The turf
Serious pressure
Robin Oakley
This year it was not just me against the bookies for the Grand National. It was me against the road-sweeper. Sam Prakash, local newsagent, counter-philosopher and leading source of intelligence to Kenning- ton-dwellers, demanded two days before the event to be told the winner of this year's Grand National. 'All the old ladies come in my shop,' he entreated. 'They all want to know what to put their 50p on and I have to tell them.' That was pressure. Urging the occasional bet on Spectator readers is one thing. To have half the pen- sion-age population of Kennington putting their Friday night fish-and-chip money on my selection was something altogether dif- ferent. And then Sam added the challenge: 'Mind you, there's always the road-sweep- er. That fellow, he's good. Six times in six years I ask and six times he give me the winner . . . 'So this one was serious.
I went for the 33-1 outsider Addington Boy, who put in a creditable performance to finish fifth, only one place out of the money. At least the old ladies had their hopes alive until the last fence even if they didn't eat last Saturday night, thanks to me. And the street-sweeper? He went for Dark Stranger, the 10-1 favourite, who fell at the third. For the moment I have marginally more street cred than the street-sweeper. But I haven't been able to go into Sam's shop again yet. It's the thought of those reproachful eyes rolling, the big, expressive hands palms up as he laments: 'I thought you were supposed to know something about this racing game . . . ' Perhaps I can buy my Racing Post round the corner for a while.
One man who can take the pressures piled on him is British Horseracing Board chairman Peter Savill, I was convinced after lunching with him last week. The gov- ernment has given the industry until the end of July to find a replacement for the old Levy Board system of financing racing with a small cut from the 9 per cent 'tax' taken from off-course punters. It is seeking to conclude its review of general betting duty by the end of June. It wants the BHB to sort out the precise form of Racing Trust to buy the Tote off the government by later this year. Negotiations crucial to racing's future income streams are going on, too, over the sale by the 'Super 12' leading racecourses of rights to televise their fixtures and over the sale of pictures and racecard information to the nation's 8,500 betting shops. Offshore, untaxed bet- ting and Internet betting are developing apace. And to cap it all the government has set up a commission into the future of gam- bling headed by Sir Alan Budd.
Against all that I found Peter Savill remarkably confident that a viable future can be found for racing. One of the keys, he believes, is the legalising of betting in the nation's 30,000 pubs and clubs. For how much longer will it be logical for gov- ernment, especially one proclaiming itself determined to modernise and to boost e- commerce and the Internet, to insist that a hundred people sitting in a pub with their mobiles should have to walk down the road to a betting shop in order to have a wager? You can bet in pubs and clubs in many other countries, why not here?
And, if people can back horses in pubs and clubs, imagine the difference there might be in turnover. Of the 100 per cent of betting turnover 77 per cent goes back to the punter. Of the 23 per cent that is left it costs betting shops 15 per cent of betting turnover simply to run the places before they have taken a bet. The limitations they face are akin to having a law which says that Marks & Spencer can open their shops, but only if they restrict themselves to selling socks. Punters like going to race- tracks in the evenings and on Sundays. But betting shops do very little business during evenings or on the Sabbath. Why? Because they are sited in areas designed to lure in punters Monday-Saturday from noon till six. Open up the betting possibilities in pubs and clubs, who would be adding little to their overheads but earning a nice per- centage, and the revenue would increase significantly, says Peter Savill. So would the government's take.
He quotes figures, percentages and busi- ness plans at you with all the facility you might expect from a man who has made two business fortunes. But his period of exposure to racing and Westminster politics has taken the edge off his abrasiveness. He acknowledges some mistakes, as, for exam- ple, in publicising that survey result which suggested 83 per cent of punters reckoned bookies dishonest. He accepts that racing's need for finances must be presented in a way which does not look like subsidies for the super-rich. 'Prize money should be seen as the wages of the industry.' He has begun bonding with the Tote. And he is willing to talk the language of deals: racing and the bookmakers can do a deal on the replace- ment system for the levy then racing may be able to support the betting boys in their representations to the government on low- ering betting duty. The BHB can help in solving the Internet and offshore problems. He has winkled a role for the BHB in the Super 12 negotiations and is seeking to win a locus for them too in the SIS negotiations. The racecourses, who own the rights, have not welcomed that idea, but with ministers insistent that racing must speak with a sin- gle voice in its presentations to government he remains hopeful that they will become more inclusive.
Peter Savill doesn't regret the aggression of his early approach. It was, he says, the only way to get noticed. The constantly reiterated message of his original financial plan, he says, was that racing was not in control of its own destiny and it had to be. Government saw the battles, wondered what it was doing mixed up with such a confrontational business, and decided to get out. Now that racing is being offered the chance to take control of its own for- tunes the time for negotiation with the bet- ting industry has come. If he can get the various racing interests to display some kind of collective Cabinet responsibility then perhaps the future could be a secure one. And at least we have a professional running the show this time. Too often in the past racing has been sold short by well- meaning amateurs.
Robin Oakley is political editor of the BBC
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