Over 15,000 free places were made available across the seven days across the country for the public to come and experience a day in the life of a racehorse. From training facilities and studs, to aftercare and rehoming centres, 209 different events took place showcasing the care and attention racehorses receive every day. The week provided a platform to create a lasting impact on those who are not familiar with racing or who don't have the opportunity to get close to a horse in everyday life.

In research undertaken after the week had finished, 94% of people said the experience had left them with a better understanding about and a positive impression of welfare. And 92% of attendees who were new to racing said their opinion had been positively changed about the lives racehorses lead.

There were also a total of 60 dedicated community events focused on outreach, a 300% uplift from last year. These events were supported by Racing Together and Racing to School with more than 3,000 people from schools, charities, urban equestrian centres and community groups getting involved with behind-the-scenes access to racing facilities.

The events included:

• Paul Nicholls hosted a special visit for Dame Kelly Homes Trust beneficiaries, NHS and Emergency Service workers
• Ian Williams hosted members of the RMF Group, an organisation that offer industry focused training courses to ex-offenders, veterans, the homeless, and residents who are long-term unemployed
• Jo Foster took racehorse Sigurd to eight community events including schools, care homes and to charities like Mind and dementia groups
• Aftercare centres including New Beginnings, HEROS, BTRC, Greatwood and Yorkshire retraining and rehoming centre took their retired racehorse ambassadors out to schools and care homes
• Dan Skelton and Oliver Greenall & Josh Guerriero hosted children with serious illnesses from the Barrie Well's Trust Box4Kids initiative
• Godolphin, Ben Case and Dave Loughnane hosted urban equestrian centres including Summerfield Stables from Birmingham, Park Lane Stables from London, and Park Palace Ponies from Liverpool.

Rod Street, CEO Great British Racing, said, “National Racehorse Week creates a unique opportunity for the British Racing industry to unite and showcase to the public the high levels of care that our equine stars receive throughout their entire lives. It also allows racing to open its doors and welcome people of all ages and backgrounds to experience the joy of getting close to a racehorse.

“There are so many highlights from the week, but the ones that stand out for me include the significant increase in young people attending open days this year, especially those aged between 10-14 years, and the impact we had on visitors. Our research shows that 94% of people who came to an open day now have a positive impression of equine welfare, and 92% of those who were new to racing or not regular racegoers said their opinion had been positively changed by the experience. This shows the power of what racing can achieve when it comes together.

“We must thank everyone involved in this special week for showing off the very best of British racing and hopefully helping to inspire a new generation of racing fans.”

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The position is new within The Thoroughbred Group as the organisation develops its remit to provide representation of its five members under UK racing's new industry structure–the Racehorse Owners Association (ROA), the Thoroughbred Breeders Association (TBA), the National Association of Racing Staff (NARS), the Professional Jockeys Association (PJA) and the National Trainers Federation (NTF).

“We are pleased that Jack has agreed to join us as we seek to develop the role of the Thoroughbred Group at industry level,” said Thoroughbred Group Chair Charlie Parker. “We are confident that his analytical expertise and previous experience working with industry stakeholders will make him a great asset to us.”

Added Connor, “I'm delighted to be joining the Thoroughbred Group at this pivotal time for the sport. I'm very much looking forward to working closely with the five participant bodies and their members as we help shape and deliver on the industry's strategy.”

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The NTF was also restructured during the AGM, with the intent to introduce a consultation model, so that the views of trainers are always accurately reflected in industry discussions. British Horseracing Authority (BHA) Chairman Joe Saumarez Smith, Neil Hayward (Industry People Board, Chair) and BHA Chief Operating Officer Richard Wayman also addressed NTF members regarding how the BHA will fulfil its leadership role in the new industry structure.

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A graduate of Bristol University in 1996, he later specialised in equine veterinary medicine, and has served as President of the National Trainers' Federation (NTF) between 2014 and 2016. Boyle joins Algy Smith-Maxwell, Alice Page, Linda Bowles, Louise Kemble and Susannah Gill on the Foundation's seven-strong Board of Trustees, which is chaired by Julia Budd.

