The Weighing Room Fiasco: How Racecourses, Wilf Walsh, and the BHA Are Failing British Racing

In 2024, British horseracing remains stuck in a quagmire of its own making, unable to provide female jockeys with even the most basic facilities while hiding behind excuses of financial pressure and logistical challenges. Despite the British Horseracing Authority’s (BHA) endless chatter about modernisation, inclusivity, and welfare, the reality is stark: the sport’s governing body is compromised, toothless, and incapable of holding its stakeholders accountable.

At the heart of the problem is a broken governance model. The BHA, half-owned by racecourses, cannot act independently, even when faced with glaring failures such as the long-overdue upgrading of weighing room facilities. Add to this outdated attitudes embodied by figures like Wilf Walsh—a key figure on the BHA board who has opposed initiatives such as saunas for jockeys—and you have a sport paralysed by self-interest, dithering, and inertia.

The State of the Weighing Rooms: A National Embarrassment

In 2021, a cross-industry commitment promised upgraded weighing room facilities by October 2024. This was supposed to ensure private changing and shower spaces for jockeys, particularly female riders, to provide dignity, equality, and safeguarding. Yet by the deadline, only 12 of Britain’s 59 racecourses had delivered.

The majority missed the target, forcing the BHA to extend the timeline to 2027. The excuses are familiar: “financial headwinds,” planning permission delays, and the sheer scale of the £40 million investment required. But if small, independent tracks like Fakenham and Ripon can meet the standards, why can’t the wealthier, high-profile courses?

The answer lies in priorities—or lack thereof. Racecourses seem more interested in spending on hospitality upgrades and non-racing events than ensuring their jockeys, particularly women, are treated with respect.

Paul Struthers, chief executive of the Professional Jockeys Association (PJA), has rightly called this “completely unacceptable.” Female jockeys are still forced to navigate male-dominated spaces at most tracks, and interim measures have been poorly implemented. Struthers praised the few tracks that delivered on time but voiced deep frustration with the delays and the lack of urgency from the BHA and racecourses alike.

Wilf Walsh: The Face of Racing’s Inertia?

At the centre of this crisis is Wilf Walsh,a man of a certain age, a prominent figure on the BHA board and former chair of the Racecourse Association. Walsh embodies the old-school, racecourse-first mindset that has long dominated British racing governance.

Most notably, Walsh opposed the return of saunas for jockeys, a key welfare issue for many riders who use them to manage weight safely. His argument against saunas—framed as a health and safety concern—has been perceived by many jockeys as patronising and out of touch. It reflects a paternalistic attitude in which jockeys are seen as subservient to the decisions of racecourse operators and the BHA, rather than as equal stakeholders with the right to determine what’s best for their own health.

Walsh’s stance on both saunas and facilities for jockeys typifies a wider problem: a governance structure that prioritises racecourse profits over the needs of those who actually make the sport possible.

The BHA: Captive to Its Owners

The BHA’s inability to enforce deadlines or demand accountability is not a surprise when you understand its ownership model. Half-owned by racecourses, the very entities failing to deliver on facilities, the BHA is fundamentally compromised. It cannot challenge its stakeholders without risking internal revolt.

This structural conflict of interest renders the BHA’s role as regulator effectively meaningless. Racecourses wield disproportionate influence, using their seat at the table to push back against reforms they deem inconvenient or expensive. Meanwhile, the People Board—a BHA initiative designed to represent jockeys and other participants—has been silent throughout the weighing room crisis, offering no meaningful defence of the very people it was created to protect.

The BHA’s focus on diversity has been similarly hollow. While the organisation has championed inclusivity in its messaging, the reality on the ground tells a different story. Female jockeys are still treated as second-class citizens, and the promised weighing room upgrades remain a distant dream. How can the BHA credibly claim to support diversity when it can’t even provide private changing facilities for women?

Racecourses: Crying Poverty While Spending Elsewhere

Racecourses, for their part, have been quick to cite “financial pressures” as a reason for missing deadlines. Yet these same venues continue to invest heavily in hospitality, VIP suites, and non-racing activities, showing where their true priorities lie.

The Racecourse Association (RCA) has defended its members, pointing to the £40 million price tag for weighing room upgrades as a significant burden. But this argument falls apart when smaller, less wealthy tracks like Pontefract and Taunton manage to deliver. The issue isn’t money—it’s will.

Diversity and Welfare: All Talk, No Action

The weighing room fiasco and the sauna debate expose the BHA’s commitment to diversity and welfare as little more than PR spin.

• Diversity: Female jockeys have excelled at the highest levels of the sport, yet they’re still forced to change in male-dominated spaces. This failure to provide basic facilities undermines every claim the BHA makes about inclusivity.

• Welfare: The opposition to saunas reveals a patronising attitude toward jockeys, treating them as problems to be managed rather than professionals to be respected.

A Governance Model That’s Failing Everyone

The weighing room debacle isn’t just a failure of logistics—it’s a failure of governance. The BHA’s compromised ownership structure, its racecourse-dominated board, and its silence on key welfare issues have left jockeys, particularly women, feeling marginalised and ignored.

Figures like Wilf Walsh highlight the deeper problem: an entrenched hierarchy that prioritises tradition and profit over progress and fairness. The People Board, meanwhile, has been conspicuously absent, raising questions about its relevance.

What Needs to Change?

British racing must confront its structural dysfunction head-on.

1. An Independent BHA: The regulator must be freed from racecourse control to act in the sport’s best interests. This means restructuring the BHA’s ownership and governance.

2. Accountability for Racecourses: Tracks must face penalties for failing to meet deadlines and prioritise jockey welfare over hospitality profits.

3. Empowered Advocacy: The People Board must start advocating for jockeys and other participants rather than sitting quietly on the sidelines.

4. Respect for Jockeys: Whether it’s facilities or saunas, jockeys must be treated as professionals, not subordinates.

The Cost of Inaction

If the BHA, racecourses, and figures like Wilf Walsh continue to prioritise self-interest and outdated attitudes over reform, the sport will remain trapped in decline. The weighing room crisis is a symbol of everything wrong with British racing: a sport that talks about modernisation and diversity while failing to deliver even the basics.

The choice is clear: either embrace meaningful reform or face a future where British racing becomes an embarrassing relic, remembered for its wasted potential and unwillingness to change.