"Racing United"

J

J Alfred Prufrock

At the Start
Joined
Oct 29, 2007
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Hope Valley, Derbyshire
From today's ROA newsletter:

RACING UNITES TO SECURE FAIR RETURN FROM BETTING

Racing has launched a campaign calling on the Government and the Levy Board to secure a fair return from the betting industry, after an unacceptable fall in the funding of the sport.

The Racing United: Campaign for a Fair Levy is based around a new charter urging the closure of clear loopholes that exist in the current Levy system, which has allowed funding for racing to drop by more than a third in two years from £115m in 2008 to just £75m in 2010.

While continuing to enjoy gross wins of £1 billion a year just from taking bets on British racing, bookmakers are increasingly basing their online and telephone businesses offshore to avoid paying the Levy, in addition to exploiting threshold rules originally set up to exempt only small independent high street bookmakers.

Betting exchanges, which did not exist when the Levy was introduced, are also not providing British racing with a fair return. Furthermore, no Levy is received from bets being placed in Britain on overseas racing, despite this being standard in several other parts of the world.

The Racing United Charter addresses such issues with the current system, while also making clear that if the vital modernisation does not take place the whole sport is committed to the creation of a modern market in which betting operators wanting to offer a bet must enter into enforceable contracts to do so.

The Charter has been launched jointly by the British Horseracing Authority, the Horsemen's Group and the Racecourse Association, which represent jointly the trade associations of racecourses, breeders, jockeys, stable staff, owners and trainers involved in British racing. It is available for signing at a dedicated website.
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To which I say "not in my name".

The Horsemen's Group, the BHA and the Racecourse Association have no mandate to speak "on behalf of all of racing", or even just for me.

A huge and very important constituency of racing - punters - continues to be routinely ignored by those in power, and gestures such as these deserve to be seen as fraudulent while that remains the case.
 
The last paragraph of your post sums it up entirely Pruf - punters are bank rolling a lot of racing yet still have no say in what's going on.
 
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It this not back to the chicken and egg question again? Who is more important, those that provide the product to bet on or those that bet on it. Depending on whether you fall into the owner/trainer/jockey/racecourse group or the punter group will decide on whether it's the chicken or the egg. The former group have clearly pulled themselves together to fight for increased levy, just as the Irish racing industry, owners and trainers are fighting for control of Irish racing's financial future without any requirement to get approval from those that bet on the product. The punter will ultimately pay the price but then they need to decide if the product is worth the cost.

Of course it is easier for owners/breeders/trainers etc to come together because they have associations. Punters have to rely on their simbiotic partner, the bookmakers, to make a case in their interests, as unlikely the bookies are to think of anythng other than thmselves!
 
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It is not anything to do with "who is more important?" It is entirely to do with whether a group of individuals representing only a portion of racing's constituency is entitled to speak on behalf of the whole of racing.

They are not.

If the powers that be wished racing to speak with one voice they should have taken steps to ensure that racing truly was more "united" than is the case. They have studiously avoided giving punters any sort of say, despite repeated calls for that to happen.
 
I'm interested in the concept of "stakeholders in racing" rather than the "racing industry". The two are obviously different, IMO, with the latter being those that put on the show and the former including those interested in the show, including punters. So what constitutes the "whole of racing"? Should punters be included in that, as ultimately they have no choice but to accept what's on the table if they wish to gamble on it. Do we need to split it between "gamblers" and "attendees/watchers". The two could mix of course as someone who attends the races are more than likely going to have a bet but they might not. Those attendees/watchers are not included either in this "whole of racing" argument.
 
If the Racing United campaign was for a tote monopoly in the name of everyone with an interest in racing then I would accept your argument, JAP, but all they are asking for is a fair return to racing from betting.

Roddy's horse won £1,301 the other day for winning a bumper whilst the betting on the race probably reached £1m nationwide between exchanges and bookmakers. To me such extreme exploitation is not sustainable in the long term. There are plenty of flapping races in Ireland, with no off course betting and no media coverage, which are worth more than that.

I don't think punters want to see races being run for symbolic amounts and funding for integrity services in the long term being reduced to flapping levels.
 
Again, I have to point out that what I am objecting to is "Racing United" appearing from nowhere and claiming to speak on behalf of all of us, despite having no mandate to do that, not necessarily the thrust of what they are trying to achieve.