Budd said, “We are delighted to welcome someone of Jim's calibre to the Racing Foundation's Board of Trustees.

“Jim's in-depth and practical equine veterinary knowledge combined with his vast experience as a trainer will offer a much-valued perspective to the Board who will greatly benefit from his expertise.

“I would like to extend my gratitude to Mark Johnson for his contribution to the Racing Foundation over the last six years. His knowledge, insights and advice have been generously given and enormously valued by us all.”

Boyle said, “I'm delighted to be joining the Racing Foundation as a Trustee, and hope to use my experience as both a vet and racehorse trainer to help contribute to the decision-making processes involved in the awarding of grants.

“These grants have the ability to make a real difference to the racing industry and by association the entire equine industry. I look forward to working with the rest of the Board to make sure the best possible use is made of the funding that is available.”

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NTF Chief Executive Paul Johnson said, “This video series is an excellent initiative by GBRI on behalf of British trainers, as it showcases all the elements that we do so very well in Britain–the heritage, the facilities, the training environment, the behind-the-scenes experience and the raceday experience. Exhibiting each of these elements to prospective international investors can only be a positive for the industry.”

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“The BHA retains the view that it is critical we take steps, as a sport, to deliver a racing product which is both competitive and compelling. The use of a data-driven race programme which is suitably tailored to the population of horses in training will be central to this.

“Following ongoing discussions with the sport's member bodies we believe the best way to achieve this will be through collaboration on a unified industry strategy, rather than making tactical tweaks to the race programme, which have the side-effect of causing significant division amongst the sport's various members.

“The sport's leaders have recent announced that work will now begin on a unified strategy, with fixtures and the race programme at its core.

“Meanwhile, the size of the 2023 race programme will remain under review, with the capacity for decisions to be made later in the year, based on ongoing industry discussions and our ongoing monitoring of the horse population.”

The National Trainers Federation released a statement in response to the news which read:

“We are extremely disappointed with the outcome of the Executive Committee vote on reducing race volume for 2023. From the outset we have supported a BHA proposal that sought to prioritise the future health of the sport over immediate financial gain.

“Further to this, we are left questioning a situation where, despite the Thoroughbred Group voting in favour of the BHA proposal, it was not possible to even reach the two to one majority needed to justify a discussion at the BHA Board. Clearly, this raises significant concerns for us.”

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“I think he's changed a few people's minds, even among our owners,” Beckett admits. “One in particular, who hasn't sent me a colt in I don't know how long. So, yes, I hope it will have made quite a difference.”

Conceivably, perhaps, this horse may even have changed his trainer's own self-image. It's not as though Beckett has ever been remotely uncomfortable with his reputation as a trainer especially proficient with home-bred stayers, especially fillies. After all, a congenial environment for the nurturing of a filly is one of the selling points of the tranquil downland sanctuary of Kimpton Down Stables, on the Hampshire-Wiltshire border. And besides, no horseman could ever object to being considered something of a Henry Cecil for his generation, in showing a similar flair for one of the more delicate challenges of their vocation.

“Maybe it bothered me a bit more 10 years ago than it does now,” Beckett says of any stereotyping. “But as I've got older, it's bothered me less and less. Okay, so if you're pigeonholed as a trainer of fillies, you might miss out on one hand. But it's not a bad business model. You'll always have a chance that somebody, among those great owner-breeders—whether it's Miss Rausing, or Jeff Smith, or someone else—will keep sending you nice fillies. And one of them is going to step up.”

Regardless, Angel Bleu has now left no doubt of his trainer's versatility—albeit Beckett recalls the gamble of turning him round for Goodwood with wry self-deprecation. Reflecting on his Ascot run, Beckett and his old friend Jamie McCalmont, agent and manager for owner Marc Chan, had been on the point of suggesting the colt be gelded for export to Hong Kong.

