The Derby Awards: Bookmakers Foot the Bill While Racing’s Real Heroes Get Saddled with the Muck

The Derby Awards—glamorous, champagne-soaked, and as self-congratulatory as a writer crafting their 100th metaphor for “thundering hooves”—rolled into the Royal Lancaster Hotel once again. For those unfamiliar, this annual soirée celebrates the scribes, snappers, and broadcasters who orbit the racing world, basking in the glory of their proximity to it. It’s a night where the industry’s pen-pushers, camera-clickers, and microphone-wielders take centre stage, while the true heroes of racing—the trainers, jockeys, stable staff, and punters—shuffle quietly into the background, like extras in their own blockbuster.

This year’s event, generously sponsored by Coral, the Hong Kong Jockey Club, and World Pool, was less a celebration of racing’s communal spirit and more a spectacle of bookmaker-funded back-patting. And yet, for all the glitz and guffaws, the awards inadvertently showcased the stark divide between the celebrated commentators and the overlooked doers.

The journalists, once heralded as the bridge between the grandstand and the winner’s enclosure, have long since abandoned the punters, their pens now guided more by bookmaker sponsorship than by the public’s passion. What was once a duty to translate the thrill of the turf for the betting masses has morphed into an insular exercise in self-reverence, their column inches shaped by the steady drip of bookmaker cash rather than the pulse of the punter. Gone are the days of gritty racecourse reportage, replaced by polished prose that flatters the industry’s elite while leaving the punters—the lifeblood of the sport—adrift. It’s an irony as thick as the bookmakers’ margins: the very money lost on the rails now funds a journalism that treats its source with polite detachment, more inclined to glorify the gilded stables than the weathered hands of those who bankroll them.

A Clean Sweep for the Scribblers

Predictably, the Racing Post once again swept the board, collecting trophies like a jockey hoovering up Cheltenham winners. Patrick Mullins—part-time writer, full-time heir to Ireland’s National Hunt dynasty—claimed Racing Writer of the Year, continuing the Post’s unbroken stranglehold on this category since 2014. His prose, it must be said, is genuinely insightful, offering a rider’s perspective that most journalists could only dream of.

Mullins was gracious in victory, calling it “right up there with Grade 1 or Cheltenham winners.” A touching sentiment, but let’s not kid ourselves: this is a man who regularly conquers the fiercest fences and toughest fields. Winning a journalism award, no matter how prestigious, is hardly going to set his pulse racing like a charge up the Cheltenham hill.

Elsewhere, Edward Whitaker claimed his record-breaking tenth Photographer of the Year award, while Patrick McCann won Picture of the Year for capturing a quintessential National Hunt moment—a horse soaring over a fence at Clonmel. McCann described it with typical understatement: “It’s hard to boil your sporting year down to two seconds’ work.” The artistry is undeniable, but the real artistry lies in convincing a bookmaker-funded panel that your two seconds of work deserves a trophy.

Bookmakers Pay, Punters Lose

Ah, the sponsors—Coral, World Pool, and the Hong Kong Jockey Club—whose logos were plastered across every available surface. The irony, of course, is that the bookmakers who bankroll these awards do so off the backs of the very punters the racing press largely ignores.

It’s the punters who endure the rain-swept grandstands, scouring the form guide for that one longshot that might salvage their afternoon. Yet their contribution to the sport doesn’t earn so much as a nod at this event. While the writers are dining on smoked salmon and sipping champagne, the punters are more likely nursing a lukewarm pint and wondering why their horse decided that the second fence was a good place for a nap.

Imagine, for a moment, an award for the Most Devoted Punters: the die-hard accumulator players, the loyal Tote enthusiasts, or the chap who’s been shouting “get up, you lazy bugger” at the telly since the 1980s. Such recognition might remind the industry that racing isn’t sustained by glossy photography or flowery prose but by the steady drip of bets from those who still believe their luck will change.

The Real Stars: Trainers and Jockeys Get Their Moment

Amid the glamour and gushing speeches, a few awards did ground the evening in the real world. Trainer of the Year went, unsurprisingly, to Willie Mullins, the overlord of Irish racing. With more winners than a midweek bingo hall and a stable that seems genetically engineered for success, Mullins could probably win this award in his sleep. Collecting the prize on his behalf was his son Patrick, who also had to haul his own newly-won trophy offstage. Willie was presumably busy training another dozen winners or trying to fit more horses into his heaving trophy cabinet.

Then there was Jockey of the Year, awarded to Oisin Murphy. Here was a moment of real resonance: a jockey whose year has been as thrilling as it has been turbulent. Murphy’s ability to bounce back from adversity and regain his place at the top of his game is the kind of story racing fans genuinely care about. It was a reminder that the sport’s drama doesn’t come from photographers or columnists but from the flesh-and-blood athletes who risk life and limb on the track.

Add to that the recognition of Owner of the Year, Juddmonte, whose investments and breeding programme have given the sport some of its brightest stars, and suddenly the evening felt like it was celebrating the people who actually make racing tick.

The Forgotten: Where Are the Stable Staff and Groundworkers?

But for all this acknowledgment, the awards still overlooked the sport’s unsung heroes: the stable staff who muck out stalls at ungodly hours, the groundworkers who ensure the tracks are safe, and the grooms who know each horse’s quirks better than their own. These are the people who live and breathe racing, yet they’re as absent from the Derby Awards as a favourite in a seller’s race.

Would it be so hard to introduce a Stable Star of the Year award? Or perhaps a Groundskeeper Excellence Award, recognising the people who turn boggy wastelands into race-ready turf? The industry likes to talk about its "grassroots," but you wouldn’t know it from the guest list.

A Night of Contradictions

The Derby Awards, in their current form, epitomise racing’s central contradiction. It’s a sport that relies on punters, trainers, jockeys, and stable staff to survive, yet its media celebrations focus almost exclusively on the people who commentate on it from the sidelines.

That’s not to say the journalists and photographers aren’t talented—far from it. But racing journalism exists in an increasingly insular bubble, funded by bookmakers and consumed by an audience that’s dwindling faster than the field in a heavy-ground novice hurdle.

If the awards are to remain relevant, they need to broaden their scope. Recognise the punters who keep the bookmakers afloat. Celebrate the stable staff who ensure the horses are ready to run. Honour the groundkeepers who turn mud into miracles. Until then, the Derby Awards will remain what they are: a glittering knees-up for the stand-ins, while the real stars of racing toil in the background, largely unrecognised.

The Sport of Kings? More like the Sport of Gilded By-Lines.