Why would Labour be anti-racing? 

Enjoying the election? It was a colleague from my days with CNN who alerted me during Donald Trump’s first contest to an obituary notice in a US local newspaper which summed up the feelings of many: ‘Faced with the prospect of voting either for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, Mary Anne Noland chose instead last Sunday to pass into the eternal love of God.’

For British racing the very calling of an election has been a blow. Poor prize money levels compared with its international competitors and falling attendances have been further imperilled by the cutback in wagering occasioned by the clumsy affordability checks involved in proposed gambling reforms. To help racing survive, the government had instituted a review of the Levy system on bookmakers’ profits which keeps the show at least partly on the road. A government-brokered deal between those involved was always going to be tricky. The bookmakers were represented by the Betting and Gaming Council; racing’s interests were represented as ever by the British Horseracing Authority, the Jockey Club, the Racecourse Association, the Racehorse Owners Association, the National Trainers Federation and the Arena Racing Company – a group with an innate tendency to produce both compromisers and hard-liners. Not surprisingly, the BGC chief executive, Michael Dugher, declared that the guiding role which needed to be played by the BHA’s chair, Joe Saumarez Smith, and its chief executive, Julie Harrington, was like ‘herding cats’.

Racing wanted a new Levy rate, increasing racing’s take by some £30 million a year and an expansion of the Levy’s scope to bets placed by British punters on racing overseas. The bookmakers were adamantly opposed to that extension and wanted to focus on their overall contributions, including media rights payments and their sponsorship of festivals and races.