BHA On The Road To Address Key Issues

The fourth and final British Horseracing Authority (BHA) Industry Roadshow rolled into Newmarket on Friday after stops throughout the week in York, Musselburgh and Cheltenham.

This is the third year in succession that BHA chief executive Nick Rust and his team, have headed out into racing's parish to meet industry participants face to face. While nobody in British racing can pretend everything in the garden is rosy, there were at least some positive bulletins to be issued by Rust, who has now been in his post for a little over two years and has won over plenty of supporters through his plain-speaking openness.

The tripartite agreement between the Racecourse Association (RCA), Horsemen's Group and BHA has been a major achievement during Rust's tenure, bringing about an era of much-needed harmony between racing's key stakeholders, which was emphasised by the inclusion of Rust's counterparts, Stephen Atkin of the RCA and Philip Freedman of the Horsemen's Group, each taking turns to address the roadshow delegates. They were joined by the BHA's chief operating officer Richard Wayman, and Rod Street, the chief executive of the sport's promotional arm, Great British Racing (GBR).

As the BHA awaits the finalisation of the Levy Replacement Scheme by government, which is set to come into play in April, the potential extra income likely to be generated for British racing from the scheme is between £30-40 million. However, with expenditure having exceeded income over the last two years, Rust cautioned, “We maintained that expenditure to safeguard the 6,500 people employed on the frontline of the sport and the 17,000 employed in the sport generally, but what it means is, when we talk about £30 million extra income, the actual impact of the income is more likely to be £12 to 15 million after we get this year out of the way. What it does do of course is avoid that very big Levy cliff that we've been facing.”

A new Racing Authority will be set up in order to allocate the extra money set to be made available. There are plenty of areas in which it could be spent, not least in boosting the current level of prize-money available in the lower tier of racing. Despite a 12% growth in prize-money since 2014 to almost £138 million, a significant portion of the increase has been awarded to the country's more prestigious races, a fact acknowledged by Richard Wayman in his address.

He said, “Over the last 10 years the number of racehorse owners has been falling, with that trend only starting to reverse in the last 12 months. I don't believe it's any coincidence that through that period we've seen the gap between the top and bottom of the sport widen considerably. Total prize-money has risen significantly over the last few years but races run for £3,500 12 years ago are still being staged at that level today. The average amount recovered by an owner for every pound they spend is about 26p, but for an average horse, rated around 70, that drops to 8p in the pound.”

Wayman added, “We have to remember that owning horses is aspirational and everyone should be aiming for the top. It's critical that our best races remain internationally competitive but if we are going to start growing ownership, as well as attracting new people, we have to stop losing owners at the sport's grass roots, who are increasingly finding other ways to spend their money.”

From a high of 9,550 registered owners in Britain in 2007 at the time the global financial crisis struck, the number has declined steadily, to 7,892 in 2015. The halt in decline referred to by Wayman amounted to a slight increase to 7,946 last year, but this was through an increase in partnerships and syndicates, with the number of sole owners continuing on a downward slide.

Nick Rust's stated aim to have 1,000 more horses in training by 2020 at his inaugural roadshow of 2015 appears halfway to being achieved, with an additional 505 horses having gone into training during that time.

The work of Rod Street's GBR team is varied and largely involved with promoting racing to a wider audience. The upturn in the number of registered syndicates in racing has prompted GBR to launch the website inthepaddock.co.uk which offers information on shared racehorse ownership.

“It's almost a bit like 'compare the market',” said Street. “People can go in and search for the kind of package they want, they can search by postcode to find a racing club or syndicate near them and hopefully just find out a lot more about what's available.”

The issue of the ongoing shortage or racing staff was discussed at length, with the BHA's director of people and development Carole Goldsmith leading a panel which outlined the measures being taken to recruit staff and to enhance current training programmes, as well as the problems faced in retaining trained staff.

George McGrath, chief executive of the National Association of Stable Staff, raised the fact that despite the current stable staff workforce being fairly evenly split between male and female employees, a far higher number of women are coming in to racing yards. He stressed the need for proper childcare provisions being made available at the hours kept by racing staff, a call that was backed up by former Racehorse Owners Association president and trainer's wife, Rachel Hood.

Trainer Luca Cumani was another to join the staff debate, asking what measures were being taken to retain the many European workers employed in British racing who could be affected by changes in residency rules in the wake of the Brexit vote. Goldsmith countered that representations are already being made to government to classify racing's employees as skilled workers and thereby enhance their right to remain in Britain.

While acknowledging that British racing still faces many challenges, Nick Rust's closing address focused on the benefits of the sport's stakeholders having largely agreed to present a unilateral front in attempting to improve the lot of racing's large workforce as well as its investors.

“British racing is growing up and realising its potential,” he said. “We have much more we can achieve. I know the quality of people we have right across our industry and if we can harness that and keep focusing on our common goals, we can not only reverse difficult trends but grow this sport and make it resonate fully with the current and future generation of sports fans, attracting more income and interest for our sport.”