On 10 June the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) announced it was minded to close its four-year investigation into the way British horseracing is run. This followed the British Horseracing Board’s (BHB’s) offer to the OFT of a number of legally binding commitments relating to the implementation of a programme of modernisation that will dramatically reform the sport.
The modernisation programme was the out-come of a comprehensive review of the sport that the BHB initiated in 2002. The recommendations of this review, which have now been published in a document entitled The Modernisation of British Racing, cover key issues such as governance, fixture allocation, race planning, prize money and central licensing of the BHB’s database rights. It is anticipated that all the recommendations will be fully implemented by 1 January, 2006.
