Lengthy discussions and last-minute deal show Tote reinvention will take time

British racing may have thought that protracted negotiations going all the way to the witching hour on Halloween had ended with the reforms of the levy last year but the talks over the future of the Tote nearly went to the brink this week.

After agreeing a standstill arrangement in June, Britbet, the Tote and their partners Alizeti gave themselves until the end of October to come up with a deal, something they did with just 36 hours to spare.

That the seven-year agreement took so long to sort out would have come as a surprise to anyone earwigging conversations between the sport's stakeholders around the time of the St Leger meeting. At that point it was said to be only a matter of a few days before the interested parties signed on the dotted line.