Ruby Walsh: BHA needs to regulate and remember that less is more
Oh, the pleasure of having one body in charge of your sport came home to roost for Irish racing during the week.
Horse Racing Ireland looks after all things commercial for the sport here in Ireland. Sitting on its board is a cross representation of the industry bodies, stakeholders, and the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board, the regulator. In theory, that’s a pretty simple structure and, on the whole, works well, whereas our neighbours across the pond have a system that is anything but simple and one where nobody seems to be in charge.
The British Horseracing Authority, Racecourses and The Horsemen’s Group work together under the Members’ Agreement which came into play six years ago. Neither the Horsemen’s Group nor the Members’ Agreement has a chairperson but, more worryingly, it is a group of bodies seeking the best results for themselves and not necessarily the sport they are representing.
Well, that’s how it appeared this week anyway, when the regulator (BHA) demanded unanimity from the Horsemen’s Group, a cross-section of stakeholders in British racing to change the rule whereby racecourses could stage nine races per fixture.
Under the current BHA rules, racecourses can only schedule seven races and divide one to make eight, if necessary, but cannot schedule nine. Arena Racing Company (ARC), owners of 16 racecourses in the UK, had sought this rule change for its four all-weather tracks during the winter months.
To sweeten the deal for the stakeholders, they had promised to invest an extra £5m in prize money at their racecourses: £3.7m of their own money and £1.3m from the additional levy funds that the proposed 138 races would generate.
But that’s not a £5m split between these extra races; it was an investment in the total prize money at the 16 ARC racecourses. They stage over 500 fixtures a year, so at conservative six races per card, it equates to 3,000 races. Divide that into £5m, and it’s an increase of £1,666 per race. For seven-race cards, it’s £1,428 per race.
ARC had a financial gain, but two seats on the Horsemen’s Group voted against the deal. They were the trainers and jockeys association representatives - the National Trainers’ Federation (NTF) and Professional Jockeys’ Association (PJA) - who both stood to profit financially in the short term but took the long-term view that more is less.
Their opinion is that more races mean smaller fields which make for less competitive racing and, in the long term, turns people away from the sport in terms of attendees, owners and fans. More races only turn the sport into a complete betting product, and greyhound racing is the example.
Betting turnover and profits may be at an all-time high for the greyhound industry, but attendances are at an all-time low.
All the other seats favoured the ARC deal, but ARC was only the negotiator here because once you change a rule its outcome is for everyone, and it would have allowed every other course to follow suit.
But the BHA didn’t allow a majority to rule. It didn’t have a vote, but it set the rules and seems to have enforced the unanimity one here to force the result it wanted without taking the flak for stopping the deal.
ARC walked away from the table, accusing horse racing of self-harming because it wouldn’t take the money, and the Horsemen’s group retreated, realising it didn’t have any power over the BHA. Fixing the issues British racing has, in terms of how it is led, will take some very clever and robust people a while to sort out, but until all stakeholders realise the sport is more important than them, they are going nowhere.
Britain has more racing than it needs. It is just crammed into the same slots in a counterproductive way. Dividing the cake evenly between the racecourses on days when fixtures take place would be a start, but that means the BHA would have to raise its head above the parapet to regain control of the allocation.
The idea of pushing the BHA into a total regulatory role could be a disaster for the sport in the UK, and that would affect us here in Ireland.
The strength of British racing has a massive influence on the value of the horse racing industry in Ireland. Diluting the product devalues what you have and handing the steering wheel to the racecourses to drive the sport forward will not be sustainable long-term.
The majority of Irish racecourses are not run solely for the profits of the shareholders who own them. Plenty have local shareholders who use the racecourses in their area to help the local economy, with the profits staying within the racecourse.
Many UK racecourses are solely profit-driven and pushing the sport towards the greyhound model works for them in a financial sense.
More races earn the racecourses more money, but the races they already have could do that too.
The more complex version of adding more races to each race-day is to take some from other fixtures the tracks already have, increasing the races per day but reducing the days you race.
Give the tracks nine-race cards but take one in every nine fixtures they stage away. It would relieve the pressure on fixture congestion and give punters the time and space they want to assess, watch and enjoy each race.
It wouldn’t be my choice as I feel even eight-race cards make for dull days at run-of-the-mill meetings, but it would help stop the product’s dilution.
The racecourses need the product every bit as much as the product requires a shop window.
They are all in it together, but the BHA is supposed to be the regulator. It needs to regulate and to remember that less is more.
