British horseracing secures £21.5m survival loan

British horseracing has been handed a much-needed lifeline after securing a £21.5m funding loan from the UK government. As part of the government’s Sport Winter Survival Package (SWSP), the Horserace Betting Levy Board (HBLB) confirmed it had secured the loan to help an industry that has lost more than £400m in the last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Of the £21.5m, £7.5m will be used to enhance prize money for the 12 months from July 2021 in an effort to support engagement levels and the retention of horse numbers. Horseracing has seen a reduction of more than £65m paid out in prize money to participants in 2020. Of that £7.5m, around 60% will be given to flat racing and 40% to jumps, in line with the composition of the fixture list and the historical funding split. Some races have been highlighted as in need of essential support in order to remain competitive against similar races in other jurisdictions and major racing nations. Another £7.5m will be handed directly to racecourses to support raceday integrity costs. An additional payment of £5,000 will be added to raceday service grants from 1 July 2021 to 30 June 2022. The current grant of £12,571 per fixture partly covers the British Horseracing Authority fixture fee of £15,341, while racecourses can incur other raceday-related costs totalling around £10,000 per fixture at flat meetings, dropping to £6,000 for jumps meetings. The remaining £6.5m will be held in the coffers of the HBLB to allow for further flexibility across 2021 and 2022 and to provide industry support where necessary. Paul Darling, HBLB chair, reaffirmed the fact the cash injection was a loan and the industry should be aware of the need to make eventual repayments to the government. He said: “The board had very much in mind that this money is a loan from government and not a grant. The discussions involved consideration and agreement of how the money being spent is to be repaid. “It is critical that the wider sport fully understands that the effect of this arrangement is that the amount of levy available to spend in future years will be reduced. “Over the 10-year repayment period, with repayments required in years three to 10, the loan will carry an interest charge of £2.6m. “The total repayments of around £24m will be made out of future levy years’ receipts over that period through a top-slicing of the board’s allocations to prize-money and raceday services as the first calls on grant expenditure,” he added.