The Jockey Club said on Monday that prize money for jumps racing at its racecourses in 2017 will exceed that on offer for its Flat programme for the first time in its history, but insisted that the decision to put an extra £1.4m into its National Hunt prize fund predates its controversial announcement that Kempton Park, the home of the King George VI Chase, could be sold for housing.
Jockey Club Racecourses has increased its contribution to prize money every year since 2009, and the total on offer across the group’s 15 tracks in 2017 is expected to exceed £45m. Its announcement on Monday promises extra funding at all levels of the sport, but JCR’s seven smaller tracks, including the jumps-only venues at Huntingdon, Market Rasen and Exeter, will all receive at least £100,000 extra in their prize funds.
JCR’s direct contribution of £22.9m to prizes represents the first instalment of what it claims will be an investment of at least £500m in British racing over the next 10 years if its plan to bulldoze Kempton Park to construct 3,000 new homes is approved. However, it also highlights the fact that as much as half of its promised investment, which headlined the announcement of its controversial plans for Kempton, is money that would have been invested in prizes as part of its normal operations.
Monday’s announcement still represents a welcome respite from the backlash against JCR’s plans for Kempton, however, just days after it issued a sharp rebuttal of a newspaper report that it was already considering a watered-down version of the scheme to allow racing at the track to continue.
“The 10 years we were talking about [in January] is starting and it’s a step in that direction,” Scott Bowers, director of communications for Jockey Club Racecourses, said on Monday. “If the Kempton development were to happen in the future, then the approximation is in excess of £250m going to prize money, [but] if the half a billion turned out to be £600m, then you’d b e looking at more like £300m.
“It’s only a step in the right direction and the sport still needs far more prize money, but it’s the maximum we can afford at the moment.
“It’s the first time that our prize money for jumps [£11.6m] has gone past the Flat [£11.3m], but that depends on the nature of the programme so it’s not quite as black-and-white as it seems. To be categoric, the make-up of our programme was clear from the back end of last year, and Kempton was not a factor at all in any of the numbers. They are exactly what they would have been if this had been finalised in December.”
Kempton will stage one of its most prestigious cards of the season on Saturday when a valuable programme will include two Grade Two hurdles events - the Adonis Juvenile Hurdle and the Dovecote Novice Hurdle - and the valuable BetBright Handicap Chase over three miles.
Tea For Two, whose only defeat in four starts at Kempton Park came behind Thistlecrack in the King George VI Chase on Boxing Day, heads the weights for Saturday’s handicap with 11st 12lb and is also at the front of the betting at 6-1.
Double Shuffle, who took a handicap over course and distance on 27 December by three-and-a-half lengths, is next in the betting at 8-1 alongside Paul Nicholls’s Irish Saint, who has three course victories to his name but would be attempting to win over three miles for the first time.
Horse racing tips
Southwell
2.10 Bo Selecta 2.40 Elegantly Bound 3.10 Custard The Dragon (nb) 3.40 Captain Lars 4.10 Wimboldsley
4.40 My Renaissance
Taunton
2.20 Beautiful People 2.50 Master Burbidge 3.20 Verdana Blue 3.50 Towering 4.20 Top Tug (nap) 4.50 Monsieur Gibraltar 5.20 If The Cap Fits
Wetherby
2.00 Calarules 2.30 Top And Drop 3.00 Jerrysback 3.30 Unzing 4.00 The Game Is A Foot 4.30 Suzy’s Music 5.00 Questionation
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