Prize-money row nothing new after Worcester walkover in 2012

As the row over prize-money in British racing reaches boiling point with two races to be boycotted at Lingfield on Saturday, thoughts are revived of a similar situation at Worcester on July 11, 2012.

A dozen runners were declared for the final race of the day, a class 4 novice hurdle, but there were 11 non-runners with ten being due to a trainer boycott because of low prize-money.

The other non-runner, Cabimas, missed the race after running at Uttoxeter the previous day, leaving the Nigel Twiston-Davies’s Moulin De La Croix to earn victory via walkover, allowing Sam Twiston-Davies to salute the crowd as he passed the post.

Nigel Twiston-Davies: distributed winning prize-money among trainers of non-runnersCredit: Edward Whitaker

Twiston-Davies snr collected the full £3,000 prize fund, but agreed to distribute the money between the other trainers, who included Nicky Henderson, David Pipe, Philip Hobbs, Venetia Williams, Alan King and Charlie Mann.

Watch the replay of the Worcester walkover here

The £3,000 on offer was £900 below the level set out in the Horsemen’s Group tariff, and Philip Hobbs told the BBC at the time: "Arena have recently had an enormous rise in their media rights income but prize-money continues to fall. They can definitely do better.

"I'm a little uncomfortable and would rather not go to these lengths, but we needed to do something."

The row was eventually resolved after the BHA met the Horsemen and agreed to increase prize-money to a level which represented an increase of 12 per cent against the tariff.

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