Risks and opportunities for racing when it resumes in an entertainment vacuum

Cast your mind back to a time not just before the coronavirus, but before our modern, hyper-connected world came into being, a time before Netflix and Amazon Prime, before YouTube and Facebook, before online bookmakers, before high-speed internet revolutionised our world and turned us all into entertainment junkies with a million options at our fingertips.

You do not have to wind the clock back so far, in truth. A mere two decades will suffice to reverse huge swathes of what we take for granted today. In the years leading up to the turn of the millennium, the world – and our choices as consumers – looked very different.

This is a point I make every year to the bright young things of the BHA's graduate scheme, who I talk to about the role the media plays in covering and promoting racing.