Their intentions may well be benign, but I do not agree with the details of their argument, and they must certainly should not presume to speak on my behalf anymore than I would be entitled to claim to speak on yours.
 
The Charter has been launched jointly by the British Horseracing Authority, the Horsemen's Group and the Racecourse Association, which represent jointly the trade associations of racecourses, breeders, jockeys, stable staff, owners and trainers involved in British racing.
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I'm struggling to see your problem. Is that not a specific enough description of who they speak for?
 
RACING UNITES TO SECURE FAIR RETURN FROM BETTING

Racing has launched a campaign...
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That is the start of their own press release, not a misquote from a lazy journalist. And it has been written in that way to give the impression that "racing" is "united" and has "launched a campaign", a total misrepresentation which the details stuck much later in the release do not offset.
 
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It's all just waffle anyway and this 'campaign' will probably go the way countless other schemes have in the past. The Sovereign Series, anyone?
 
I think you are asking the impossible.

When people talk about the film industry they don't normally include the audience, when we say somebody is in theatre we don't normally mean that they are at a play (except for some northerners, I suppose), and when I am cheering on the horse I have a share in I don't flatter myself that I am in racing.

I would see punters, racegoers and owners as customers of a service. They look to racing for pleasure, not an income.

Owners can be organised, up to a point, because they are registered with the racing authorities, but how can the other two groups be represented in any meaningful way?

Horse Racing Ireland has a racegoers' forum with various people to represent different regions around the country. There is even a student representative. You can see their names and faces here:

http://www.goracing.ie/Content/HRI/hriinfo.aspx?id=1704

Maybe they do very good work but I don't see how such a forum is representative if nobody knows how they are appointed, how active they are and there are no reports of their meetings.
 
I did not know of that group, and I agree with your final sentence.

I made the suggestion in print some years ago that punters are effectively like consumers and should be treated with the same kind of consideration. The fact that consumers cannot be expected to organise themselves is not given as a reason why their rights are ignored and injustices towards them are swept under the carpet in the wider world.

The government, quite correctly, sees it as their (the government's) duty to ensure that consumer groups exist and are funded properly, and they have bodies like the Office of Fair Trading (a former chairman of which is now high up in the BHA) additionally to look after them.

The BHA, and more recently the likes of the Horsemen's group, have stubbornly resisted acting on any such suggestions and have hung the punter out to dry.

The punter is a part of racing. They are an important part of the show. I have contributed far more to racing as a punter than I have as an occasional owner. What exactly do the likes of trainers contribute?

It is not just punters who are being spoken for without being consulted here, however. I have been employed in racing all my working life. Anyone who meets me regards me as being "in" racing. None of these other bodies have ever had the right to speak on my behalf.
 
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Grey said:
I would see punters, racegoers and owners as customers of a service. They look to racing for pleasure, not an income.
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You're selling owners short there. Take you theatre sceanrio. Owners provide the actors, just like the Gladiators were provided by their masters for the hoards to bet on in the Coliseum. And if the Actors don't show up, then there is no film for theatre goers to see. Sure, if the theatre goers don't like the show the won't pay to see it and the production company (BHA/racecourses) lose money and that production company goes bust. But don't underestimate your position as an owner, we are not simply customers of a service, but the providers of the product which is packaged and glammed up by the production team to sell to the audience.
 
Well, they have the right to speak for me as a member of the ROA and TBA, and I'm very glad they've at last - successfully or not - DONE SOMETHING. Enough with the whining and whingeing about appalling prize money.

JAP - I honestly don't know what sort of 'consumers' group' you think punters could form. If you bet with bookies, you could ask the NJPC to vehemently knock things on the head, but if you are an owner, I can only imagine that £1300 for coming FIRST is just teeth-picking money for you, as presumably your middle name is Croesus.

The EGG is the breeder, obviously. The CHICKEN is the horse and the real consumer is the owner. No breeders, no owners. No owners, no breeding, no racing, and no horse-race betting. However, all racing turns in on itself as no stable staff, no racing, either. No stewards, no doctors, no race meetings. No racecourses - no need for any of the aforementioned.

