Two months before the new year racing finally has a fixture list for 2015 following its publication on Monday by the British Horseracing Authority. Chelmsford City, which is Great Leighs racecourse reborn, will start up with 58 racedays, with the result that the total number of fixtures will exceed those in 2014 by seven, despite the ruling body’s determination to reverse the trend of falling field sizes.
Paul Bittar, the BHA’s departing chief executive, accepted it might seem “counter-intuitive” to put on more racedays at a time when a main concern is the need to raise the average number of runners per race. But in fact BHA staffers are pleased to have managed the introduction of an extra track without adding another 50 days to the list.
“We were very conscious of the fact that having blank slots for bookmakers and for racecourses was not going to deliver the best economic outcome for the sport,” said Bittar. But 170 of the races which attract fewest runners will be culled from the programme.
This is only a start, Bittar says, and the field-size problem will not be solved next year, or even in 2016, when allocation of some fixtures will be determined by how courses have performed in attracting runners. These do not amount to dramatic changes but then the BHA only has control over about a seventh of the total number of fixtures, most of the rest being theoretically owned by the various racecourse groups.
As he spoke on Monday, Bittar let slip that he does not regard that ownership as being absolute and believes it should be challenged in the near future. “Two-thirds of the fixture list is taken up by these racecourse fixtures, which you can debate all day and for ever what proprietorial rights exist in those fixtures or don’t. And we consciously decided not to try to deal with those this year.
“But I’m also not sure there’s a binary position on those. I think there needs to be some kind of sensible consideration of how you manage, in the best interests of the sport, a potential reallocation or reorganising of some of those racecourse fixtures. I think that’s the next stage over the next two to three years. There will be a discussion among the sport about how do you sensibly manage those fixtures without ending up in court.”
Avoiding litigation will be a neat trick if the BHA really intends to challenge the tracks on fixture ownership, considering that one racecourse group, Arc, is already threatening action over the new allocation process. But Bittar can contemplate this conflicted future with insouciance, as leaves his post in a matter of weeks.
“Late December, early January is the target at the moment,” he said. The process of hiring his replacement is well under way and he said a new chief executive would “definitely” be appointed before his departure. There may be an interim chief for “a month to six weeks” before the new hire is able to start, Bittar said. The Australian said he was considering a couple of job offers from “closer to home”.
In another part of the BHA offices, a hearing began into the case of Brendan Powell and Graham Bradley, the latter accused of being the real trainer of horses that ran under Powell’s name. Another two days are likely to be needed for the remaining evidence. Bradley is defending himself while Powell has the services of the solicitor Rory Mac Neice, a veteran of such hearings.
