Racing today stages its first voluntary blackout with trainers and leaders warning of the potential catastrophe that is putting the sport’s future in jeopardy.
Officials from the British Horseracing Authority (BHA), The Jockey Club and Arena Racing Company (ARC) – two of the most powerful racecourse owners in the industry – and the National Trainers Federation will descend on Westminster to campaign about ‘axing the racing tax’.
The Treasury is debating whether to raise the duty of online betting on racing and other sports from its current 15 per cent when the Budget is unveiled in November; the betting industry delivers around £350million in revenue each year to racing.
Online casino and slots are taxed at 21 per cent but an increase in either of those levies would cause a huge ripple effect that would cause chaos for racing. Less funding means less revenue and less opportunities to race and own horses would lead job losses and trainers going out of business.
The BHA, the Jockey Club and ARC have driven an agenda that has seen fixtures at Uttoxeter, Lingfield, Kempton and Carlisle cancelled and rearranged for a later date. It is a remarkable situation but there was a determination to make a stand.
Daily Mail Sport has outlined a number of issues in the last month, with six-time Champion Trainer John Gosden telling us that tax raises would ‘kill communities’ and his Newmarket neighbour John Berry outlining on Sunday that this is racing’s ‘Doomsday’ scenario.
Newmarket is regarded as racing’s headquarters but feelings run just as deep in Epsom, the home of the Derby and the Oaks – the ultimate races for thoroughbreds – and this was perfectly articulated by Jim Boyle, one of the town’s leading trainers.
Boyle has been training in Epsom for 20 years. He excels in eking out improvement from honest horses and his strike rate of winners to runners is frequently impressive; a horse’s well-being is always at the forefront of his thoughts but he has deep concerns about the impact of tax rises.
‘The situation is not isolated to one training centre – it affects us all,’ Boyle said. ‘We would potentially have had runners on Wednesday (Kempton and Lingfield are reasonably close) but we are fully supportive of the action. We have been battling a long time against the underfunding of our sport.
‘If there is a degradation to the funding model, it would be completely catastrophic. You can only stretch a rubber band so far before it snaps and this industry is stretched taught. Anymore stress and strain and it will lead it to snap.
‘We are all in this sport for the same reasons. I could earn more money as a vet than I do training horses and work far more sociable hours than I do now but we all do it because we love it. There is nothing like training winners and it’s effectively a legal high when you do – nothing comes close.
‘Owners are the custodians of the sport. They are putting lots of money and the vast majority of them aren’t getting a lot in return. Owners can only stretch themselves so far and if we do not have these owners we do not have a business model. If we don’t have horses, we will have to fold.’
Boyle, typically, spoke impressively. Lord Charles Allen, meanwhile, was strident in his opinion – Allen is the newly-appointed Chair of the BHA and he urged the industry to come together. There are issues he must address, however, with bookmakers, who have been circumspect in their opinions.
‘We are Britain’s second largest spectator sport, supporting 85,000 jobs and delivering over £4 billion of economic value every year,’ said Allen. ‘Yet all of this is now being put at risk by a change that would devastate our funding model and the livelihoods that depend on it.
‘I say directly to Government and to politicians of all parties: this is not a marginal issue. This is about protecting communities across Britain and preventing thousands of people from losing their jobs. I urge all politicians to listen carefully, to recognise the unique value of British Racing.’
