Spending it wisely: charity laying the foundation for racing's future prosperity

The trouble with having a lot of money is that everybody wants a bit of it. When your job is to look after that money on everybody's behalf, the clamour for a piece of the pie grows ever greater. Such is the lot of the Racing Foundation, the body set up at the start of 2012 to manage the £78 million windfall received by British racing from the government after the sale of the Tote to Betfred.

Charged by its originators – the BHA, the Horsemen's Group and the Racecourse Association – with advancing the cause of the sport in the present while maintaining its prosperity in the future, the foundation was in no position to splash out on each and every project flung its way by the well-meaning, the misguided and the economically unversed.

Its brief was to keep hold of the capital sum, grow it and nurture it, spending the earnings from such a considerable investment on charitable schemes that offered ongoing benefit to the racing and breeding industries.