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The Horsemen’s Group and the Racecourse Association are at loggerheads over the new Sunday prize-money tariffs.

The Horsemen believe that it is essential that prize funds on Sundays are boosted because of the extra costs incurred by owners and trainers on that day of the week.

The tariffs increase by about ten per cent with the move of Sunday fixtures from band two to band three of the Horsemen’s tariff.

Alan Morcombe (pictured), Chief Executive of the Horsemen’s Group, told the Racing Post that the tariff change on Sundays would “force racecourses to reassess the level of their programmes, not only on Sundays but over their race programme as a whole”.

He added that he hoped the new Sunday tariffs would not be achieved by lowering the quality of the racing programme.

However, Stephen Atkin, the RCA Chief Executive, said: “From a purely practical point of view, the timing of the announcement is most unhelpful. We are over halfway through the jumps season and racecourses have all signed off their finely balanced budgets for 2011/12. We are also concerned about the prospect of a further February announcement of a revised Flat 2012 tariff when the racecourses have already finalised the details of their race programmes for the second quarter of 2012. We hope that the Group will move quickly to reconfirm that the Flat tariffs will not be altered beyond the removal of Band 2.

“The main threat to prize money and the future prosperity of British horseracing remains the major flaws in the funding, through the Horserace Betting Levy, provided by the betting industry, in particular the avoidance of Levy by offshore operators. The RCA has been working with the Horsemen’s Group and BHA, and with Government, to address this problem and we believe we have identified a practical solution, with the support of legislation. We welcome the initiative of Matthew Hancock MP in tabling a Ten Minute Rule Bill on offshore gambling which will be presented to the House on 7 February.”

31 January 2012