The BHA

The following descriptive text is provided by the BHA:

The principal activity of British Horseracing Authority Limited ("the Company" or "the BHA") is to be the governing and regulatory authority for horseracing in Great Britain.

The principal activity of Racing Enterprises Limited ("REL") is the commercialisation of the contents of the racing administration database ("Database").

The principal activity of British Horseracing Database Limited ("BHD") is the maintenance and licensing of the Database.

REL, BHD and the BHA, together form "the Group".

Aims and objectives:

The Group’s objectives and activities are intended to benefit the sport as a whole and wider stakeholders. As such, much of the Group’s expenditure does not just benefit the Group but is spent for the overall good of British Racing. It is the Group’s responsibility to promote, regulate and represent the sport. The core roles are the administration of the sport, its fixture list and race programme, raceday regulation, to ensure the highest standards for the sport’s participants on and away from the racecourse, to promote the best for the racehorse, and to represent and promote the sport and the industry.

GREAT BRITISH RACING (GBR) is the operational arm of REL.

SOCIF summary: BHA/GBR/REL are inextricably linked and therefore consumers have a reasonable expectation that, as the sport's governing body, BHA will oversee any commercial or promotional activity of REL/GBR to ensure that consumer interests are part of the BHA integrity remit.


BHA RESPONSIBILITIES

BHA are responsible for the regulatory matters in relation to the sport and industry of horseracing in Great Britain including taking all such steps regarding such regulatory matters as may be necessary or advisable:

  1. to seek to enhance public confidence in the integrity of the sport;
  2. to encourage policies and to take steps which improve the safety and welfare of participants;
  3. to encourage policies and to take steps to improve the safety and welfare of horses;
  4. to encourage the improvement of industry standards through education, training and qualifications for licensed personnel; and through appropriate and effective training provision.
  5. to be responsible for the licensing and/or registration of any persons including but not limited to racehorse owners, agents (including jockey's agents), trainers, riders, valets and stable staff.

The following text was written by the BHA, CEO:

"In 2015, along with all the key stakeholders in British Racing, we launched the ‘Strategy for Growth’, which aims to build a more prosperous and sustainable future for the sport, and those deriving their livelihoods from it.

If this growth is to be sustainable it needs to be built on solid foundations. We will strive at all times to ensure that we are providing an effective, efficient service which represents value for money for our participants."


GOVERNMENT FUNDED SURVEY

The importance of the role played by racehorse syndication within the racing industry was endorsed in a 2016 Government funded survey to help direct the sport’s strategy for the recruitment and retention of owners in coming years.

Whilst we always believed that part ownership played a significant role as an introduction to the concept of racehorse ownership, the survey supported this belief in no uncertain terms. It established that 73% of Racehorse Owners started out with others.

The growing popularity of syndicate ownership was a recurring theme in the survey.

The National Racehorse Owners Survey was funded by the British Horseracing Grant Scheme, administered by the BHA on behalf of the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

Richard Wayman, Chief Operating Officer of the British Horseracing Authority, said: "For the sport to flourish and grow, racehorse ownership needs to become more attractive to more people so that we can reverse the recent decline in the number of owners. The insights provided by all those owners, past and present, who took the time and trouble to complete the survey played a huge role in informing the industry’s efforts to improve the retention of existing owners and introduce more new owners. It is clear from the survey results that there is much work to be done but basing the industry’s approach on this extensive customer feedback provides us with an opportunity to deliver significant improvements in the ownership experience."

Following the publication of the survey back in 2016, we remain hopeful that the BHA will improve the lot of syndicatees and fair trading syndicators, particularly as, now in 2018, racehorse syndication has an estimated worth of £150million per annum to the racing industry.