Musselburgh 'very concerned' about prospect of BHA decluttering Saturday afternoon racing in 2024

British racing’s strategy to declutter Saturday afternoons to better promote its premier fixtures is being driven too much by what suits betting at the expense of racegoers, according to Musselburgh's manager Bill Farnsworth.

Saturday's Queen’s Cup meeting is at risk of being axed next year under plans being drawn up that will pull races away from Saturday afternoons and potentially reposition them at lunchtimes or on weekend evenings.

BHA chief executive Julie Harrington said this week that strategy work was ongoing to “ensure that our best fixtures are positioned in a manner which creates a more readily identifiable top end to the sport, presented in a shop window that engages customers" in a way which "delivers tangible long-term benefits across the entire industry.”

As a result, Farnsworth said Musselburgh may not be able to hold on to a Saturday afternoon position for the meeting and, with the resulting loss of terrestrial television coverage on ITV Racing, would be forced to cancel it.

“The strategy plans could affect Musselburgh and it could affect us quite significantly – we're very concerned about it,” Farnsworth told ITV Racing. “As things stand in the proposals, today’s raceday is very much at risk of not happening next year. 

“The plans are to decongest Saturday afternoons and what that means for a number of racecourses is they have to vacate that afternoon slot and go to a lunchtime slot, a twilight slot or a Sunday evening slot which is vacant. 

"We may be forced to be moved to lunchtime or later in the afternoon and, of course, we would then lose ITV coverage which is absolutely essential to us putting on the quality of racing we’re putting on, and then it becomes unviable so it would disappear.”

Bill Farnsworth: "We’re really worried about the direction this is going"Credit: John Grossick Racing

Access to data from betting companies has been viewed as a game-changer by the BHA for planning next year’s fixture list to align it with consumer behaviour, but Farnsworth believes racegoers will be adversely affected by the proposed fixture shifts.

“We totally support change if it’s going to improve British racing,” he said. “What we feel is this change is all about driving betting turnover. The betting companies will benefit from this and racing will benefit from this from the levy but the cost of that is going to be that racegoers have less opportunities to go racing and we feel that’s very important to the sport.

“We’re really worried about the direction this is going. We think the BHA is seriously underestimating the cost of losing these Saturday fixtures and losing racegoers and overestimating, potentially, the upside in betting.

“We are worried [our concerns] are not being taken seriously and there seems to be a real desire to change things. So much of it is driven by betting that the racegoer seems to be less important.”

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