The Horseracing Industry People Board: A Strategy for… What, Exactly?

British horseracing—a sport steeped in tradition, thrilling in its spectacle, and completely and utterly paralysed by its own inability to make a decision without forming a committee first.

The latest example of this bureaucratic addiction? The Horseracing Industry People Board (HIPB) and its grand, exciting, industry-changing (read: painfully corporate and largely pointless) People Strategy. And now, as it enters its next phase—"implementation"—they need a Programme Director to lead the charge.

The job description is a corporate masterpiece, a perfect blend of meaningless management jargon, vague ambitions, and a deep, unspoken fear that racing is in terminal decline but no one dares say it out loud.

And yet, shouldn’t we maybe wait for a permanent BHA CEO before embarking on this nonsense?

Because, let’s be honest, the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) has spent the last decade sacrificing any real power it once had to the racecourses—who, in turn, have blocked every single idea that even remotely resembles progress.

A Programme Director for a Sport in Managed Decline

Let’s be brutally honest about what this job should actually involve.

The official description talks about "careers marketing," "workforce attraction," and "vocational training"—but surely, if they were being transparent, it would include phrases like:

• "Oversee an industry in managed decline."

• "Strategically delay the inevitable."

• "Ensure workforce attraction despite an industry-wide redundancy wave."

Because if you’re familiar with horseracing’s recent employment trends, you’ll know that words like ‘growth’ and ‘expansion’ should come with an asterisk. In reality, stable staff shortages remain a major issue, trainers are struggling to keep yards open, and prize money continues to dwindle—all while the sport is locked in a never-ending battle with government regulation, animal rights campaigners, and its own inability to modernise.

A realistic job description for this Programme Director should probably read:

"Must be comfortable delivering corporate nonsense while simultaneously watching the sport eat itself alive. Should be well-versed in redundancy consultations and crisis management. Ability to draft a long-winded report explaining why things aren’t getting better is essential."

Because that is where racing is headed, and the HIPB knows it—they just don’t have the courage to say it out loud.

What Is the HIPB Actually Trying to Do?

If you wade through the jargon and strip this down to its basics, the HIPB’s purpose is painfully simple:

1. Convince people to work in horseracing.

2. Convince the people already in horseracing to stay.

3. Find money to keep the whole thing going.

And yet, instead of tackling the root causes of why racing struggles to attract and retain staff (low pay, unsociable hours, expensive training, a governing body with no authority), we get… a Programme Director and a "cross-functional implementation phase."

The BHA’s Great Surrender to the Racecourses

Of course, this all begs the real question: why is the BHA even pretending to run things anymore?

Because let’s be frank: the BHA has been completely neutered. It doesn’t really govern racing anymore—the racecourses do. And they block everything.

Want to introduce a fairer prize money structure? Blocked.
Want a proper governance shake-up? Blocked.
Want to modernise the fixture list? Blocked.

The racecourses hold all the power, and their only real concern is maximising their own profits—not securing the future of the sport. They don’t care if stable staff are leaving in droves, or if trainers are shutting up shop at an alarming rate, or if betting markets are shifting away from racing. As long as the bars are full and hospitality packages are selling, they’re happy.

So while the HIPB and this incoming Programme Director sit around discussing “strategic frameworks,” the sport is being run by people whose only long-term vision is getting more people to drink expensive prosecco in private boxes on Derby Day.

A Sport Stuck in Perpetual Crisis Mode

In theory, a People Strategy for racing is a good idea—because racing does have a people problem. The sport desperately needs fresh blood, proper investment in training, and a workforce that isn’t constantly teetering on the edge of exhaustion.

But rather than actually addressing the structural issues that make racing an unattractive career, the HIPB is opting for the classic modern British approach:

1. Hire a Programme Director.

2. Have a lot of meetings.

3. Produce some nicely formatted reports.

4. Declare success while the actual sport continues to stagnate.

Meanwhile, the real problems aren’t getting solved.

• Stable staff pay is still rubbish.

• Prize money is still nowhere near competitive.

• Racecourses still dictate policy and block reform.

• The betting industry is moving away from racing as football and casino gaming dominate.

At some point, you have to stop talking about workforce attraction and start making the industry a place where people actually want to work. And that requires action, not reports.

The Inevitable Future: More Reports, Less Racing

Here’s how this will play out:

• The Programme Director will be appointed after an exhaustive hiring process (which, naturally, will take far longer than necessary).

• They will immediately commission more “stakeholder engagement” (because nothing says "we need urgent change" like "let’s hold more meetings").

• After a year of producing “strategic frameworks” and “actionable insights”, it will become painfully clear that nothing is actually changing.

• The industry will remain in decline, but at least we’ll have some lovely reports explaining why.

By 2026, when the HIPB completes its term, the industry will probably be in the exact same place it is today—but with even more PowerPoint slides to show for it.

A Sport That Talks Itself to Death

British horseracing doesn’t need another strategy board. It doesn’t need another cross-functional implementation plan. It doesn’t need a Programme Director skilled in navigating funding processes.

It needs leadership. It needs governance that actually governs. It needs racecourses that don’t block every attempt at modernisation. It needs people who understand that you cannot solve an existential crisis with an HR initiative.

But instead, we get more bureaucracy, more management jargon, and more carefully worded documents that say absolutely nothing.

Horseracing doesn’t have a people problem—it has a leadership problem. And until someone in the sport is willing to admit that, no amount of Programme Directors will make a difference.