Sunday Times
17 August 2025
So is this it? For decades British racing has been sending distress signals only to be ignored by government and still survive. The unprecedented “strike” whereby the BHA will cancel all four race meetings on Wednesday 10th September to protest against a betting tax hike comes after long years of ebbing tide. Unless the government changes the way it blows, this time we really could be on the rocks.
The plan, as one understands it from Tom Kershaw’s exclusive on page 10, is fascinating on many counts. For its shock tactics, for it being the first major move since Lord Allen took up his BHA chair, and for its timing on the eve of the classic Doncaster Meeting at which Keir Starmer last year became the first Prime Minister to attend the St Leger since Winston Churchill in 1953. But as important as any, it represents a unified front from racing’s two biggest racecourse groups, the Jockey Club and Arena Racing. The former owning Kempton and Carlisle, the latter Uttoxeter and Doncaster.
Jealousy and infighting remain racing’s besetting sins and the above two operations have not been immune from them. But the 10th September showdown represents as complete a shut-out as racing can give; Carlisle on the flat, Lingfield on the all-weather and Uttoxeter over jumps being in the afternoon with Kempton’s all-weather follows in the evening. What the BHA will be hoping for, and which past form does not guarantee, is that racing’s other bodies, owners, trainers, jockeys, stable staff and above all bookmakers, will drop in behind the move despite unasked for financial loss and inconvenience
Unless they do, government can lazily argue that betting companies and indeed big-time racehorse owners are very rich, so why should they not shoulder some more of the nation’s debts and anyway how is it that racing still survives despite all those “wolf, wolf” calls of impending disaster in the past?
Visit York next week and you might see reasons to agree with government. Visitors will be treated to four of the best and most enjoyably organized race days on the planet in a historic but cleverly modernised setting with a deep community involvement. But dig deeper and you will find that the game is getting very seriously hollowed out.
Of course some things in racing have got better, 50 years ago, heaven help me, I was reporting in this paper on the aftereffects of the wrangles between trainers, Jockey Club and Levy Board of the Stable Lads Strike. Conditions, if not perfect, are light years better now. But other predictions have proved all too true.
For a start British flat racing would have collapsed without the involvement of the Maktoum family and the late Prince Khalid Abdullah who significantly own the only four home trained horses in this season’s top ten: Juddmonte’s Field Of Gold topping the list with Godolphin’s Ombudsman second, Shadwell’s Anmaat sixth and Godolphin’s Trawlerman 10th.
Those leviathans are not involved in jump racing but the overseas dominance there is dangerously near complete, only Jonbon 5th, and Protektorat,10th, making last season’s top ten and every one of those bred in France, Ireland or, in Gaelic Warrior’s case, Germany. On the flat all bar the French bred Lazzat were foaled in Ireland. British breeders calls were not wrong.
Neither were calls, widely ignored and rarely embraced, about an increasing dependence on bookmakers who via sponsorship, media rights, marketing and the levy are set to contribute some £350 million this year. Betfred now sponsor all the classics, Ryan Moore and Paul Nicholls have blogs for Betfair, you rarely see Nicky Henderson without his Unibet gilet. And I haven’t even started on TV presenters.
Racing has long had a love-hate relationship with the bookies and it’s never been more important to accept the love part. The fact is that betting is integral to racing way beyond other activities in this section of the paper. People may win or lose on the result of a football or cricket match but they don’t relate it, as so many do in racing, as the first fact of their afternoon.
Bookmakers problems are racing’s problems albeit they come from different directions. The former prioritising turnover, the other the wider remit of the sport. An increase in betting tax will not only make wagering on racing less profitable for bookmakers compared to other bets as they already pay a 10% levy but will increase the already heavy shift towards black market, no tax gambling caused by the clumsy government imposition of affordability checks. Today’s BHA solo needs to be followed by all on the same hymn sheet.
So what chances of success? If the aim was to put the tax issue into the public eye it has certainly succeeded. But that’s the easy bit. Crashing logic doesn’t always prevail over long-standing prejudice and beleaguered legislators even when many livelihoods and great traditions are in peril. When governments have covered their ears in the past, they have got away with it. This time they should heed the call.