Racing is struggling in Britain but Labour government does not understand that
Baroness Twycross was head of governance at Diabetes UK before being elected on to the London Assembly to become Sadiq Khan’s deputy mayor for fire and resilience.
She has a proud record of public service, but I contacted the baroness’s team last week to ask them what qualifications she had for being minister with responsibility for horse racing and gambling.
They assured me that she has been to lots of meetings and is looking forward to visiting a racecourse in the spring. Perhaps with an eye on the weather? But I am sure she found her recent visit to the hundred-odd slot machines at the Hippodrome casino in London enlightening.
The baroness will, of course, be able to project a veneer of knowledge before she gets reshuffled back to the House of Lords. At a gathering in Westminster last month, she gave racing a thinly veiled kick in the ribs by highlighting the “impressive” results from the December Mares Sale in Newmarket. “I understand the results at Tattersalls were up 20 per cent to 83 million guineas, which is both an eye-watering amount but also a record-breaking achievement.”
She might just as well have said “don’t bother to come crying to this government with your begging bowl. You’re awash with money”.
What she clearly fails to realise is that most of the money came from abroad and most of the mares will be exported and their progeny will never race on these shores.
Given that she has an appetite for statistics, she should examine the growing exodus of the best racehorses in this country.
In 2019 there were 181 three-year-old Flat horses rated 100-plus racing in Britain, and 118 of them stayed in training to race here as four-year-olds.
Cut to 2023, and 136 made that grade, with only 84 staying here to race as older horses. They did not just vanish. They moved abroad to run for better prize money in properly funded jurisdictions.
The statistic that I find saddest, however, reveals what devastation is being wreaked at grass-roots level in the rural areas that need economic activity.
The number of horses registered to run in point-to-points at this time last year was 1,070. That figure has fallen to 939 this year. The knock-on effect will be fewer meetings and a contracting sport.
The baroness betrayed her lack of understanding at the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Racing and Bloodstock gathering by complimenting racing on evolving “to ensure that it can continue to thrive”, adding: “I’m really encouraged to see the creation of 170 Premier Racedays as a shop window for the sport, which is directing existing fans to top-quality racing and also attracting new fans.”
She probably did not actually write those words herself, but she is responsible for saying them. And her speech writer should have been aware that the implementation of Premier Racedays has been an utter car crash. No one with any grasp of the sport whatsoever would namecheck that. And secondly, racing cannot remotely be considered to be thriving.
The baroness is at least a fan of betting on horse racing. “It was great to see gross gambling yield was up by 4.6 per cent,” she gushed. So given that enthusiasm, will she be reining in the bigots at the Gambling Commission? It has already created a £9 million shortfall in horse racing’s finances by triggering the introduction of clumsy, misguided and ultimately ineffective affordability checks that are driving punters into the hands of illegal bookmakers.
And will she publicly take issue with her Labour MP colleagues such as Dr Beccy Cooper, who recently stated in a Westminster Hall debate that “gambling is an addiction, and it needs to be addressed appropriately”? Or Anna Dixon, who sees gambling as “an addiction and a public health issue”?
Presumably they also believe that anyone who has a drink on a Friday night is an alcoholic and everyone who eats their own birthday cake is a diabetic.
She signed off in Westminster with as empty a sound bite as one will ever hear by referring to “a government which really supports you”. Of that, there is literally zero evidence.
But presumably she has been asked by Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves to find a mechanism for “kickstarting growth”.
Well, here’s one. At present, there is a 15 per cent tax on bookmakers’ horse racing betting profits, and a 10 per cent levy which is returned to racing. If, however, those percentages were swapped around, racing would receive an extra £50 million a year, which would help stop the exodus of horses.
How does the treasury recoup that £50 million? The current taxation on the insidious, addictive online casino games that problem gamblers play on their phones is 20 per cent.
Raising that tax by 2.2 per cent would raise the £50 million shortfall. Although the treasury could go further and pocket the difference.
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