With storylines involving vast sums of money, deep-seated suspicions and thinly veiled antipathy, racing’s ongoing bickering over how much the tracks make from media rights payments – and, by extension, how much they give back in prize money – has lost many of the elements of a Netflix potboiler, and last week one of the leads added some spicy dialogue to match.
In an interview with the Racing Post’s industry editor Bill Barber, Arena Racing Company (Arc) CEO Martin Cruddace gave a strong response to those – including Julie Harrington, the British Horseracing Authority CEO – who have called for more “transparency” about Arc’s media rights revenues, especially from online betting.
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“It’s very difficult to argue with people who leave rational thinking at the door and aren’t willing to change their opinions no matter what you say, and I’m not going to argue with those people,” Cruddace said.
“We run 586 games and all but 100 of them make a substantial loss without media rights, so that’s our business model. This fixation on one income line is economically illiterate. What I will never allow is a trainer or an owner telling this company how to run it and where to spend money.”
The interview was published two days after a pledge from Nevin Truesdale, the Jockey Club’s chief executive, to provide at least some of the “greater transparency” about its tracks’ finances than the Thoroughbred Group (TG) – which owns , trainers, jockeys and players. stable staff – has long been demanding. It seems like it’s highly unlikely that Cruddace will follow suit, and that in turn will only reinforce the TG’s belief that there’s something he’s eager to hide.
Cruddace and Truesdale are the public faces of the two main groups selling the racecourse’s media rights. Arc’s 16 tracks, along with four smaller independent circuits, pool their rights through The Racing Partnership (TRP), while the Jockey Club’s subsidiary, Jockey Club Racecourses (JCR), which also includes Cheltenham, Aintree, Epsom and Newmarket, is a member of Racecourse Media. Group (RMG), alongside some of the larger independents including Goodwood and York.
Both TRP and RMG have entered into media rights deals with the major off-course betting companies based on the payment of a fixed percentage of sales – rather than profits, as is the case with Levy payments – on their races. However, as things stand, the precise percentage involved is a closely guarded secret, and anyone privy to the information will have signed a contract requiring them to keep it that way.
But of course that only encourages speculation and rumour, and one persistent suggestion – as has been stated in this column in the past – is that Cruddace has secured a significantly higher share of online sales for TRP tracks than those with RMG. According to some sources even more than double.
If this were indeed the case and became common knowledge, it would raise difficult questions for both parties. Cruddace and Arc could come under renewed pressure to justify current levels of prize money at their circuits, while the RMG side could be accused of woefully undervaluing some of the sport’s biggest events, including the Grand National and the Cheltenham Festival.
Of course, you could also argue that Cruddace is just doing its job and securing the best possible return on investment for its shareholders. If his commercial talent and instincts have indeed led to him getting a much better deal than his JCR counterparts, then fair game for him in a capitalist world, and his comments about telling owners and trainers where to go must if they want to meddle in Arc’s affairs are still standing.
Constitution Hill, the unbeaten reigning Champion Hurdle winner, will miss his intended target at Cheltenham on January 27 after an unsatisfactory reach and is now likely to defend his title at Cheltenham’s Festival meeting in March without another run, following his successful seasonal debut in the Christmas Hurdle at Kempton last month.
Constitution Hill trainer Nicky Henderson said in a statement on Monday that it had been “reluctantly decided” that the seven-year-old would miss the International Hurdle because “a routine exercise last week was not entirely satisfactory and follow-up action this morning shows that the problem has not yet been resolved.” is solved”.
Henderson added: “He will continue with light exercises, get a new scope in a fortnight and then start his preparation for March. Both Michael [Buckley, Constitution Hill’s owner] and I had very much hoped for a better result this morning so that we could run on Saturday, but for the sake of the horse and indeed everyone it would be foolish to do so and this has no bearing on future plans.”
But it’s also an argument that he would certainly rather leave another day (or, ideally, another decade). Whether that will be a sustainable tactic is unclear, however, not least due to Newbury’s decision to switch from RMG to TRP from the start of this year.
Weather permitting, Wednesday’s meeting at the Berkshire circuit will mark its debut on Sky Sports Racing, which broadcasts the action from TRP circuits, and the track announced on Monday that prize money will rise to a record £100,000 in 2024 7 million, which is “a 13% like-on-like increase compared to 2023”.
The 2023 figure, meanwhile, was 16% higher than 2022, reflecting the expected increase in media rights revenues from this year, and Newbury confirmed on Monday that “the increase in prize money has come about as a direct result of increased media revenue Newbury expects to generate revenue from the move to Sky”.
Plumpton 12.45 Fakir 1.15 Doc McCoy 1.50 Copshill Lad 2.25 Trincomalee 3.00 Tregele 3.35 Disinfectant 4.05 Ferrybridge
Chepstow 12.55 Easy to Follow 1.30 Ballycamus 2.05 Cooleenymore 2.35 Lowry’s Bar 3.10 Broughshane 3.45 Livin On Luco 4.15 Call Me Arthur
Wolverhampton 1.25 Beauzon 2.00 Alghazaal 2.30 Jaunty Dancer 3.05 Laura’s Breeze (nb) 3.40 Inexplicable 4.10 Kemerton
Newcastle 3.55 Belle Of Annandale 4.25 Marcello Si 5.00 Hale End (nap) 5.30 Better 6.00 Tournelle 6.30 Our absent friends 7.00 The Caltonian 7.30 Urban Dandy
For those looking for more transparency on income streams, Newbury is an independent track that publishes its accounts in great detail every year. The full accounts for 2024 will arrive in May 2025, but the interim results are normally published in September, when it should be possible to get a much better idea of the precise increase in media rights revenues and whether the rumors about inequality between the respective pieces of the turnover pie of two groups is indeed the case.
Cruddace’s battle talk about media rights revenues is no more or less than you would expect from one of the smartest and sharpest players in the sport. However, whether it is a line that will last forever remains to be seen.