Levy Board to extend support with up to £75 million for prize-money in 2022

The Levy Board is set to contribute as much as £75 million towards prize-money in 2022, continuing the extra financial support it has given British racing during the Covid-19 pandemic.

However, chairman Paul Darling warned on Friday that the position would be "different in 2023".

There has also been a change to the way levy funding is allocated, which Darling said would provide more "transparency".

The Levy Board has stepped into the breach while racecourses have been unable to make their usual contribution towards prize-money due to the absence of racegoers for much of the last 18 months.

This year, including additional grants arising from the government's £21.5m Sport Winter Survival Package loan, the board expects to contribute around £81m to prize-money. While the figure for next year is lower – and also includes £5m from the survival package – it is considerably more than the around £60m provided by the board in both 2018 and 2019.

Darling said: "The board recognised the importance of maintaining its higher than usual allocations to prize-money in 2022 to support the ongoing recovery of the sport from the effects of the Covid period.

"This adds to the substantial extra grants we have made in 2020 and 2021. In addition, by the end of 2021 the board’s contribution to Covid-related regulatory costs is likely to have reached £3.7m."

The Levy Board said its greater than normal contributions to prize-money had been enabled by "having carefully husbanded reserves", while betting activity since the resumption of racing in June last year had been comparable to the period before Covid.

However, the board said continued investment at similar levels was unlikely to be possible in 2023, adding that it expected racecourse revenues – and the ability of racecourses to contribute to prize-money – would have recovered by then.

Darling added: "It must be recognised throughout the sport that although drawing again on our reserves makes it possible to continue with higher funding in 2022, the position in 2023 will be different.

"The board is required to make the first repayment to government of the Sport Winter Survival Package loan that was taken this year. That will be the first call on expenditure in 2023 and in the seven subsequent years."

In the past, once each racecourse’s prize-money grant allocation from the Levy Board was calculated, it was paid in effect as a single sum and left to each course to determine how to distribute it across the race programme.

Under the new 'ratecard-plus' system, what a racecourse receives from the Levy Board for each race will be linked directly to the racecourse’s own contribution to that race.

Darling said: "Moving to a race-by-race basis for allocating all prize-money gives the board, and indeed all of racing and betting, more transparency as to where levy funding is being allocated."

On Thursday, BHA chief executive Julie Harrington said she hoped prize-money next year would reach around £150m, after levels fell to £94m in 2020 due to the effects of Covid.

Read more:

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