The inside track on how racing won the battle for levy reform

A week after the sport celebrated the dawn of a new era as reforms of the levy system came into force, leading figures from racing have spoken about how they came together to achieve what had long been thought of as a holy grail.

For many years the sport's often warring factions had found themselves outflanked by the bookmakers' lobby in Westminster.

So the decision was made to unite to press their case for a new system to plug the leak of millions of pounds from the sport's finances following the exodus by online bookmakers offshore.