Here’s an alternative way of funding horseracing

I read with interest the comments by Jamie Osborne in Tuesday’s Racing Post (May 28), and I and legions of others concur with the core point that radical changes are required to the sport’s funding mechanism. I will not set out too many of the flaws in the current system, as I see them, just a few by way of illustration:

First prize-money, which is low compared with other countries. Levels are constantly under threat of getting lower as evidenced by the recently identified shortfall of £17 million in levy funding and further evidenced by the recent action of Arc in withdrawing support for moderate-to low-level handicaps.

There is no alignment of interest between racing’s funding and bookmakers, whose profits are not returned to racing other than to the extent that the levy is made against their gross profits.