“It was only when I fed him in the morning, and he nearly knocked me over, that we even started thinking about it,” Beckett recalls. “We jogged him up, and he just bounced up the yard. And I said would we be mad to run him again, and my headman Adam Kite—who's actually just retired, after 15 years with us—said it was going to rain, and that we should at least declare and see what the weather did. But what the horse did was obviously a real tribute to his constitution.”

As such, the people who keep asking Beckett whether Angel Bleu will go for the G1 QIPCO 2000 Guineas, or head back to France for the local equivalent, are asking the wrong question. If favoured by suitable conditions, a colt like this is perfectly capable of running in both.

“Absolutely,” replies Beckett, asked whether that possibility might be in the back of his mind. “No reason he couldn't. Last year we didn't even gallop him between the two races in France. And we never worked him on the grass between Goodwood and his race on Arc weekend. He'd have done one or maybe two bits on the all-weather, that's all. He didn't need more. Some horses are just made that way.”

Rain will probably end up determining Angel Bleu's ultimate schedule, as Beckett feels that he might benefit from a preliminary spin in the G3 Watership Down Stud Greenham S. at Newbury on Apr. 16. That would potentially put him on a schedule almost as hectic as the one followed by Poetic Flare (Ire) (Dawn Approach {Ire}) last spring—but at least we already know this horse to be made of the right stuff.

What's so encouraging is that even the alacrity he showed at two doesn't rule out further progress in his second season. Angel Bleu is out of a sister to none other than Highland Reel (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), while his sire—despite being carted off to stud prematurely himself—has produced plenty of horses that thrive with maturity.

“Which is why some people say Dark Angel isn't a sire of sires,” Beckett remarks. “This horse was actually his first 2-year-old Group 1 winner. To look at him now, he's probably lengthier, he looks like a horse that's developed from two to three—as his pedigree says he should. Remember that Highland Reel also won the Vintage, and just got better and better with racing.”

Having sent out over 1,100 winners since taking out a licence at the turn of the century, Beckett is a trainer in his prime. Mentored in his youth by a series of great horsemen, from Jimmy FitzGerald to Arthur Moore to Martin Pipe, he has become an assured and accomplished presence on the English Turf, with a clientele commensurate with the excellence of his facilities—ranging from Juddmonte to Qatar Racing, from John Gunther to Julian Richmond-Watson.

The latter has been a stalwart supporter all the way through, and Beckett felt corresponding delight when Angel Bleu's G1 Grand Criterium de Saint-Cloud was complemented, the very same weekend, by the G1 Prix Royal-Oak success of Richmond-Watson's homebred Scope (GB) (Teofilo {Ire})—a bespoke fit, as a maturing stayer, for the stable's more familiar modus operandi.

Beckett had originally hoped that Scope might be the type to give him a second St Leger. Unfortunately the Lingfield trials day, a trademark learning experience for the stable's best 3-year-olds, was followed by a three-month lay-off and he had to be rushed into the G2 Great Voltigeur S. to have any chance of making it to Doncaster.

“I really had no idea how he'd run at York: if he'd been a furlong last, I couldn't have been surprised,” Beckett recalls. “I just hadn't been able to get the work into him. So he had a rather fraught preparation for the St Leger, and on the day he never got into it after missing the break. I'm not for a moment pretending he might have won, in different circumstances, but I'm sure he could have finished a good deal closer.”

As it was, everything clicked into place next time when Scope won a listed race by seven lengths at Ascot, emboldening a roll of the dice at Longchamp. With ongoing maturity, Scope will now be trained for the G1 Gold Cup at Royal Ascot, ideally resuming in the G2 Yorkshire Cup on May 13. His penalty there is confined to 5lbs, and Beckett likes the intermediate distance as a starting point.

But if Scope exemplifies the merit of those owner-breeders who entrust the same family to the same trainer, so that its traits become familiar, he also reminds us how very precarious is any Thoroughbred's path to fulfilment.

His dam, Look So (GB) (Efisio {GB}), is a half-sister to Look Here (GB), who became the only Classic winner ever trained at Whitsbury in the 2008 G1 Oaks.

