"Who Really Owns UK Horseracing?

Ask who owns UK horseracing, and you’ll get a shrug, a knowing smirk, or an argument depending on who you ask. Is it the British Horseracing Authority (BHA), the supposed regulator? The racecourses, who rake in the media rights? The bookmakers, who pocket billions without truly contributing? Or perhaps the owners, who pour millions into horses, or even the punters, whose flutter fuels the levy?

The truth is, UK horseracing is “owned” by everyone and no one—a sport governed like a dysfunctional family business, where the estate manager, the accountant, and the boss all think they’re in charge. It’s a setup so convoluted you’d almost think it was designed to fail.

And fail it might. The BHA makes no attempt to make its decision-making transparent. Its meeting minutes read like the minutes of a secret society—vague, uninformative, and utterly devoid of accountability. Meanwhile, those at the top seem happy to stall meaningful reform to protect their competitive advantage, and a complicit media ensures nobody dares to speak truth to power. Add to this the unholy alliance between the BHA and bookmakers, whose closed-door meetings are incubators for the sport’s most baffling ideas—Sunday night racing, anyone?—and you’ve got a recipe for chaos.

The Media’s Role: Muffled, Muzzled, and Matey

No discussion about who controls horseracing is complete without looking at the media machine propping it all up. Racing’s major broadcasters, including Racing TV (RMG) and Sky Sports Racing, operate in a world steeped in bookmaker money and heavily influenced by racecourse owners who hold the media rights.

This creates an incestuous microcosm where genuine criticism of those who control and fund the sport is simply not done. Broadcasters, funded by bookmaker advertising, sponsorship, and partnerships, have little incentive to bite the hand that feeds them. Similarly, reporters and commentators, many of whom are deeply embedded in the industry, often shy away from challenging the status quo.

Consider this: bookmakers rake in over £1 billion annually in gross profits from horseracing alone, excluding their additional revenues from gaming, media rights, and sponsorships. Yet, if you turned on racing coverage, you’d think the bookmakers were everyone’s old school pals—mates from the tuck shop days, back to generously “support” the sport out of the goodness of their hearts.

Do the racing media ever ask why bookmakers, who benefit so enormously from the sport, contribute such a paltry amount to its sustainability? Of course not. Criticising the lads from the betting world would be like betraying the alma mater. It’s all handshakes, backslaps, and hearty laughter over champagne at the hospitality suite, while owners and punters are left to foot the bill.

The BHA and Bookmakers: Partners in Secrecy

If the bookmakers’ cosy relationship with the media weren’t enough, their behind-the-scenes dealings with the BHA add another layer of intrigue. The BHA, nominally independent, appears to share a curiously close bond with the betting industry.

Closed-door meetings between these supposed adversaries have become the norm, with little transparency about what is being discussed—or agreed. It’s within these secretive huddles that ideas like Sunday night racing are hatched, much to the bewilderment of trainers, owners, and punters.

Sunday night racing, for example, is a concept so clearly designed to serve the betting industry’s bottom line that one wonders whether anyone at these meetings even pretends it’s for the good of the sport. Sunday night slots were seen as great for TV audiences by bookmakers seeking another peak betting period, but they wreaked havoc on trainers, stable staff, and horses, not to mention the dwindling live spectatorship the sport desperately needs to attract. It was weighted with bookmaker money to succeed and it failed abysmally, maybe they could have asked punters. But thats not in the BHA's MO.

The whole arrangement feels less like governance and more like a corporate merger, where the betting industry and the BHA align their interests at the expense of everyone else, owners and punters alike.

The Racecourses: A License to Print Money

If horseracing has a real power broker, it’s the racecourses. They host the events, control ticket sales, and profit handsomely from media rights and sponsorship deals. The likes of the Jockey Club and Arena Racing Company (ARC) dominate the landscape, pocketing millions while insisting they’re “reinvesting” in the sport.

Of course, that reinvestment doesn’t always trickle down. Prize money for smaller races is stagnant if not falling, facilities for jockeys are often outdated, and grassroots trainers struggle to make ends meet. But don’t worry—the racecourses have shiny new hospitality suites! Nothing says “sustainable sport” like a champagne bar overlooking a half-empty grandstand.

The Bookmakers: Middlemen, Not Contributors

Bookmakers often position themselves as essential to horseracing’s survival, but their role is more parasitic than altruistic. Acting as intermediaries between punters and the levy, bookmakers skim profits without truly contributing to the sport.

Sure, they collect the levy, but that’s not money coming out of their coffers—it’s punters’ cash being funneled through their hands. Meanwhile, bookmakers profit handsomely from horseracing through bets and media rights, but they give little back beyond the bare minimum required by law.

And now, with the introduction of intrusive affordability checks (or their confusingly named cousins, financial vulnerability checks), betting turnover has plummeted. The resulting £3 billion shortfall in revenue for horseracing (soon to be £4.5 billion) is a crisis of monumental proportions. But bookmakers carry on, unfazed, taking their cut while the sport withers.

Owners and Punters: Cash Cows Without a Say

And then there are the owners and punters—the unsung heroes (or perhaps the fools) who keep the sport afloat. Owners invest millions in their horses, while punters pour their hard-earned cash into the levy, only to find themselves sidelined by the very system they sustain and fund.

Owners face rising costs, stagnant prize money, and little to no input into the sport’s governance. Punters, on the other hand, are treated like walking wallets to be audited, scrutinised, and occasionally alienated. Imagine being asked for payslips to justify a £10 each-way bet—it’s no wonder they’re turning their backs on the sport.

Separate Entities, Shared Problems

Which brings us back to the original question: why are the regulator, financier, estate manager, and media separate entities? Surely consolidating these roles under a single, independent governing body would eliminate conflicts of interest and create a more cohesive vision for the sport as well as reduce overheads.

Instead, we have a system where the racecourses prioritise profits, the bookmakers exploit regulatory confusion, the BHA waves a clipboard around like a supply teacher, and the media cheerfully ignores the systemic rot beneath the surface.

A Death by a Thousand Cuts

Until someone takes decisive action to address these structural failings, horseracing is headed for a slow, painful demise. The racecourses and bookmakers will continue to gorge themselves on what remains, while the owners, trainers, punters, and even the horses that make the sport possible are left to suffer.

And don’t count on the racing media to hold anyone accountable. When the financial interests of those who pay for airtime and headlines outweigh the truth, meaningful criticism is the first casualty.

Horseracing isn’t just being mismanaged—it’s being drained of its lifeblood by those who claim to steward it. Unless its stakeholders and media allies stop feasting long enough to save the patient, the sport will become little more than a memory—a collapsed racehorse on the track, having given its all, only to be let down by those who should have cared for it most.

The question is no longer who owns horseracing—it’s whether there will be anything left to own.