Racing at a crossroads again - but it must be wary of heading down a cul de sac

It is unlikely Sir Winston Churchill ever expected to be quoted when it came to matters of British racing governance, but the anticipated presentation at Tuesday’s BHA board meeting of a new model for how the sport is run is, perhaps, the end of the beginning of attempts to find a workable solution for running what has become a juddering multi-billion pound industry.

Racing’s multitudinous grumblings have steadily narrowed towards first and foremost sorting out how it conducts itself at the highest administrative levels, with the inability of stakeholders to untangle themselves from the veto-plagued tripartite agreement to make a concerted decision leaving the sport drifting at a time when issues such as reshaping the levy and rectifying woeful field sizes need sorting.

And that is just the problematic side of the equation. While the in-tray fills up with things needing to be fixed, racing is also losing ground on opportunities to push its positives to prospective racegoers, owners, investors and punters, leaving it facing stagnation, or more likely a decline in its popularity and size.