“Look So was a 3-year-old when Look Here was a 2-year-old,” Beckett recalls. “She'd won a couple in the summer but had then gone off the boil and we'd sent her back to her owners. Of course we had no idea at that stage what Look Here was going to be, she probably hadn't even galloped. And Julian said, 'Don't forget to enter her [Look So] in the Horses-in-Training Sale.' But I did—I completely forgot! So then he said that I'd better come up with another plan. So I said, 'Why don't you cover her with Compton Place (GB), and we'll run her in foal, and sell her in July?' She came back, won, didn't get in foal, won again—and then cracked her pelvis. And a month later Look Here won the Oaks. So somebody was really looking after us that day. Because she'd have made, what, 15 grand at the horses-in-training sale? And of course she has become the better broodmare of the two.”

Remarkably, even in excluding the three Group 1 prizes exported from France, Beckett ended 2021 with the best domestic haul of his career, falling just short of £2 million. Yet he still feels that 82 winners represented a shortfall in quantity, when measured against that undoubted quality.

“In a funny sort of way, I enjoyed 2020 at least as much,” he says. “Because although we had only had three winners by the time everything restarted on June 1, we ended up getting to the other side of 100. Whether the whole hiatus suited me, and the way they then laid out the programme, I don't know. But it was a year when everything went right. We didn't get a Group 1 but everything that should have won, did win. And don't forget that the 'quantity' is typically driven by the people who have always looked after you. If you're training a lot of winners, it's those owner-breeders who will tend to benefit.”

Richmond-Watson, of course, has generously contributed time and expertise to the service of the industry, notably with the Thoroughbred Breeders' Association and Jockey Club. And Beckett, too, is striving to do his bit, having recently been appointed President of the National Trainers' Federation. (Though he doesn't say so, you get the impression that he has limited regard for those who complain shrilly about the state of the racing nation, without being prepared to do anything about it.)

“My hope and belief is that there's a real chance for the Horsemen's Group to work more cohesively than has been the case in the recent past,” he says. “And we need to take that opportunity. I'd really like the Levy Board to take a stronger line—and a more independent line. It was set up to be independent of the different constituents, and to distribute the money to the benefit of the sport. And there are people in there who are capable of pulling that off.

“As for the BHA, let's say I'd like it to 'strip fitter'. They keep introducing new layers of regulation, rather than applying the rules already available. Nobody, for instance, has been sanctioned for their behaviour in the sales ring since the Jockey Club handed over regulation—but they were before. Instead, the BHA has gone out there to make a few headlines; to say, 'Look what I'm doing!' Everything is already in place to police the sport, I'm just not quite sure they have the will or the wherewithal.”

Like so many, Beckett is anxious about the sustainability of a sport effectively banking on heritage and the export market as a substitute for prizemoney.

“The only way to survive as a trainer is to be a good horse dealer, really,” he says. “The 80-to-100 horse, the decent handicapper, just isn't here anymore. We saw that in the Spring Mile [eight runners only] at Doncaster the other day. The idea that a horse rated 86 could get into the Lincoln! I was told that the last time that happened was 2002. And the race then was worth the same as it is now.”

In terms of his own business, however, things are plainly flourishing. True, he's always a little nervous of April, with pollen counts rising and the weather so fitful. But for all the additional excitement of launching a top-class 2-year-old at the spring Classics, the bedrock appears secure. Because the horses Beckett most enjoys training also happen to be owned (and, often, bred) by the patrons he most enjoys training for.

“When I started out there was a perception that the waters weren't quite so deep over longer distances,” he reflects. “Perhaps that isn't quite so true anymore. Probably all that really happened was that I inherited David Oldrey from Peter Walwyn and everything just rippled out from there. If you're training light-framed middle-distance fillies, I suppose it tends to be a bit easier on them at a place like this. But the set-up works for me too. I wasn't great at sharing, in Lambourn. And yes, definitely, I do enjoy being able to take my time. You need the right clients to be able to do that, obviously. But the whole beauty of it is that those are the people who are in it for the long haul.”

