Owner warns sport needs action on funding or more disruption is inevitable

Jon Hughes, co-founder of the ownership pressure group Keep Owners In Racing (KOIR), has called on the sport's decision makers to urgently agree new funding arrangements or face the prospect of further disruption from agitated professionals.

A boycott of television interviews by members of the Professional Racing Association (PRA) at Sandown on Saturday over unmet demands trainers receive payments from media rights organisations similar to those given to jockeys was averted on Tuesday when the group stepped back from the pledge "in the best interests of the sport".

The PRA, founded and funded by former BHB chairman Peter Savill, was roundly criticised for taking the stance, which is its second major intervention in recent months having also demanded racecourses devote a third of their racing revenue to prize-money.