It’s not unreasonable to assume that both sides of the Levy negotiations between the bookmakers and the horse racing industry will have had an eye on the likelihood of a new set of ministers intervening after their ‘negotiations’ had floundered aimlessly.
At first glance the prospect of a Labour government would appear to favour the bookmakers, who have traditionally served better wine at Labour party conferences than racing has.
One senior bookmaking source, quoted by the Racing Post, said; “Labour would be unsympathetic to the arrogant sense of entitlement some people in racing have. Labour would also not be interested in doing backroom deals with Tory donors and has-been Tory MPs. I’ve heard one person in the sport say Labour hates racing. No, they don’t. They just hate you.”
It’s unclear who that “person” in racing is, but the Racing Post has close ties to the bookmakers, so one can presume the quote is accurate and credible and assume that they are in some way relevant to the negotiations.
That quote would suggest that the bookmakers may have been playing for time, or rather playing the gambling minister Stuart Andrew, whilst waiting for Rishi Sunak to blow his whistle on the negotiations by calling the election.
But racing may feel that given the recent behaviour of Andrew and Lucy Frazer, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, it might be a blessing to racing that they are no longer in play.
Andrew’s only ludicrous contribution has been to tell racing and the bookmakers to negotiate with each other, which was either incredibly naive or plain chicken hearted.
Would the Good Friday Agreement have been signed if the relevant governments had told the republicans and the loyalists to just sort it out? Of course not.
Frazer, on the other hand, seemed paralysed with fear that the bookmakers would get any decision to charge Levy on bets on foreign racing judicially reviewed. So what if they had? Isn’t the point of a minister to make big decisions?
‘Engagement with the bookmakers has always been a game’
What is clear now is that ‘racing’s’ negotiators need to start again with a clear mandate from the industry to take a firm position and stick to it.
They cannot allow the bookmakers to throw the accusation around that racing doesn’t know what it wants.
And this has been the case recently. Some of racings doves would have taken just about anything that was offered, on the basis that “anything was better than nothing.” The hawks, on the other hand, were sticking closer to, but a long way from the deal that the government had agreed to in 2018. That division is hopeless. There needs to be an end to their leaky committees and consultant mediocrity.
Racing should also confine its efforts to briefing the new ministers and refuse to engage with the bookmakers, as was advised by the then government in 2014.
Engagement by racing with the bookmakers has never been an actual negotiation. It has always been a game. A cat playing with a mouse.
So for better or for worse, racing should get its numbers right, which is something the bookmakers don’t always do, present its case through the prism of international comparison, explain why the industry will die in this country if that comparison gets any worse, and then just suck up whatever the next government decides.
Rishi Sunak isn’t the only person to fall foul recently from the curse of making his excuses and terminating an assignation in Normandy.
A top Newmarket trainer recently cancelled a dinner date in a restaurant in Deauville with one of his high-profile clients, on the basis that he wasn’t feeling too well. Probably one of those bugs that go round during horse auctions.
Rather miraculously, or perhaps unwisely the trainer then started to feel a bit better and, with his appetite restored, went out to dinner with a different racehorse owner.
Unfortunately, they went to the same restaurant that his original dining companion had chosen.
One faux pas might well contribute to an almighty kicking in the election on the 4th July. The other resulted in seventeen horses being taken away from the trainer and sent to his rivals.
Now that is what you call an expensive dinner. I hope the wine was good.