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Horses for Courses
Wednesday March 10, 2004
The Guardian
There should be no great surprise that the racing industry is going
through one of its periodic scandals. The huge amounts of money
spent on betting and horses, much of it in cash and easily laundered,
will always carry a whiff of corruption, in the same way that casinos
have traditionally been nectar to criminal elements. The only answer
to the possibility of bribery and race-rigging is constant vigilance
and tough responses by regulators. But the way horse racing in Britain
is configured means that racing scandals are endemic.
The problem lies in the make-up and constitution of the Jockey Club,
which is responsible for the racing itself, but not directly for
the gambling that sustains it. This is important, because racing
as an industry is little more than an extension of the betting industry,
with horseflesh used as a random-number generator. As a result,
the Jockey Club is in an impossible position, as both regulator
of an industry and cheerleader for a sport.
The composition of the Jockey Club - a relic of a distant age,
with its all-male board of stewards - hardly inspires confidence,
especially as the Jockey Club itself owns and operates 13 race courses,
including Newmarket, Cheltenham and Aintree. An equivalent would
be the Civil Aviation Authority regulating the airline industry
while also owning Heathrow and Gatwick airports. Like the police
chief in Casablanca's casino - who declares "I'm shocked, shocked
to find that gambling is going on in here!" - the Jockey Club
has to try and lay down the law while collecting its winnings.
The Jockey Club is desperate for the government's long-awaited
gambling bill to become law, to establish a Gambling Commission
able to investigate and gather evidence of malpractice. But that
may not be enough. The trend in other areas is for combined regulators,
such as the Financial Services Authority or Ofcom, able to span
a complex sector. The time may have to come to combine the elements
of the racing industry - the Jockey Club, the British Horseracing
Board, the Tote, the British Horseracing Levy Board - into one body.
Ofnag?
Source: The Guardian
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