Pay Those Boys!
Date: 9 May 2018
Luke Kemeys is a young man with the love, drive, skills, personality, and intelligence to help foster the New Zealand Racing industry.
Recently turned 30, Kemeys studied Accounting at Massey University, and after stints as an Accountant in Palmerston North, and Hawera, he moved to Auckland, where he formed accounting firm nextAdvisory with Phillip Smith, SchoolRebates.co.nz to help parents claim back money, and Boys Get Paid (for boys and girls to get involved in horse racing and everything that goes with it).
Not long ago, Luke and a couple mates paid a visit to Te Akau Stud as Ben, one of their friends, was producing a video for Te Akau's new yearlings: https://teakauracing.com/news/te-akau-sydney-yearlings-video-update/
“It was awesome, David (Ellis) took us all over the farm and it’s a lovely nursery,” Kemeys said.
“David and Te Akau Racing do a massive amount and I’ve said a number of times: if you took them out of the industry I’m not quite sure where we’d be. I’d say New Zealand Bloodstock would probably have a bit of a heart attack.
“They have a very wide network of people, that others could be envious of, and success breeds success, they deliver the results year after year. The excitement they create is good for the industry because it means more people get involved that may or may not have otherwise heard about the sport, or the fact that you can take a share (in a horse).
“Their content on the social side, website, communications to owners, is second to none and they probably lead the game in a number of those areas, and may do some of the little things a lot better than some of the competition, if you could call it that? It’s all for the better of the industry.”
Kemeys was 18 when bitten by the bug for racing.
“It’s when I first started going to the races, although I’d been prior with my father to Boxing Day races to see Granddad who would be at Ellerslie,” he said.
“I don’t mind a bet, raced a few horses, with a good group of lads and girls who are likeminded, and I’m coming up 12 years as a passionate fan of racing.
“I’m starting to better understand the breeding, seeing mares that I remembered on the race track now leaving foals, and the education process all takes time. It’s an interesting journey and part of what I’m doing allows me to put a lot of time into it.
“I want to help people get involved and we’ve got a Facebook Group called Boys Get Paid, which is sharing information about horses and it’s great to be able to put that content out. It’s evolved into a community or a movement is what we’re terming it now.”
A movement indeed, Boys Get Paid had around 6500 people in the group earlier this year, a figure that has increased to 8800.
“We set it up a number of years ago, so within the group is where everyone lives for a starter and the engagement rate is about 85%. So, every week 85% of that 8800 are seeing something and interacting with information that is coming out of that group: it might be a post saying we’re going to the Cox Plate, or we’re getting a share in a horse, or this is the horse to bet on from a certain stable this week. There is a range of different content that comes out each week.
“Underneath that, we have a website as well https://boysgetpaid.com/ which is getting pretty active hits every week, with a full preview from Ted McLachlan. We’ve got an Instagram following, people watching little videos and seeing images, and an email list of about 2000 of the 8800. No one is a paying member, but they belong to the group.”
Karaka Million night (Saturday 27 January), Kemeys hosted an event for the BGP members in conjunction with the Auckland Racing Club to enjoy the evening. He also ran an impressive punters club with 500 participants from their group involved.
“We ran a punters club, where people put in $100 and we ended up with $58,000. We turned that amount into $136,000, which was pretty phenomenal, and plenty of credit to Te Akau there because we backed Melody Belle (1st), Embellish (2nd) to place, and Avantage (1st) in the Karaka Million, so we have them to thank for getting those horses ready to race so well that night.
“That was an event, but mainly people do their own thing, and we’ll try and keep the Karaka Million type events quite exclusive and maybe look to do two or three like that each year.
“I think the Karaka Million is something we (New Zealand) could turn into our Melbourne Cup. It sounds pretty lofty, but I was recently watching highlights of Black Caviar, and Winx, and you see the people there and my thoughts are, why can’t we have the same sort thing? I think the Karaka Million, in my mind, could be the closest thing we get to doing it, outside of Cup Week in Christchurch, and we plan to work closely with the Auckland Racing Club to grow it and create that atmosphere, run the punters club and live stream some of the things that are going on. I recently went to Nelson, and it turned out the whole pub was watching the punters club from Nelson. They had the whole pub involved, and going ‘holy, what do you mean there’s $20,000 on this horse to place?’
“These are the sorts of people that are wondering how they can be involved, next time, so people can buy shares and we can make it nationwide.”
Kemeys gives an enormous amount of his time to this venture, likes helping people, and rewards are forthcoming.
“I’m a pretty giving person and while I’ve got some life goals, they’re not necessarily all financial, and I think we can, generally, help change the racing industry and there is a lot of satisfaction in that,” he said.
“To maintain the growth of it (Boys Get Paid) and keep it all running smoothly, I hope someone or a racing body will look after me along the way. I think it will happen, but I’m just being patient about it.
“I don’t necessarily want it (money) to be coming from the 8800 individually. My strategy is the longer you can go without asking an audience for some money then the more engaged they’ll stay if they believe in what you’re doing.
“At the end of the day, we currently have a growing audience of 8800 people in a really segmented niche that [other] people haven’t been able to build, so we’re sitting on a very powerful target market for someone, once they click. The money will come, I have no doubt, but it’s not a priority at this stage.”
With the recent appointment of the most successful racing administrator in Australia, John Messara, by Racing Minister Winston Peters, to the review New Zealand racing and its governmental structures, plans are afoot for the industry to change for the better.
“We could be sitting on a goldmine, who knows?” Kemeys said. “Over the next 12 months we’ve got a goal to have three horses racing in the Boys Get Paid silks, try and transition some of the people that may just have a bet to become an owner in one-percent in a horse and get involved in that experience.
“We want to continue putting out better content for the racing public, more video content, reviews, previews, using technology, and then a few big events. We want to carry on doing what we’re doing, but make it a bit ‘richer’ as such, give people what they want.
“Some of the South Island lads are screaming out for an event down there. It’s where a lot of the members are actually from, so we need to organize something but they don’t seem to have any trouble staging a big event on their Cup Day.”
Kemeys is obviously a young man with plenty of energy and resources to get the job done.
“Building an accounting business from scratch and also SchoolRebates, I’ve got a bit on my plate. I’ve got a high appetite for work, so I’m managing at the moment but it’s probably not sustainable for the next five years and I’ll give myself another couple of years to dedicate to these three things and see what we can do. We’re playing a long game, but we’ll assess it.
“It’s been great to get some acknowledgement from people in the industry, like David Ellis, and others that understand how hard the industry is to operate in. We showed David the video of us on Karaka Million night, a four-minute recap that’s on our website, and to see his excitement about what we’d done is the sort of thing that drives us to keep pushing and feeling that we’re making a difference. It means a lot and nothing is achieved without hard work.”