However, as far as punters (and I assume you mean the type of person with phone accounts, not the occasional 'what a pretty horse' sort) are concerned, what is it that you object to? As a punter, you've been feeding the bookies for decades and will continue to do so (I mean this in general terms, not specifically yourself). You've watched bookies grow enormous profits (something's not going quite right there, is it?) and you've watched happily while they've decanted overseas so as to avoid taxation. Not a peep from you, the punter. Not a squeakette. You've also watched as owners' prize monies have crashed in the past few years. Did you speak up in support of their cries of woe? No, not a tiny little mutter.

Now you're offended, because you work in racing, because at long, long last, the whining has been compressed into some sort of plan of action. WHY? You've shown no interest in supporting owners - most often you've decried them as not even needing to own the luxury of a horse, while happily feeding off their outlays without putting anything into racing other than money proffered in the hope of a Lottery-like return - for yourself. (Again, 'you' is a general term for punters, since you seem to think them something apart from everything else which is racing.)

How on earth would you propose a consumer group to be run, and to what purpose? What needs would be met by it, and what is your problem with a consortium of interests at last deciding that enough is enough with the piss-taking? You've had horses - then you know the absurd costs of purchasing and keeping them going. You outlay £10,000 on a nag, £50 a day to the trainer, £100 a ride to the jockey, hundreds more over time in shoes, transportation to and from the races for the horse/s, bungs to the groom, race fees from £25 to skyward - and you'd be happy with the price of a cheap holiday in Skegness as a reward for all of that WINNING? You'd be very easily satisfied if that were the case, or as rich as Croesus and not need the money.

So, what is the purpose of this consumers' group you think should be mandated? What sort of needs would it meet, and why?
 
You could say no levy, no prize money (or at least vastly reduced prize money), no horses, no racing. Bookmakers don't sponsor big handicaps for the good of their health - they do it to provide something for punters to bet on and thus provide turnover and profit for them.

It's all about finding a happy medium and at the moment the owners are represented, the trainers are represented, so too are the racecourses but those who are collectively contributing circa £80m to help fund the entire thing aren't represented.

Whichever way you look at it it seems rather unfair.
 
Not a peep from you, the punter. Not a squeakette. You've also watched as owners' prize monies have crashed in the past few years. Did you speak up in support of their cries of woe? No, not a tiny little mutter.
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And why is there not a peep, not a squeakette? Firstly, BECAUSE PUNTERS DO NOT HAVE A VOICE!

The attempts at getting punters' groups off the ground have been stymied by people at the BHA (I know this from personal experience). There is not much point in having a punters' group if those in power refuse to listen to it.

To put the shoe on the other foot, what have we owners said or done when punters have been taken to the cleaners and turned away from the game? Not a peep, not a squeakette.

And yet punters provide us with a great deal of our prize money. Without them, racing would cease to exist in the form to which we have become accustomed.

There have been some appalling examples of manipulation at punters' expense that have gone unchallenged, from Donoughue's interventions down.

You have also made the same mistake several people have made on this matter in misconstruing the nature of my objection. I AGREE that something should be done about prize money. I just do NOT agree with "Racing United's" take on matters and I most certainly do NOT agree with their shoddy attempt to make it appear that everyone is signed up to this initiative when that simply is not the case.

The opening of their press release recalled the worst days of Wakeham-led BHB in the mid-1990s.
 
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Well said Krizon and Prufrock (re my reply on another forum) I am unclear what it is you are going on about. The plain fact of the matter is that owners, horses, trainers are declining in numbers. It is, as Krizon says about time that they along with the TBA and the Racecourses united to confront the bookies. But what are you really suggesting? That punters bet on horses deliberately to lose money to fund the levy? Or are you having a bad run? What precisely is it that you think a punter's organisation could contribute to negotiations with the bookies? And if you are so keen on the idea why don't you start such an organisation? Or are you just in a moaning mood?

richard
 
krizon said:
The EGG is the breeder, obviously. The CHICKEN is the horse and the real consumer is the owner. No breeders, no owners. No owners, no breeding, no racing, and no horse-race betting. However, all racing turns in on itself as no stable staff, no racing, either. No stewards, no doctors, no race meetings. No racecourses - no need for any of the aforementioned.
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That wasn't the chicken and egg that I was thinking of. My one was punters or owners. But I'd be pretty sure that if there were no owners, there would be no racing. If there were no breeders, no racecourses etc etc, and a few owners decided they fancied a couple of horses to race steeple to steeple, the rest would follow pretty quickly. You cannot grow owners, you can grow everything else if required.
 
