where is the coordinated plan to help british racing survive and thrive?

​Whilst not wishing to endorse one syndicate over another, the Owners’ Group is a shining example of how to get the man/woman in the street involved in British horse-racing. For an annual cost of somewhere in the region of £60 it is possible for bus drivers, care-workers, hotel porters etc, to own a small share, and receive a small share of prize-money, in a Cheltenham Festival or Royal Ascot winner. The working-class man may never be able to own a racehorse outright yet for a small outlay the mystery, intrigue, tragedy and joy of racehorse ownership could lead to a lifelong passion for the sport and a portfolio of small investments in many Owners’ Group horses. It’s got me thinking, anyway.
The increase in prize-money at York, Ascot and Goodwood cannot be quibbled at, even if I quibble that the benefit of six-figure prize funds is directed at the elite of the sport and will do little to aid those at the bottom reaches of the sport’s pyramid. Strength and longevity comes from strong foundations, not from constructing down from the top storey of the building. That said, at least racecourses are addressing the shortfall in British prize-money in relation to horse racing around the world, even if the B.H.A. continues to twiddle its thumbs as if the tree of life is bearing nothing but glorious fruitful dividends.
Horse racing is both a sport and an industry. It is worth billions to the British Treasury, employs in its many guises many thousands of people of all ages and gender and from many countries around the world. It is also a sport and industry that happily mingles all sectors of society together as one horse-worshipping entity. Horse racing is not, as portrayed in the media and culture, an elitist sport but a sport where the working class can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with royalty and the mega-wealthy.
Horse racing in this country also has a history that has grown from an entertainment for the aristocracy, founded, in part, by Queen Anne, to a hobby enjoyed on the High Streets and homes of the country. The sport has a right to exist, a right to survive and a duty to everyone in history who has contributed to where we are now, to thrive long into the future.
We live in straiten times. The manipulated cost-of-living crisis affects us all. No one is truly unaffected by rising costs. This, in effect, has the sport on a war-footing. Attendance at racecourses is, as one would expect, on a downward spiral. Clerks-of-the-courses are having to be imaginative to grab the attention of local people, to encourage interest in a day at the races. Sponsors are hard to find, with even the Derby at Epsom without as yet a sponsor.
Anyone with an inkling of knowledge as to how politicians and unelected technocrats wish to manipulate society in the decades to come will be aware that though working people may have more time on their hands than at any period in history, they will have less resources to go where they please. In twenty-years it may not be possible, for example, to go racing at Fakenham if you live in London or Manchester. Or Redcar if you live in Cambridge. Or Taunton if you live in Rhyl. It’s not science-fiction; if only it were.
The B.H.A. now has the power to implement strategies to take the sport forward. They are no longer hidebound by the tripartite agreement with racecourse owners and the Thoroughbred Group. Instead of tinkering with whip rules, having made a bollocks of it for decades, and worrying over the image of the sport with the outside world, what is needed is a strategic plan to encompass all aspects of the sport. To formulate a plan that allows the sport to fund itself, to encourage more people into the sport at all levels, including small-time breeders, owners and permit-trainers, and to ensure that every racecourse from Newton Abbot to Perth survive and thrive long into the future. Yet does the B.H.A. have the expertise to right the ship and sail it into calmer waters and the adventures that lie beyond? I suggest not. I suggest nothing in its history suggests anything remotely close to dynamic, creative, inventive or enterprising.
Perhaps the answer is for the B.H.A. to bring together a group of horse racing people of wisdom and long-experience of the sport to formulate a plan for the future of British horse racing. I am not suggesting the sort of plan that Beeching dreamed-up that removed romance and convenience from the railways and eventually led to a countryside ravaged by tail-backs, pot-holes metropolitan pollution and the madness of ULEZ and the impossible to achieve fantasy of fifteen-minute cities. 
Individual enterprise is to be applauded. But for the sport to survive and thrive as a whole a coordinated plan is required. And required now. Or at least required to be initiated now. There is no time to lose. I am old; I have enjoyed this sport for the best part of sixty-years. I may have lived through its stellar years, and I want to continue to enjoy the sport through my dotage until death takes me to the next realm of existence. I want others to enjoy the sport, including those yet to be born.
I want to see Fakenham survive. I want Redcar to survive. I want Taunton to survive, just as much as I want York, Ascot and Goodwood to attract the best horses from around the world. Beeching took the countryside railway stations from the people. I do not want to live to see the current British country racecourses feature in a future edition of Chris Pitt’s ‘A Long Time Gone’.