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The British Horseracing Authority's Chief Regulator Officer Brant Dunshea and Director of Integrity and Regulation Tim Naylor addressed the assembly after the meeting proper. They discussed the BHA's strategy for regulation and also took part in a question-and-answer session.

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The British Horseracing Authority (BHA), National Trainers Federation (NTF), Professional Jockeys Association (PJA), National Association of Racing Staff (NARS), Racehorse Owners Association (ROA), Thoroughbred Breeders' Association (TBA) and Racecourse Association (RCA) said:

“British racing is a diverse industry where individuals of varying identities and from a wide range of backgrounds work and compete side-by-side. It is a sport characterized by the shared values of camaraderie and conscientiousness, which come hand-in-hand with working in an elite sport and the risks associated with working alongside our equine athletes.

“It is essential that horseracing remains a progressive, modern industry when it comes to the conduct of our people. We must prioritize the wellbeing and development of our workforce, stand against discrimination of any kind in British racing, and invest in making racing a safe, fulfilling place to work.

“Great progress has already been made by the industry in terms of improving standards around training, education, employment practices, wellbeing, safeguarding and career development, with the entire sport involved in making racing a better place to work.

“However, there is always more that can and must be done. We must encourage a culture of openness and seek to support anyone who faces problems or has found themselves in difficulty. We must promote a culture of respect in how those involved in racing interact with one another and promote more diversity and inclusion at all levels of the industry.

“The signatories to this statement, therefore, today publicly commit to further improve standards, education and training around industry conduct, through the formation of a dedicated cross-industry working party.”

Next Steps

As part of this commitment, initial discussions around which commenced earlier this year, all the signatories have agreed to take part in a working party which will report into the industry People Board and will have the objectives of promoting the positive elements of conduct within the industry, educating our people, deterring poor behaviors and any form of discrimination while empowering our people to call out conduct which falls short of our joint expectations.

The group will be chaired by the BHA and include representatives from the BHA, NTF, NARS, PJA, RCA, ROA, TBA and/or – crucially – the people that they represent.

The working party will, as a priority, develop a specific action plan, which will be underpinned by research into the most effective examples of positive behavior change from other industries.

The formation of this working party and resultant action plan will form an important part of the previously announced project to introduce and embed a new industry Code of Conduct and underpinning regulations, which are being finalized with a view to being introduced in Spring 2022.

The Code of Conduct has been developed alongside all the signatories to this statement, who are also signatories of British racing's Diversity and Inclusion industry commitment.

The working party will have amongst its objectives ensuring that the new Code of Conduct is properly communicated, explained and understood and that it achieves its objectives of raising standards of behavior and conduct within the sport. The working party will also assist in the introduction of the sport's new Safeguarding policy and regulations, which are also close to being finalized.

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Appointed to the role in August of 2000, Arnold has overseen a significant expansion in the range of racing industry issues covered by the NTF and its services to members.

Rupert Arnold said, “I have had so many amazing opportunities in my time at the NTF and for that I will be forever grateful to trainers. Although it brings many challenges, nothing can surpass the range of experiences in this role.

“I would like to thank all the NTF Presidents who have helped me so much by imparting their knowledge and understanding of racing. But most importantly, I want to thank the NTF executive team. We work so closely together and each one of them is incredibly dedicated to helping the membership; the service they provide is second to none. This is epitomised by their response to the Covid pandemic. They deserve the highest praise because they left nothing in the locker in how they supported trainers through the crisis.

“As for the future, I will be doing some consultancy for the NTF and would like to think that my experience could be useful elsewhere in the sport.”

Emma Lavelle, President of the NTF, said, “The NTF is enormously grateful for the work that Rupert has done on behalf of all trainers over the last 21 years. He has helped us meet a range of challenges both at home and within the wider racing industry and has worked tirelessly in the process. We are very pleased to continue to have access to his experience and advice in his consultancy role and wish Rupert well in all future endeavours.”

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