richard said:
Well said Krizon and Prufrock (re my reply on another forum) I am unclear what it is you are going on about. The plain fact of the matter is that owners, horses, trainers are declining in numbers. It is, as Krizon says about time that they along with the TBA and the Racecourses united to confront the bookies. But what are you really suggesting? That punters bet on horses deliberately to lose money to fund the levy? Or are you having a bad run? What precisely is it that you think a punter's organisation could contribute to negotiations with the bookies? And if you are so keen on the idea why don't you start such an organisation? Or are you just in a moaning mood?

richard
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Ah, you are becoming ever so slightly more intelligible at last.

No, I am not "having a bad run". I am having a good run. As a winning punter I pay a lot of money in commission. It is very kind of you to take such an interest in my personal welfare.

I have supported past punters' organisations, and I have been involved in negotiations to establish others. As mentioned elsewhere, there is no point in doing this when those in power refuse to give such organisations the time of day.

As it is, my suggestion is - has long been - that a body exists which takes punters' interests into consideration. We don't need yet another pressure group within racing. But we do need someone who will curb the worst excesses of the bookmakers and the short-sightedness of those in power and ensure that the golden goose continues to lay eggs for a little while longer and possibly even enjoys itself in doing that.

However, the point which you and several others refuse to see is that Paul Dixon and a few others in an office in High Holborn can just about claim to speak for the ROA, the BHA and one or two other bodies but in no way can speak for "Racing" in general. Who do these people think they are?

For other answers I refer you to my slightly earlier post on "another forum".
 
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krizon said:
Well, they have the right to speak for me as a member of the ROA and TBA, and I'm very glad they've at last - successfully or not - DONE SOMETHING. Enough with the whining and whingeing about appalling prize money.

JAP - I honestly don't know what sort of 'consumers' group' you think punters could form. If you bet with bookies, you could ask the NJPC to vehemently knock things on the head, but if you are an owner, I can only imagine that £1300 for coming FIRST is just teeth-picking money for you, as presumably your middle name is Croesus.

The EGG is the breeder, obviously. The CHICKEN is the horse and the real consumer is the owner. No breeders, no owners. No owners, no breeding, no racing, and no horse-race betting. However, all racing turns in on itself as no stable staff, no racing, either. No stewards, no doctors, no race meetings. No racecourses - no need for any of the aforementioned.

However, as far as punters (and I assume you mean the type of person with phone accounts, not the occasional 'what a pretty horse' sort) are concerned, what is it that you object to? As a punter, you've been feeding the bookies for decades and will continue to do so (I mean this in general terms, not specifically yourself). You've watched bookies grow enormous profits (something's not going quite right there, is it?) and you've watched happily while they've decanted overseas so as to avoid taxation. Not a peep from you, the punter. Not a squeakette. You've also watched as owners' prize monies have crashed in the past few years. Did you speak up in support of their cries of woe? No, not a tiny little mutter.

Now you're offended, because you work in racing, because at long, long last, the whining has been compressed into some sort of plan of action. WHY? You've shown no interest in supporting owners - most often you've decried them as not even needing to own the luxury of a horse, while happily feeding off their outlays without putting anything into racing other than money proffered in the hope of a Lottery-like return - for yourself. (Again, 'you' is a general term for punters, since you seem to think them something apart from everything else which is racing.)

How on earth would you propose a consumer group to be run, and to what purpose? What needs would be met by it, and what is your problem with a consortium of interests at last deciding that enough is enough with the piss-taking? You've had horses - then you know the absurd costs of purchasing and keeping them going. You outlay £10,000 on a nag, £50 a day to the trainer, £100 a ride to the jockey, hundreds more over time in shoes, transportation to and from the races for the horse/s, bungs to the groom, race fees from £25 to skyward - and you'd be happy with the price of a cheap holiday in Skegness as a reward for all of that WINNING? You'd be very easily satisfied if that were the case, or as rich as Croesus and not need the money.

So, what is the purpose of this consumers' group you think should be mandated? What sort of needs would it meet, and why?
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Well written Kri. I have possibly the best corral I have ever had,once in a lifetime even. But if no one sorts this job out so we get more prize money then we have to go into reverse ,fast.
 
