If a report in last week's Racing Post proves accurate – and it seemed impeccably sourced – there could be nearly 17% less racing in Britain next year. A steep decline in yield from the Levy, which returns money to the sport from off-course betting, has persuaded the British Horseracing Authority that the schedule must be cut and the 250 or so fixtures that the authority "owns" could be scrapped, perhaps never to return.
This news was, according to the Post, received with "astonishment and shock" by racecourses and bookmakers alike. Those who have long argued that the fixture list was horribly bloated, meanwhile, may have felt some satisfaction that, at last, the authorities appeared to agree.
To some extent this is a reasonable view. Given the economic climate, it is difficult to believe that 2010's record fixture list of 1,503 meetings could be maintained even at the current level of Levy yield, never mind if it drops further next year. But at the same time it is important to consider what these proposals might mean at an individual level.
The Professional Jockeys Association, for instance, suggests that its members could lose £1m a year in riding fees. Some could be forced to retire. Trainers who are already on the edge might topple over entirely, with knock-on effects in service industries. Even some racecourses may suddenly find the numbers no longer add up.
And, while it is something that many would prefer to gloss over, there will also be thoroughbreds, conceived in the rosier climate three years ago, that get a bolt through the brain at an abattoir because they are now surplus to requirements.
The people and businesses that suffer most may be the ones that, in harsh economic terms, "deserve it", in that they are less successful or efficient than their rivals. But that is likely to hold true only if the fixtures that are lost are the ones that also deserve it and the real concern over this suggestion is that the BHA will scrap its own fixtures not because they are the most obvious candidates for the chop but because they are the most convenient.
The great majority of these fixtures are in slots that do little or nothing to attract a walk-up crowd – Kempton on a midweek evening in winter, for instance – but do generate enough betting turnover off-course to make them "Levy-positive". They are there to benefit the bookies, in other words, but what is good for the bookies is also good for the Levy. Nor is there any evidence that the money bet on these fixtures will instead be punted on racing elsewhere in the day, rather than fed into one-armed bandits.
An alternative explanation for the BHA's plan is that it is, in effect, blackmail. The bookies may yet get their punter-friendly fixtures back but only if they cough up a bigger percentage of their profits to the Levy. But that, when you reduce it to basics, would suggest that the BHA, with its many richly rewarded and bonus-pocketing executives, is using people's livelihoods like betting chips in a game of who-blinks-first.
Something has to give in the fixture list; of that there is little doubt. But if the BHA simply dispenses with its own fixtures because it is the line of least resistance, it might be time to ask whether a few of its senior executives should get what they deserve too.
