Catterick boss blames central funding cuts for prize-money fall in feature race

Catterick chief executive James Sanderson blamed a cut in central funding for the reduced prize-money in the North Yorkshire Grand National and warned Levy Board policy was making further cuts likely.

Bushypark earned £13,345.69 on Thursday for winning the biggest race of the track's jumps season, the smallest first prize for the Vickers.Bet-sponsored 3m6f contest since Sue Smith's Lackamon won £12,558 in 2016 and a drop of more than £2,000 on last year.

When asked about the decline, Sanderson stressed that Catterick has not changed its contribution to the funding of the race and cited an end to a post-Covid support scheme that had previously boosted it and also a change to the way appearance money is distributed.

But he said: "I am concerned that the Levy Board is going to end the winter fixture incentive scheme over jumps, which it has already done on the Flat.

"The scheme was introduced to help structure the fixture list so that it serves bookmakers' interests. Jumping at this time in the winter is a thankless task: the weather is bad, the ground is bad and the crowds are bad so it's very hard to make a profit and you need to give courses an incentive.

"But now they are talking about stopping that incentive scheme over jumps as well."

Sanderson believes a reallocation of the money saved by ending the incentive scheme will be to the detriment of the small courses that race over jumps in the winter.

"It will go into the overall prize-money pot," he said. "That is skewed towards the Flat and towards the top tracks.

"Sue Smith has won the North Yorkshire Grand National four times since 2016 and money that has previously gone to Yorkshire jumps trainers will be finding its way up the Flat food chain."

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