Alan Morcombe, the chief executive of the Horsemen’s Group, insisted on Mondaythat its tariff to encourage racecourses to raise prize money has been a success and will not be abandoned, despite a decision to drop all Britain’s major events, both on the Flat and over jumps, from the provisions of the scheme.
The previously published tariff for Flat races was due to come into effect when the new season on turf begins on Wednesday. However, it will now cover only lower-grade racing, away from major meetings at tracks such as Ascot, Epsom and York, while the requirement for Class One events reverts to the British Horseracing Authority’s official “minimum value”, a stipulation that will be met by every race in that bracket.
As a result, the acceptable prize fund for a race such as the Lockinge Stakes at Newbury, which paid a total of £197,000 last season, well below the original tariff of just over £256,000, will be reduced to just £160,000. Unlike the initial tariff, the BHA’s minimum values are fixed regardless of the day of the race, so for example a Listed event will need to be worth just £30,000, no matter whether it takes place on a Monday, a Saturday or at one of the season’s big festival meetings.
As recently as two days ago, Charlie Methven, a spokesmen for the Horsemen’s Group, told the Racing Post that “there is no way we can abandon the tariff for Class One races.” However, Morcombe said yesterday that “these things are very dynamic, and that we felt, on balance, that suspending for Class One races this year we would protect those races in a way that was productive and sensible.”
Morcombe added: “This should not be seen as the Horsemen backing down, but that we are working for the benefit of racing. We don’t want to have a seriously damaging effect on racing, we want it to be hugely successful, but we also want horsemen to be paid sensible levels of prize money. An extra £4.5m has already been pledged [by racecourses] in prize money that would not have been there if the tariff had not been introduced.”
Morcombe denied that smaller owners would feel betrayed by the removal of Class One races from the tariff. “Big owners that have Class One horses have put pressure on racecourses to inject prize money and that almost exclusively has been injected at the lower end,” he said. “Smaller owners are benefiting from the threat of larger owners not running.”
The BHA confirmed on Monday that a new rule to change the method of numbering stalls in British racing will come into effect from Wednesday, although the following day’s meeting at Leicester will be the first to be affected. The stalls at tracks classified as right-handed – which includes both the July and Rowley Mile courses at Newmarket – will now be numbered from right to left, with the lowest number towards the inside rail where there is a round course. The change will also affect races run on a straight course.
As a result, a number of well-known high-draw biases, at tracks including Beverley (first meeting 6 April), Kempton (2 April) and Goodwood (30 April), will now favour horses drawn low.