the estimated gain to british racing through a tote monopoly is ....

​When it comes to the serious stuff in the Racing Post no one on the staff is better than Lee Mottershead. I admire him as a writer and I suspect as a bloke, if I should ever become familiar to him. Unlikely. His ‘Seven Ideas to Tackle British Racing’s Big Problem’, though, was too coldly efficient to generate even a spark of hope in me that British racing will ever overcome its financial plight without going down a road that assigns its history and traditions to the trash can.
The problem is not the problem of achieving any of the seven ideas put forward by Lee Mottershead. The problem is in the title of this piece. The answer by the way is £400-million. The treasure chest at the long road to some form of a Tote Monopoly is an estimated value of £400-million, a figure far higher than if any of the other six ideas put forward become reality yet Mottershead only gives a 1/5 feasibility chance and 0/5 to be attainable.  He gave 5/5 feasibility of gaining extra revenue from increased racecourse attendance, for example.
New technologies, most of which go beyond my understanding, are considered by Mottershead as more feasible to attain than a Tote Monopoly, though would generate far less value to the sport. Of course, what he did not propose is that a Tote Monopoly and New Technology would make good bedfellows, especially with all those apps people can have on the phones and in finger-licking proximity. 
In the table of top-level prize-money presented in his article, Britain lags far behind the U.A.E., Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, the U.S., and France. Of the world’s richest races Britain lies sixth, with six races. Twenty-seven of the richest races are staged in Australia. South Africa, to my surprise, owns four of the richest races world-wide. Not that the richest purses interest me. You do not grow a sport, or indeed any sport or any industry, from the top down. To grow, a good, solid and dependable foundation is required. It is this that British racing lacks.
The Epsom Derby carrying £1.5 million pounds in prize-fund does nothing but alienate us from a population that cannot begin to imagine such an amount of money can be won from someone’s hobby. Coolmore/Ballydoyle is a business, it is not something ‘the lads’ play at. We know that. But do the public at large? Horse racing is largely seen by the public as a plaything for the rich and fabulously wealthy. The public only know our sport through what they perceive as huge prize-money, expensive suits worn by wealthy men, Royal Ascot frocks, glossy horses, the fast cars driven by seemingly everyone with a stake in the sport. They do not recognise that in its greater part, British horse racing is a working-class sport. Stable-staff are working class. Jockeys are working-class, even if some of them are wealthy working class. The same with even the top echelon of trainers. Bookmakers are working class. People who work at racecourses are working-class. Need I go on?
Reform of the levy? Good idea. Get on with it. Estimated value £50-60-million. Change bookmaker funding, estimated value £23-70-million; far short of what might be achieved by limiting bookmakers to racecourses. Grow racecourse attendance? Brilliant idea? Lay on free coach services from local towns and cities. Give discounted rates to people living in local post-code areas. Increase the sport’s fanbase? Well, shouldn’t that be on everyone’s mind on a daily basis? But why the fixation on Formula 1 and the documentary ‘Drive To Survive’? It is a boring sport which requires rainstorms and crashes to give it jeopardy and interest. On a bright sunny day, it is simply fast cars being driven nose-to-tail round a track designed to limit overtaking to braking zones. And cars when they crash do not die, they simply deform and derange. It is a sport that has zero to offer horse racing. Simon Bazalgette is quoted as saying. ‘Racing doesn’t have the narrative other sports have and it doesn’t have the jeopardy’. Has he ever attended a race-meeting? People and horses can die in our sport. How much more jeopardy is required? Horse racing has its own narrative because it is both a sport and an industry, and it has its own narrative because it is more than sport and industry to the majority of its participants as it is firstly an all-consuming life where the horse comes first.
Of course, the television rights should sell for more than at present, though one shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. I.T.V. in particular, but also the other channels, are an envied outlet for publicising the sport.
The problem this sport has is this. It is prepared to turn away from an estimated jackpot of £400-million simply because it might be too hard to achieve. I swear to God that there are people in our sport, especially in journalism and at the B.H.A., who would rather see horse racing diminish to the standard of a point-to-point rather than work as one to achieve a funding model that insures the U.A.E., Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, the U.S. and France outrank us worldwide in every aspect of the sport except in prestige. The bird hasn’t flown. The ship hasn’t sailed. It’s within the reach of the ambitious, those who really care about our sport and the industry that feeds it. God dammit, this is the country that turned the obvious defeat of World War 2 into a hard-won victory. Churchill loved horses especially, and racing. He wouldn’t turn turtle but face the challenge straight-on, imploring everyone to travel to victory besides him. £400-million. Not worth the endeavour of giving it a go?