BHA Takes To The Road For Industry Update

Following an initiative started by incoming Chief Executive Nick Rust three years ago, the fourth annual British Horseracing Authority Industry Roadshow toured the country this week, finishing its run in Newmarket on Thursday.

While led by the BHA, the forum is very much a collaborative effort between the sport's governing body and its tripartite partners in the Racecourse Association (RCA) and the Horsemen's Group. Thursday's panel included Charlie Liverton of the Racehorse Owners Association, the RCA's Stephen Atkin, and Great British Racing Chief Executive Rod Street.

“It's only nine weeks to the Guineas,” said Rust with a wry smile as he took to the stage and looked out across the snow-covered Rowley Mile.

The inclement weather may have brought jump racing to a halt in Britain this week, and has even affected some Flat meetings staged on artificial surfaces, but Rust was at pains to point out that horseracing, as the second-largest spectator sport in the country, is very much a year-round activity and that the continued expansion of the fixture list is necessary for the sport to survive and thrive. In 2018, there will be 1,508 race meetings in Britain–11 more than last year and up from 1,464 in 2013.

He said, “I would argue strongly that racing is on the up. We are seeing some of the indicators in our sport improving. We have increasing revenue coming from betting, partly because we closed the levy loophole through a great team effort, and partly because betting on horseracing is beating the international trends and growing, based on the last two years of information from the Gambling Commission. The growth is small but it is recognition of how important betting on British racing is to people and that will help to drive our revenues over the next few years.”

Rust continued, “That has led to record prize-money being projected for this year. We expect that prize-money in Britain will be £160 million this year. Only five years ago it was £105 million, so there has been significant growth. It is needed. Our sport had been going backwards prior to those five years in prize-money terms relative to growth in costs and so on.”

A combination of central funding and additional contributions from racecourses has helped this rise but it is the growth in fixtures, and in particular evening meetings, which has been a thorny topic with trainers, many of whom are under pressure from a shortage of available staff. With a current workforce that includes many different countries within the European Union, that situation could potentially worsen once the full immigration implications of Britain's exit from the EU are known.

The staffing issue is not the solitary concern for horsemen surrounding Brexit and Rust outlined the approach being undertaken by the BHA and a task force headed by Thoroughbred Breeders' Association Chairman Julian Richmond-Watson in raising key issues with government, such as the movement of horses within Europe post-Brexit.

“This is a key topic for our sport over the next year,” Rust said. “Come March 2019 we could be facing a situation where everything we've come to know when it comes to breeding racehorses, moving racehorses, campaigning racehorses internationally, will be challenged. The Tripartite Agreement between the UK, Ireland and France has been in place for more than 40 years and allows for free movement of horses between those countries under high-welfare status. If we do not sort out the arrangements under Brexit, we could be looking at border controls and quarantines between the UK and Europe. Hopefully that's an exaggerated outcome that I sincerely hope won't happen but our sport is working together now to ensure that we work closely with the government to get the right outcome.”

In acknowledging the urgent need to encourage more people to work in racing, Rust outlined that at least an extra £1 million is to be released for projects geared towards stimulating recruitment and retention of the workforce.

He said, “Finally there is good traction across our sport about the need to get behind it with resources rather than relying on government to assist us as in the past. More people left frontline jobs looking after our horses last year than joined, even though we had a record number of joiners. Retention is an industry-wide effort and we need to assist employers in retaining their staff.

“The BHA's responsibility is to coordinate efforts and to help provide the right environment for that. We also need to be aware of safeguarding issues with young people in racing and to make sure that we are providing the right environment for them to develop within the sport.”

One of the targets set out by Rust at the inaugural roadshow in 2015 was to increase the number of horses in training in Britain by 1,000 within five years. The Thoroughbred racehorse population has indeed increased, with the number of horses currently registered in training being approximately 14,500–the first time since 2011 that the country has had in excess of 14,000 horses. It is in this area, too, where the words recruitment and retention keep appearing.

Rust said, “We need to reinvigorate ownership, not just by retaining existing owners but also by bringing new owners into our sport. We set a target here three years ago of 1,000 extra horses in training and we have about an extra 700 but they are pretty much in at the top level of the sport concentrated around the leading owners. When that target was set it was designed to say 1,000 extra horses with owners in a sustainable way. Even though we are quite a long way towards the numerical target, I don't think we've got there yet and there's quite a lot of work to do on that.”

One way in which ownership could start to be boosted is through an increase in funding for lower-tier racing to the tune of £9.7 million this year. That 'grassroots' support means that Class 6 races should not be run for less than £6,000, in some cases meaning that these contests for a significant proportion of the horse population have doubled in value.

“We needed to do something about that as we were losing owners at a rate that is not desirable,” Rust admitted.

As well as the potential fallout from Brexit to contend with next spring, British racing will also have a new Racing Authority, which will come into effect in April 2019 to replace the Levy Board. The authority, which will have two representatives from each of horseracing's tripartite structures–the racecourses, the horsemen and the BHA–will be chaired by Sir Hugh Robertson, the former Minister for Sport and the Olympics, who has already taken up his role in a 'shadow authority' working through a transitional phase as the Levy Board is wound down.