Boycotting races over dents to prize funds will not help trainers and owners who must work to make racing more competitive
“They are watching carefully while we are first out of the trench and taking all of the bullets,” Martin Cruddace, the chief executive of Arc, said of his fellow track execs after a trainers’ boycott reduced a seven-race card to five at Lingfield on Saturday. “We’ll be clearing the way for them to follow.”
He may well be right, but the bad news for Cruddace is that he will have no-one behind him when he goes over the top for some time yet. Lingfield races again this Saturday, when the only other Flat meeting is at Chelmsford, a track that has (so far) maintained its prize funds despite the imminent arrival of a £2 maximum bet on high-street FOBT machines.
Written by Greg Wood
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/feb/25/talking-horses-losing-toxic-fixed-odds-profits-a-wake-up-call-for-racing under the title “Talking Horses: Losing toxic fixed-odds profits a wake-up call for racing”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
