Ascot has done the right thing by targeting prize-money at its showpiece races

There have been some difficult headlines for British racing in recent weeks so it has been something of a relief to see a couple of positive stories on the financial front in the last few days.

Between them the Jockey Club and Ascot have revealed they will offer nearly £74 million in prize-money in 2022, around £7m more than was available before the pandemic in 2019.

That followed Arena Racing Company's announcements around prize-money boosts such as the creation of the Winter Million meeting that came out in the autumn, although much of that was obscured by the row about the extra money that was said to have been lost due to the disagreement over nine-race cards.