SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
The British Horseracing Authority (BHA) has published its Racing Report for 2024, analysing 12 targets as part of a trial to make racing more attractive to fans and customers.
The two-year trial began in 2024, with the BHA outlining the 12 targets that it would aim to meet to bring racing further into the forefront of the betting industry. Premierisation was placed as a key focus of the trial, looking to make the most out of the sport’s biggest fixtures and grow interest at all levels.
This involved creating a tiered fixture list to help fans identify headline events, investing in prize money and quality at premier racedays, reducing fixture list congestion for major races and creating heightened experiences at these elite events.
As a half-time report on the trial, the BHA has reviewed progress on the 12 targets outlined in 2024, revealing that, unfortunately, total betting turnover had fallen by 6.8% compared to 2023 and 16.5% compared with two years before.
This decrease in turnover has been attributed to factors unrelated to the trial, including the UK Gambling Commission’s introduction of affordability checks.
Within the betting-related targets review, the BHA revealed that its plan to see total betting turnover on the 33 Saturdays – with only three racing fixtures outperforming the other 19 Saturdays by 6-7% – is proving to be a challenge to measure due to seasonality.
The BHA stated: “On average, those afternoons in the winter when there were only three fixtures between 2 and 4pm slightly outperformed Saturdays when there were four. However, that hasn’t been the case in the summer.”
However, the Authority did find that having longer gaps between races sees increased betting turnover for those events.
Another target saw the BHA aim to have total betting turnover on Sunday evening fixtures outperform midweek floodlit fixtures by 15-20%. However, following feedback, this part of the trial has not continued as total digital turnover averaged only 3.6% higher.
For the third and final betting-related target, the BHA aimed to slow the decline in betting across the entire fixture list compared with 2023. Unfortunately, figures show that premier racedays have underperformed compared with other fixtures.
The average decline in turnover per fixture was 7.5% for premier racing and 5.9% at core racing, just shy of the BHA’s target to have premier racing show 1-2% better relative performance than the remainder of the fixture list.
Next, the BHA reviewed its attendance-related targets, in which it hoped to halt the decline in total attendances at premier fixtures in 2024 and in turn, increase this by 5-10% in 2025 against 2023 attendances.
This target has not been achieved at the trial’s midway point, as total attendances were 4,799,730, down by 0.7% from 4,833,944 in 2023, although with 15 fewer fixtures completed, the average attendance grew by 0.4% to 3,404 from 3,392.
The BHA commented: “As with the betting-related information, making direct year-on-year comparisons for Premier racedays is not entirely straightforward given the impact of abandonments (both the number and the particular fixtures lost).
“It must be acknowledged, however, that our target to avoid a decline in attendances at these meetings was not achieved, with total attendances at these meetings falling from 2,012,929 to 1,977,553. The 2024 levels were close to 2022, when total attendances at these meetings totalled 1,979,602.”
The BHA also altered start times in hopes of recovering Saturday attendances, although this didn’t have “a material impact on the total number of people going racing on Saturdays in 2024”.
For viewer-related targets, the BHA reduced the number of races clashing – falling from 11.1% in 2022 to 5.8% in 2024 – in a bid to aid viewers that bet on races with the use of streams and racing channels.
Meanwhile, ownership-related targets saw the BHA aim to increase the number of horses that race in Britain by 2.5% by 2025 compared with 2023.
On this target, the BHA stated: “Although this target is for 2025, we should acknowledge that horse numbers remain under pressure, with the total number of horses that ran at least once declining by 178, or 1.0%, from 18,630 in 2023 to 18,452 in 2024.”
Another ownership-related target hoped to see the number of horses rated 85+ on the Flat increase by 5% in 2024, and rated 130+ over Jumps increase by 2.5%.
Once again, the BHA has failed to meet these targets as 2,052 individual Flat horses achieved a BHA performance figure of at least 85 during 2024, representing a 3.5% increase.
To make matters worse, the number of Jumps horses rated at least 130 declined – coming in at 716 for 2024, a 9% decline from the year prior’s 787.
Commenting on the Jumps decline, the BHA said: “This is a key area of focus for the BHA and others across the sport as we develop plans that seek to reverse this decline. Of course, that won’t happen overnight – not least given the time-lag between foaling and racing Jump horses in particular – but there are steps we can take to support our owners, trainers and breeders in growing the number of high-quality Jump horses bred and trained in Britain.
“A programme of work aimed at addressing this issue is under way, with a progress report to follow later in 2025.”
One target that the BHA did meet was to increase total prize money at premier fixtures by £6-7m in 2024, coming in with an increase of £7.33m.
Finally, the BHA addressed its three competitiveness-related targets together, with the three targets aiming to grow average field sizes at premier and core fixtures, grow the percentage of races with eight or more runners at these fixtures and grow the percentage of races with an odds-against favourites at premier and core fixtures.
The Authority affirmed that these targets have been met with progress, as flat average field sizes are the highest they have been since pre-pandemic levels, with an “undoubtedly” more competitive race programme across 2024.
Responding to the mixed performance of the half-way point in the trial, the BHA concluded: “It was always likely that some of the initiatives would work better than others, and, of course, that is the point of trialling things and learning as we do.
“The customer related targets were set at a time when they were already in decline and we must acknowledge that, for a variety of reasons, addressing these areas has proved challenging.
“There are some green shoots, however, not least the levelling out of betting turnover in the final few months of last year but, clearly, there is much to think about as plans for 2026 are developed. Our next report will be published at the end of Q1.”
