Julie Harrington, chief government of the British Horseracing Authority, says a judgement on the success of Premier Racedays and Sunday night racing shouldn’t be made in a single day.
The primary of 170 Premier Racedays deliberate for 2024 was staged at Cheltenham on New Yr’s Day, whereas Wolverhampton created a slice of historical past when changing into the primary observe to race within the UK on Sunday night time.
Whereas each schemes have are available in for criticism in some quarters, Harrington is eager to evaluate all the related knowledge regarding the six trial Sunday night fixtures and the two-year pilot of Premier Racedays earlier than making any snap selections.
“Premier Racedays were introduced this year to showcase the best our sport can offer to new and existing fans as part of a broader strategy to grow British racing,” she mentioned in an announcement on Tuesday.
“And whereas this idea will see a gradual roll-out, with improvements and enhancements to the client expertise delivered all year long, it has been heartening to see the optimistic preliminary response to Premier racing from the general public, racecourses and contributors.
“There have been high-quality runners at Plumpton on Sunday, with races going down in entrance of wholesome and engaged crowds. And naturally, the 12 months started with a giant crowd at Cheltenham having fun with high quality racing at our first Premier fixture.
“The 170 Premier Racedays deliberate for 2024 replicate a major funding by the game. These are fixtures proposed by the racecourses which meet strict standards, together with round prize-money and race high quality. We ought to be inspired that so many racecourses wish to put money into and stage these Premier occasions.
“We will also see more promotional work and, we hope, an HBLB-funded national campaign to support the work already being done by GBR and the racecourses.
“Finally, the target is to encourage extra, better-quality horses to be bred, skilled, owned and raced in Britain. The game has agreed that placing on high-quality, precious racing is the best way to realize this.
“We must accept that this will not happen overnight. But we have made a start on creating and developing an attractive product to secure a long-term future for the sport by encouraging greater engagement with it. Time and experience will help us determine the optimum number of Premier Racedays with regards to racecourses and the horse population.”
She added: “This is the start of a two-year pilot and so we should resist the temptation to make snap judgements on its success based on limited experience.
“All through the pilot we’ll study what does and doesn’t work, how we will finest package deal and promote Premier Racedays and finally obtain development that can profit all ranges of the game.
“Alongside Premier Racedays we also started the trial of Sunday evening racing at Wolverhampton. This saw good prize-money on offer to healthy field sizes meaning competitive racing was taking place in a window we believe affords us an opportunity to grow engagement with the sport.
“Clearly there are a selection of views relating to this pilot and we respect these opinions. Because of this, the monetary efficiency of those fixtures shall be removed from the one measure of their viability; we’ll proceed to hunt the views of all these concerned in servicing such conferences and this suggestions will kind a core a part of the final word evaluation of the pilot.”