Racing urged to embrace change following radical fixture list shake-up in bid to ensure sport's long-term health

British racing has been told it needs to accept the risk of failure in order to attract new followers to the sport and protect its future after the BHA unveiled 170 new Premier racedays for 2024 in the biggest shake-up to the fixture list in recent memory.

The meetings will feature higher prize-money with the aim of showcasing the best races in a bid to increase fan engagement, improve revenues, recruit and retain owners and encourage the best horses to be trained and raced in Britain.

BHA chief executive Julie Harrington said the 2024 fixture list was a "first foundation step" in much wider strategy work with the aim of achieving "the long-term transformation of the sport".

The proposals, recommended by the cross-industry commercial committee and approved by the BHA board, are set to be implemented and tested for an initial two-year period. To fund the changes the Levy Board has agreed to increase its overall fixture funding for 2024 by £3.2 million following a lengthy period of tough negotiations with racing's leadership.

2024 British fixture list

Among the other key changes to the 2024 fixture list published on Tuesday were:

• The creation of a protected window between 2pm and 4pm for Premier racedays on Saturday to control the number of fixtures, allowing them "room to breathe" to improve revenues from betting and media rights
• Better use of Sunday racing through the creation of a stronger fixture list, including 29 Premier racedays, and the pilot of six Sunday evening fixtures in the first quarter of the year
• Six Saturday fixtures in a new morning slot and 35 starting on late Saturday afternoon
• Efforts to create more competitive racing through improved field sizes by reducing the size of the fixture list and race programme, including the removal of 300 jump races and 20 jump meetings, bringing the overall schedule for 2024 down to 1,468 meetings
• Measures to support the sport's workforce with the creation of breaks for both the Flat and jumps, including geographic breaks and rider-restricted racedays on the Flat

The BHA said industry modelling estimated that British racing's finances would improve by £90m over the five-year period from 2024 to 2028 from a combination of increased engagement from existing racing followers and the attraction of new customers, compared with a situation in which nothing was done and in which industry revenues continued to decline.

The BHA said benchmarks would be developed to judge the success of the measures, covering areas including attendances, TV audiences, betting, ownership and the wellbeing of participants.

Harrington said: "We think it is really important that there is transparency around that and that we are not disappearing and saying trust us, it worked. We are going to be publishing in the next couple of weeks a range of measures that show this is what we think are the top-line objectives, the reason why we are doing this.

"We would have liked to have had those measures attached to the press release but there are a few market-sensitive pieces of data where we just need to work out what we can publish and what we can't."

Harrington said the BHA would "absolutely" be happy "fronting up" to things that had not worked. She added: "I think the sport as a whole needs to not be scared of trying things and openly admitting that things didn't work because I do think there is a culture change required. If you think there is just going to be a massive pile-on every time something hasn't quite gone to plan then it is just going to stifle the appetite to try anything new."

Harrington acknowledged the trial would not have been going for long before the 2025 fixture process has to start next year but said the sport's new governance structure would help it to be agile in making changes.

BHA chief operating officer Richard Wayman said there was confidence the sport would see improvement in customer numbers over the next two years.

He added: "We will learn as we go. We will continue to push on with those things that work but where things don't work as we want them to we'll accept that and say we tried it but we'll reverse it.

"It is about the whole sport being grown up and realising that, by trying to change what we are doing and trying to attract people to the sport, we are going to have to make some changes and be prepared for some of those changes not to work out how we hoped."

Premier racing, a concept put forward by former BHB chair Peter Savill last year, was among the proposals put to a summit of senior industry figures in September 2022 who met to draw up the principles for a long-term industry strategy to tackle issues such as the loss of major owners, a drain of equine talent abroad and falling field sizes.

BHA chair Joe Saumarez Smith said British racing's new governance structure, which made the BHA the ultimate decision-making body in the sport, had enabled progress in compiling the new-look schedule.

He added: "It has allowed for bold, positive decisions to be made, while ensuring that the views of everyone affected have been properly considered.

"The simple fact of the matter is this – the sport has to take radical steps if it is to retain its pre-eminent place in British culture and at the pinnacle of world racing. The changes we are introducing for 2024 are a significant first step in this process."

Read this next: 

2024 fixture list explained: what are the main changes and why are they happening? 

Pilot scheme for six Sunday evening all-weather cards wins backing of stable staff chief 

Lingfield 'has had to be flexible' after losing Winter Derby to Southwell amid fixture changes 

Need to 'maximise appeal' the driver behind culling of 20 jumps meetings from new-look fixture list 

Lots of questions still to be answered but British racing is being asked to lose its fear of failure 

Levy Board raises 2024 prize-money contribution by £3.2m in bid to support 'racing's aspiration to make change' 

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