Thanks, RO. As the OTs rep at Brighton and on the OTs desk at Lingfield, I naturally hear a lot of offloading about the issue, and all along I've said that the ROA, in concert with other organisations affected, should grow some teeth. It's no good crying like a baby whose dummy's been pulled - real action is needed. I went so far as to suggest that the NTF should support their clients (owners), too, and that owners and trainers in concert should nominate a week when no-one, no-one, would run any horses. And repeat the dose until remedial action took place.

I realise that racecourses' contributions have been poxy, too, and I know full well - as do all ROA members - who the worst offenders are. So - as the ROA itself once rather feebly suggested - don't run your horses at those tracks. Just don't enter up. But, with so many Class 5 and 6-rated animals, no-one wanted to be the first to miss out on the possibility of a tiny return, so nothing happened, bar Christine Dunnett, out on an unsupported limb.

It's appalling that owners like you should be so badly treated. I don't go with the nonsense about 'oh, it's a hobby/nobody expects to make a profit/it's a non-essential luxury, etc., etc.'. Try pulling it, and see how 'inessential' it is to the millions of people worldwide who depend on it, back or lay. The millions which go into British (and Irish) bookies' coffers see a stonking great post-tax profit of over a billion. And yet, apart from race sponsorship (which, let's be honest, is really product placement, however welcome), there's bugger-all back from the betting industry.

Punters say they want everything from a day's racing: better loos, finer dining, a beefier burger, very cheap or free entrance, race cards bulging with every possible bit of info to give them an edge, big screens, free buses to the courses - you name it, they want it, as surveys have shown. But even if they have it all, they 9/10 will stay home with their bank of telephone lines and tv on ATR or RUK - or two screens, for the truly obsessed.

When I believe that punters miraculously fund racing, I'll be glad for them to have their own consumers' group (cheap beer all round! Free entry!). What underpins racing is picture rights and the racegoer, per se, not the punter as such. Hence tens of paying thousands for the premier meetings, but - as has been unkindly decried enough times - they're 'just' racegoers in the main, not 'real' punters. Mr Surefire with 20 telephone accounts rarely, and sometimes never, goes racing for real. Ergo, there are thousands of punters who never touch a racecourse. Hospitality? Far too expensive. Restaurant? Rip-off. Burger? Doesn't taste like McDonalds. £10 entry? Youravinalarf, innit? Buy a horse? Geddouttahere!

I don't dislike punters - I'm not in the anti-punting 'brigade'! But their money rolls directly to whoever's taken their bet - and looking at the net profit, it would appear to mostly stay there, too! Thus, why would one think they have some special right to 'be heard' above the needs of owners to be treated more fairly? Punters want horses to back - let them pay towards that. Racegoers have already shown their support by paying on the day for some fun.
 
Well said Krizon. I cannot begin to comprehend where the Original Poster is coming from. Surely everyone associated in any way with horseracing, even the habituees of the betting shop, should be delighted that the various factions of the industry are finally getting their act together in an attempt to address the funding shortfall. I cannot be confident that this initiative will have any great success, but unless there is a concerted and united effort by owners, trainers, breeders and racecourses to influence the Goverment and the Levy Board, then the punter will soon have nothing left to punt on.
 
I can see what Prufrock is saying, as in his main beef seems to be that the ROA/Horseman's Group/whoever says they are talking on 'behalf of' various factions. Similar to Prufrock, I am a racehorse owner and I work 'in' racing, which is all I have done in various guises since I left school. Mind you Prufrock isn't dumb enough to end up mucking out stables by choice, on top of work, like me! Also similar to Prufrock, the ROA et al, didn't ask my permission before speaking on my behalf as an owner!

However I also agree with Krizon, Cantoris, Richard in the old punter vs owner debate, if indeed there is one. I can't really see how someone who chooses to bet on horses [and possibly flies crawling up a wall, who knows?] should necessarily have a say in how racing is run. Also, who would determine which punters have a say and which ones don't? Should the weekend punter who has a 50p each way lucky 15 of a Saturday, has never been racing nor within 50 yards if a horse have a say in how the sport is run? It's a big, grey area and there are other ways that punters can get involved with 'having a say' of they so wish. Attending the races would be a start - if every punter made the effort to go racing even once a year, that would at least boost attendances.
 
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