Jockey Club Exit Deepens British Racing Governance Divide
Jockey Club Exit Deepens British Racing Governance Divide
British racing’s governance crisis isn’t getting any better. The Jockey Club announced on 3rd August that it will quit the Racecourse Association at the end of 2026, following Ascot out of the door and leaving the sport’s oldest trade body looking increasingly hollow. For those who train horses in Britain, this isn’t background noise. Fixture lists and prize money for years ahead are being shaped by people who can’t currently agree on how decisions should be made.
What the Jockey Club Has Announced
The Jockey Club, which owns 15 racecourses including Aintree, Cheltenham, Epsom and Sandown, confirmed it will leave the RCA at the end of this year. Group chief executive Jim Mullen said that the RCA’s governance review had tidied up internal arrangements, but left the deeper question, of how racecourses exercise collective influence over British racing’s governance, untouched. His core complaint is that, as the RCA holds a 50% shareholding in the British Horseracing Authority, it would keep voting against changes to the fixture list and an independent BHA board, stalling much-needed reform. As Mullen put it, “we just want to be heard and we don’t want to be stifled.” Three independent courses have also now cut ties with the RCA since 2024, those being Ascot, Taunton (this year) and Plumpton (in 2024). The Guardian reported at the time that the move had rocked an industry already under pressure from several directions.
The Governance Row Explained
The row traces back to March, when Lord Allen resigned as BHA chair with no fixed replacement lined up. Ascot, Goodwood, Newbury, York and the Jockey Club wrote to RCA chairman Wilf Walsh demanding an urgent review; Ascot’s patience ran out first and it left in May. RCA chief executive Alex Eade later said his reaction regarding the split had been one of “sadness”, with racing having “chosen this moment to tear ourselves apart” instead of uniting behind incoming BHA chair Simon Cox. The review itself proposed scrapping the RCA’s one-racecourse-one-vote system in favour of four voting blocs: the Jockey Club, Arena Racing Company, large independents and smaller tracks. Wetherby’s Jonjo Sanderson, one of the RCA board members representing Britain’s nineteen small independent courses, has pushed back hard, saying he “could not remember an occasion” when the RCA had blocked reform. As you can see, not everyone agrees on who’s really stifling who.
Why This Matters to Trainers
The National Trainers Federation has already taken a side. Its president, Hugo Palmer, backed Ascot’s stand, arguing that people with “the long-term interests of the sport at heart” have been frustrated by RCA governance for years. That echoes a vote taken at the NTF’s own annual meeting, where seventy trainers agreed unanimously that racecourses, rather than the BHA, effectively run the sport. The practical stakes are real. Britain runs around 1458 fixtures across 59 racecourses this year and distributed £194.7 million in prize money in 2025, a rise of 3.5% on the previous year. Yet the number of horses in training fell to 21,728 last year, down 2.3% on 2024, continuing a run of declines. Every argument over who controls the fixture list and the BHA board is really an argument over how many opportunities your horses get and what they’re worth. As much as this could worry smaller operations, it’s also worrying for a trainer like Dan Skelton, currently topping the National Hunt table, who’ll depend on that fixture supply staying dependable every single week, in order to run his stable of up to 200 horses.
Betting Markets Need Certainty Too
Fixture stability doesn’t just matter to yards; it matters to the people setting the odds. Betting markets are built on stable fixtures, clear race information, a trustworthy integrity environment and continuity of governance. Regulated racing bookmakers depend on all four holding steady before they can price and promote British racing with confidence. After all, that’s part of why racing was spared the worst of the gambling tax changes in November’s budget, with racing bets held at 15% while remote gaming duty rose to 40%; the Treasury still sees British racing as a stable product worth protecting. That impact isn’t limited to Britain, either: Irish followers using bookmakers like NetBet often bet on fixtures on both sides of the Irish Sea, regularly having to weigh British against Irish form directly. The same is true vice versa. Ongoing uncertainty over who runs British racing and inevitable questions about its competitiveness makes both audiences more cautious.
What Happens Next
Simon Cox takes over as permanent BHA chair on 1st October, stepping into a sport still working out who speaks for its racecourses. The Jockey Club says it’s already in discussions with the BHA about a new framework for representation and is working with Ascot on a breakaway group built around long-term sustainability. The RCA, for its part, insists its review delivered a workable outcome and that some members simply want more than the current structure can offer. Neither side looks close to backing down. But the 2027 fixture list will be drawn up long before this is settled. If you’re planning entries, or building a season around particular meetings, keep an eye on how this plays out; the shape of British racing’s governance is still being decided and it’ll shape plenty about your yard’s opportunities too.