Neigh Shame, No Gain: Labour MP Flogs Trust in Horse Racing Lobby Blunder

A Backbencher, a Billionaire, and a Bottle of Bubbles Walk into the Commons...

There are moments in British politics that feel like they’ve been written by the scriptwriters of Yes Minister during a three-day bender in Cheltenham. This is one of them.

Dan Carden MP — a man so far from ministerial office he might as well campaign for electricity in Narnia — has managed to turn a relatively niche obsession with horses into a slow-motion Westminster car crash. Not just any horses, mind you, but the sort wrapped in billionaires, offshore accounts, and enough tax-dodging subtlety to make a Jersey accountant break into a nervous sweat.

To the untrained eye (i.e. anyone who doesn’t think “bloodstock” is a sexy term), this may sound like just another tedious All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) muddle. But beneath the usual froth of lobbying, misplaced forms, and the gentle chinking of parliamentary champagne flutes, there’s a rather pungent scent wafting from the stables — and it’s not manure. It's money. And plenty of it.

The Man from Walton Who Loved the Ponies (and Forgot to Say Who Paid)

Carden, who represents Liverpool Walton — an area not exactly known for thoroughbred breeding unless you count the occasional stolen scooter — has taken it upon himself to champion horse racing like it’s a pillar of the NHS. But instead of patching up the public purse, he’s been helping very wealthy racecourse owners avoid contributing properly to it.

As Chair of the APPG for Racing and Bloodstock (a name that sounds like it was concocted during a wet weekend in Sandown by someone wearing red trousers), Carden has been lobbying the Treasury to prevent a proposed tax alignment that would bring online horse betting in line with other forms of online gambling.

You might think a group with “Racing” in the name would be standing up for the sport itself — the culture, the heritage, the people. You’d be wrong. The APPG doesn’t actually represent the sport of horse racing in any meaningful sense, like owners, punters and employees. It represents the commercial interests of those who profit from it — including offshore tax avoiders, corporate operators, and billionaire owners who haven’t bought their own groceries since the 1980s.

The funding for all this noble work comes not from the grassroots or the grandstands, but from the top tiers of racing’s commercial machinery — The Jockey Club, the BHA, Arena Racing Company — and, in a twist so subtle it could’ve worn a monocle, an offshore firm in the British Virgin Islands owned by the Reuben brothers. Yes, those Reuben brothers, who could buy Aintree and still have enough loose change for a controlling stake in Monaco or any other country beginning with M.

Racing to the Bottom, Powered by Bollinger

In any vaguely normal country, a Labour MP fronting the offshore lobbying interests of Britain’s second-richest family would raise eyebrows. In Britain, it just raises the bar tab.

Carden, alongside his Tory co-chair Nick Timothy (best known for being Theresa May’s Rasputin before pivoting to Racing PR), has hosted a flurry of drinks receptions and research launches. The venues? Parliament, the Cinnamon Club, anywhere with canapés and an invoice that doesn’t come out of his salary. When asked how much these little get-togethers cost, the response was a sort of vague shrug — the same one teenagers give after crashing your car and claiming they “didn’t see the lamppost.”

The Cinnamon Club, for reference, charges at least £2,000 to hire a private room. But that’s not really the scandal. The scandal is that the APPG, in seven successive entries in the official register, claimed: “None” under benefits received. No donors. No funding. No mention of the fact that the entire operation was being run and funded by the industry itself, through a web of organisations with a keen interest in avoiding tax, scrutiny, or reform.

APPGs: The Hobby Clubs of Westminster’s Money Men

APPGs are the Westminster equivalent of university societies — if the cheese and wine nights were sponsored by Philip Morris and every meeting was legally adjacent to a bribe. There are APPGs for jazz, beer, potholes, and even decorative plumbing. But the Racing and Bloodstock Group? That one’s different. It isn’t a celebration of the sport — it’s a commercial front, designed to look like parliamentary oversight while quietly parroting the lines of whoever’s funding the fizz.

By the rules, if an APPG gets more than £1,500 a year in outside help, it must declare the donors, publish accounts, and at least pretend to be transparent. Carden, who recently had to update his personal register after “forgetting” about complimentary football tickets and a junket to Qatar, didn’t bother. He later blamed “administrative issues,” which is political code for “we hoped no one would notice.”

A Party of the People… Who Happen to Own Racecourses in the Caribbean

And here lies the wider problem. Labour, under the banner of fairness and service, has become startlingly comfortable rubbing shoulders with tax-averse billionaires and private industry lobbyists — just as long as they clap at conference and don’t mention socialism.

You’d think Starmer’s office — fresh off promising a "Government of Service" — might question why one of their MPs is defending offshore money and lobbying against a fairer tax system. But no. Because in 2025, "service" appears to mean service to donors, lobbyists, and private interests — just not the rank-and-file who thought ‘Labour’ still meant them.

Horse racing, meanwhile, is now so financially fraught it’s threatening to go on strike — a strange turn for a sport whose leading advocates in parliament are sponsored by the very businesses that made it this way. When asked why they shouldn’t pay more tax, they whip out polling from a lobbying firm — funded, of course, by the same vested interests — and present it as divine revelation. It’s the political equivalent of marking your own homework and still writing it in crayon.

The Only Thing Being Raced Is Public Trust

And where does that leave the people who actually bet on the sport? The ones who queue at the bookies, study the form, and lose a fiver in good faith? Nowhere. The Horserace Bettors Forum, which actually represents punters and their interests, has tried to engage with Mr Carden. They’ve written, questioned, tried to get a seat at the table. But unlike the donors, their correspondence goes unanswered. Possibly because it doesn’t come attached to a canapé budget and a flattering polling brief.

And that’s the crux of it. The APPG isn’t about the sport. It’s not about culture, history, fans, or fairness. It’s about commercial protectionism, with a red rosette on the lapel and a discreet silence around the source of the money.

APPGs have become little more than legislative cosplay. MPs playing at scrutiny while the industry writes the script. It doesn’t matter whether it’s horse racing, vaping, crypto, or canned tuna — the formula is always the same: smile for the cameras, host the drinks, forget to file the paperwork.

Final Whip-Crack: Neigh Means Neigh

So here we are. A Labour MP, a Tory fixer, and a handful of offshore billionaires walk into Westminster... and nobody bothers to declare the tab.

Carden will no doubt update the register next week, issue the standard apology, and stress his deep commitment to transparency — in the same way someone who’s just been caught stealing biscuits insists they were counting calories.

But the trust is already limping. And like a racehorse with a dodgy tendon, it rarely gets another lap.

And if you’re wondering who wins in all this? It’s not the NHS. It’s not the taxpayer. It’s not even the bettor who just wants to lose a tenner on the 3:15 at Haydock without needing a credit check.

It’s the Reuben brothers. Again.

They backed the right horse — and it turns out, this one wears a red rosette, doesn’t answer emails, and understands perfectly well which side its oats are buttered on.