We're losing the love if sport's rulers don't change

Over the past year my increasing frustration and disillusionment with the BHA and its failure to address key issues in the sport, and racing’s general attitude to key stakeholders including owners, has been well documented. The reactive mismanagement of the industry has at times made it a laughing stock. Speaking to fellow owners and stakeholders, I know this is a view not held by me alone.

This has resulted in a revaluation of our involvement and commitments in British racing. The decision we have come to and have been working towards over the past year is to halve our number of horses in training and that has been done by winding down our involvement in UK Flat racing. Having had some decent successes with more than 100 winners over both codes in the last six years, this decision was not taken lightly.

This time last year we would have had around 16 Flat horses in training in Britain. Currently we have two horses with Marjorie Fife, a dual-purpose horse with Micky Hammond, who we expect will end up over hurdles, and a horse in partnership with a pal at Mick Appleby’s. We only see those numbers reducing further as we approach the sales in the autumn.