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Racing Department's Blog
Welcome to the Racing Department's blog. We will be updating this page on an occasional basis with the latest news, views and developments from the Racing Department at the British Horseracing Authority.
The fixture allocation process and the delay for 2012
Richard Wayman, Assistant Racing Director
27th June 2011
The annual fixture allocation process usually takes place over six months with the fixture list being published in July. As was the case last year, the process for the 2012 fixture list has been delayed. This is hugely frustrating and, to explain the current situation, let me give you an idea of how the fixture list is put together and also the problems behind the hold-up.
The process begins each year with us producing the Framework document. This effectively becomes the first draft of the fixture list and relates the historical position of every fixture to the following year’s calendar. So, for example, the opening day of the Cheltenham Festival is placed on the Tuesday that falls between 10th and 16th March, which means that in 2012 the Festival will commence on Tuesday 13th.
Factors that vary from year-to-year such as when Easter falls and the dates of Bank Holidays often create challenges when working out the correct date for each fixture. In addition, there are various principles that we now apply in the interests of the sport – such as maintaining a minimum gap of three weeks between the Cheltenham and Aintree Festivals – even if it means moving particular fixtures away from their historical dates. In partnership with the racecourses, we resolve all these issues by March and racecourses can then begin to think about what changes they might want to make to their own schedule of fixtures compared with the current year.
Before they can start moving fixtures, racecourses need to know what meetings the Levy Board will fund. This is set out in the Levy Board’s annual Fixture Criteria, which is announced in April. This current version says, for example, that four fixtures will be funded on Saturday afternoons, two on Sunday afternoons and three on every other afternoon of the week.
There are three types of fixtures in the fixture list and the process continues by dealing with each type of fixture in turn. Totalling over 1200, the largest group of fixtures are known as Racecourse fixtures and, also being by far the most important, these are the first to be dealt with.
Racecourse fixtures give racecourses a historical ‘right to race’ on a particular day and, as a result, these fixtures will only move to a different day if the racecourse chooses to do so. During the remainder of April and May, racecourses apply to swap dates between each other and also to move to fixture slots that the Levy Board will fund but which do not include an existing fixture.
As a result of the OFT’s involvement in the sport a few years ago, there are now very few restrictions on racecourses when making their applications and it is a source of particular frustration to us that these can no longer be rejected on grounds of geography. All applications still, however, require the approval of the BHA’s Inspectorate team on turf management grounds.
Once racecourses have finished moving their Racecourse fixtures, the process then focuses on the second type of fixtures, known as BHA fixtures. These fixtures, which are also fully funded by the Levy Board, are allocated on 3-year leases by the BHA and have historically been allocated using an online bidding process in which each racecourse’s bid represents the amount they are prepared to contribute to prize money at the fixture.
When putting together the 2011 fixture list, the BHA, as a result of the big fall in levy, decided to reduce these fixtures from around 250 to just over 100; these are now almost entirely made up of the Twilight floodlit fixtures that take place from January to mid-April, and from September to the end of the year.
Finally, the third group of fixtures, known as Self-Funded fixtures, are allocated. As their name suggests, these fixtures are largely, if not entirely, funded by the racecourses and in 2011 there are approximately 170 such meetings.
About 40 of the Self-Funded fixtures were granted by the BHA on the basis that they take place in particularly customer friendly slots such as Thursday and Friday evenings during the summer and also on Bank Holidays.
The remaining 130 such fixtures were agreed between the Horsemen’s Group and racecourses on the basis that the fixtures would be staged with prize money of at least £21,000. Almost all of these are on commercially unattractive days but form part of the Levy Board’s Fixture Criteria and so, in 2011, the Levy Board took the view that although it would pay nothing towards prize money, it would make a grant towards the regulation and integrity costs at these meetings.
Having dealt with the three types of fixtures, the final stage of the process involves us identifying any remaining problem areas such as major geographical clashes, finding possible solutions and then attempting to persuade racecourses to move the fixtures involved.
Returning to this year’s process and the ongoing delay, the yield from the 49th Levy Scheme has turned out to be significantly less than had been forecast. The Levy Board is considering how much it can afford to spend on fixtures in 2012 and, as a result of the lower yield, this could mean that the Fixture Criteria that it approved in April might have to be scaled back.
Until the Levy Board is able to provide some clarity, racecourses cannot make informed decisions about their own fixture lists and this has left us with no choice but to suspend the process until expenditure plans are confirmed. If changes are made to the Fixture Criteria, racecourses may wish to reverse some of the fixture moves they made in April and May, as well as moving other fixtures.
Hopefully, the picture will be much clearer once the Levy Board has met on 12th July. If so, the process will resume immediately and be completed through the remainder of July and August, with the 2012 fixture list then published in September.
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