New order in jeopardy if self-interest prevails

With the Festive period in the rear-view mirror, we now turn our focus to the year ahead. Towards the end of December, the BHA announced changes to the 2023 fixture list in order to accommodate the Racing League and Sunday Series. Both initiatives, now in their third year, were designed to inject innovation and grow audience numbers. Whilst dividing opinion, initiatives to attract a younger audience and increase prize-money must be welcomed. It will be interesting to see how these types of initiatives will be woven into the strategy discussions that are ongoing. 

Talking of the strategy discussions, the new structure is now in place and work across the whole spectrum of the industry is well underway. The next few months will be revealing, as the new Commercial Committee makes its first recommendations to the BHA Board. While the content of the initiatives is key, the interaction of the new committees and the BHA Board will throw light on whether the new system can deliver the changes that the sport so desperately needs.

It is pleasing to highlight the initial reaction of the project team to the work carried out by the ROA around ownership. Whilst criticism has been levelled at the pace of delivery, we are now seeing that the core work completed had the right inputs and outputs but no cross-industry implementation support or structure to allow real change and progress. Working as a collaborative Industry project team, British racing will have a much better chance of producing new and effective initiatives
to seize what are exciting opportunities.

A recent negative news story from the auction ring has highlighted once again the difficulties in the bloodstock sector and those that operate in it. Breeders and sales houses remain outside of the regulatory net so for once no stones can be thrown at our governing body. The case in point seems to be a single purchaser who has reneged on his bids; this has happened down the years and will no doubt happen again, but perhaps it has never been done on such a scale.

The adoption of the new Code of Practice, now printed in all sales catalogues, has been a step in the right direction. However, it may be time to look again at regulation of the bloodstock industry not only from a best practice perspective but also regarding equine welfare issues.

One aspect of buying and selling that remains an issue is the actual ownership of the animal in question. If the industry could establish a simple and clear method to allow full and frank disclosure of the financial ownership of the horse, it would make for a much more transparent system.

It would be remiss of me not to mention the whip review. The broad spectrum of industry representatives involved in the technical discussions concluded with what appeared to be a collective and aligned agreement around the proposals following an exhaustive 18-month review process.

The announcement unveiling the 20 recommendations was released on November 22, however on the eve of the bedding in period at the beginning of January, a handful of high-profile jockeys, backed by the PJA, rallied against the backhand only rule, saying this was impractical and unfair. Extensive discussions took place over the Christmas period and a change to the backhand only rule was accepted by the BHA Board. We are now into the soft launch of the new rules.

Commentary around the use of the whip is liable to induce a quick turn of the page, however there is an important issue to look at. In our brave new world, the veto has been jettisoned in favour of fact-based decision making. It is extremely worrying that after the very first decision under the new structure, one small and vocal group of participants forced change whilst threatening strike action. This despite their representative body, the PJA, being deeply embedded in the original consultation
and steering group’s work.

One could extrapolate this turn of events and be pessimistic about the chances of getting significant changes through regarding the fixture list, Sunday racing, prize-money agreements, bloodstock regulation and data sharing. Yet the new year brings renewed optimism; the noises coming from the Commercial Committee are positive, so, like waiting for your unraced two-year-old to run, let’s travel in hope.