he himself describes as his greatest challenge in his 30 professional years in the sport.
”I feel as though the circle has been completed. Despite my many years on Zealand, my heart has always beaten for racing on Funen”, says Tom, who in his new position becomes responsible for the running of both trotting and gallop racing. He has not been involved with trotting for a long time, but it was actually with the trotters that it all began.
”My interest in the horses was awakened as early as when I was 10 years old. I lived only 500 metres from the racetrack, and in 1963 I climbed over the fence for the first time”, Tom laughs. ”I was of course spotted and hauled into the manager’s office, where I got a proper telling-off – but was still allowed to stay and watch the races”, he recalls.
”I got my first job leading horses for the trotting trainer Erik Madsen, and since then I have owned/leased six trotters. Now, however, it is the first time that I will also be working with them professionally”.
”The task is big; but not insurmountable”
The position as day-to-day manager does not include sporting factors such as conditions, prize-money budgets and declarations, as that part was long ago outsourced under the auspices of Dansk Hestevæddeløb. On the other hand there is a great deal of coordinating work, from suppliers and sponsors to the many voluntary organisations, the development of the children’s and youth work as well as contact with both Dansk Hestevæddeløb and Hestesportens Finansieringsfond.
First and foremost, however, it is about bringing Funen back into ”the good company” among the country’s racetracks.
”Together with the many voluntary associations and a strongly committed board we must prove that the decision to deprive Fyens Væddeløbsbane of any form of operating subsidy both was and is a blatant mistake”.
“I simply do not understand why it is three tracks that alone have to carry the whole load. Now we must encourage the main organisations to reconsider the decision. The task is big; but not insurmountable”, Tom explains, referring to the good 2½ million kroner that Fyens Væddeløbsbane has had removed in direct operating subsidies. A hole that must be covered through increased income and greater savings.
”Very different from Klampenborg”
In other words it will also be a different existence from the one Tom was used to at Klampenborg. For although every krone was fought for, there were also far more hands in the administration.
”In practice the new job will be very different from my role at Klampenborg, because with the exception of the facilities manager I am literally alone at the track, and in practice I will be doing everything myself. Fortunately there are also a number of voluntary organisations, who all deliver a huge amount of work”, he says.
One of the organisations is Fyns Galopklub, whose two front figures Per Meyn and Gert Larsen also sit on the board of Fyens Væddeløbsbane.
”And it is an extremely active board of seven members. They each deliver a gigantic amount of lobbying work in Odense Municipality among other places, and there is no doubt that they will all fight fiercely for the racetrack to be preserved”, says Tom, who himself has a past as both chairman of Fyns Galopklub and a board member at Fyens Væddeløbsbane from the mid-80s until he moved to Klampenborg in 1992.
Positive development and the biggest on-course betting in the provinces
In appointing Tom Christensen as the new day-to-day manager in Odense, the board has above all emphasised the results the former Klampenborg director brings with him in his luggage from the capital track’s turbulent years at the start of the new millennium.
”We are highly satisfied to be able to employ a person with such great experience in running a racetrack and we believe, hope and expect that Tom can contribute to the continuation of the fine growth in crowds and on-course betting that Fyens Væddeløbsbane has achieved over the past three to four years”, writes Fyens Væddeløbsbane’s chairman, Jørn Borch, among other things in a press release that was published on Monday.
Klampenborg Galopbane today has both Denmark’s biggest crowds and on-course betting, and nobody can take more credit for that than Tom Christensen, for it was under his administration that the many lean years under threat of closure were turned into black figures on the bottom line.
And it is that sense for savings – without it hurting too much – that may become the decisive factor for Fyens Væddeløbsbane in the future.
”Odense actually has the biggest on-course betting in the provinces. On the Nordic race days the total turnover has been over two million kroner, of which on some days more than a quarter of a million has been staked at the track. Those are big figures in the provinces”, says Tom and continues:
”Fyens Væddeløbsbane lies in the middle of Funen, in Denmark’s third-largest city, and it has 10% of the entire Danish population within a radius of 40 kilometres. I am not taking the chair to look at our limitations, but to cultivate the fantastic potential we have for the future”.
Has missed Funen – and Molly
That Tom, after more than 20 years on Zealand, is returning to the neighbourhood of his childhood is not entirely unexpected.
He has long had a burning wish to return home, and it is not the job as day-to-day manager at Fyens Væddeløbsbane alone that has tipped the scales either.
”It has been both a personal and a professional dream. I have a little late arrival of nine years old, whom I have missed enormously, and it cannot be described how much it means to me to have her close again. Very close indeed, because she goes to school a little further down Væddeløbsvej…”
