The Racing Hub Round-up

The Racing Hub’s weekly round-up of top racing stories, plus upcoming fixtures

Racing and racecourses

Jockey Club plans to sell Kempton Park for housing development suffered a new blow when the local authority, Spelthorne Borough Council, did not include the project for upcoming planning consultation, citing impact on the green belt as the reason – more at http://wp.me/P8e3Dl-Mx

Private trials took place at Newmarket for the proposed street racing initiative in front of officials from the BHA and Liverpool City Council, who will determine if the event is safe – backers City Racing intend to launch street racing in Liverpool if the trials are deemed successful

Ryanair are ceasing their sponsorship of Grade 1 races at Fairyhouse and Leopardstown

US racing industry professional Cathy O’Meara (pictured) has been appointed to the new role of BHA Head of Raceday Officials with management responsibility of raceday officials, focusing on improving and controlling policy and operating procedures, and delivering competency-based training for all racing officials – Cathy joins from the US Jockey Club as Manager – Industry Initiatives with responsibility for managing numerous initiatives such as the Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit and Thoroughbred Safety Committee

Eleven men received jail sentences totalling nine years after being convicted of being in a mass brawl at Goodwood last May – about 50 people were involved in multiple altercations, after which Sussex Police made a dozen arrests, with 11 people charged; one man received a two-year prison sentence. More at http://wp.me/P8e3Dl-Mx

Racehorses

Enable has been named 2019 Cartier Horse of the Year for a second time, and was also awarded the Oder Horse title – she matches Frankel in winning the award twice and has now won five Cartier titles in all

Together with Enable, three more horses trained by John Gosden were successful: Too Darn Hot (Three-Year-Old Colt), Star Catcher (Three-Year-Old Filly) and Stradivarius (Stayer) – Charlie Appleby trained horses recevied awards with Blue Point named Sprinter of the year and Pinatubo Two-Year-Old Colt of the year, whilst Quadrilateral, trained by Roger Charlton, was Two-Year-Old Filly of the year

A minor tendon strain has ruled out Interconnected, the most expensive jump horse at auction, for the season – the Dan Skelton trained five-year old was purchased by Darren Yates at last May’s Goffs Spring Sale for £625,000

Jockeys and trainers

Pat Smullen has received the 2019 Cartier/Daily Telegraph Award Of Merit at an awards ceremony in London’s Dorchester Hotel for his outstanding career in the saddle and his tireless fundraising efforts for cancer research, with over  €2.5 million donations – Smullen said: “I’ve been so fortunate all through my life to have done something that I truly loved. I think in the present moment we should appreciate what we have and what a great industry we have. What I’ve had to face in the last two years has been very difficult but it’s given me great pleasure what we achieved on Irish Champions Weekend. We have got to make a difference to people’s lives”

Nicky Henderson trained three winners at Newbury’s opening meeting of the jump season

Cheltenham Festival winning jockey Bryony Frost (pictured) has been shortlisted for BT Sport’s Action Woman of the Year, which celebrates the achievements of female athletes. The award ceremony will be shown live on BT Sport on 9 December.

Jockey Danny Brock, 27, who received a seven-day ban for marking a horse with a whip modified with elastic bands at Chelmsford, believes his career has been ended after a social-media backlash, including death threats – the BHA have said they believe the elastic bands were left on the whip by mistake and Brock has subsequently issued an apology, saying: “I hope now that this can be put behind me and I can move forward and be given a second chance.”

Betting

The racecourse run Britbet pool-betting and on-course betting shop operator will make its debut in the betting ring at Ffos Las next year with two pitches – the license to operate on the Welsh track will last a year to enable Britbet to assess the performance ahead of a decision to expand to other tracks

Flutter Entertainment, the owner of Paddy Power and Betfair, reported strong performance in the US, which led to a 10% rise in turnover for the third quarter of 2019 to £533m, but online revenue fell 1% and retail 9%

Stars Group, owner of Sky Bet, with whom Flutter have announced plans to merge, reported a 9% increase in turnover for the same period, driven by growth in Australia and the UK

The Sunday Times has reported that Flutter Entertainment is making plans to appoint William Higginson as its new chairman ahead of the merger with Stars Group – Higginson is currently chairman of the supermarket chain William Morrison and would take over from Garry McGann, who is retiring

The same edition of the Sunday Times said that brothers Fred and Peter Done, owners of the “struggling” Betfred bookmakers, had picked up a £46m dividend from their business consultancy group, Peninsula – meanwhile, the Sunday Times said, the bookmaking operation lost £18.1m and £43.8m in the past two years and may close up to 500 shops

Oddschecker has promised to update bookmaker odds in less than 10 seconds after they change – lag time, which often took minutes, had been highlighted by site users as an issue and an 18-month IT project has been undertaken to bring about the improvements

UK Tote Group, who recently became the outright owner of the Tote following the purchase of the remaining shares from Betfred, have announced the impending return of the Tote Double and Treble, available every Saturday and during major festivals, and Tote 10 to Follow competition with a guaranteed prize of £250,000 – more at http://wp.me/p8e3Dl-2UF

Paddy Power won the Racing Post/SIS Betting Shop Manager of the Year for the first time in its 32-year history when Sandra Gilmartin was awarded the title – she is manager of their shop in Cross Cheaping, Coventry

Media

The Horserace Writers and Photographers Association have announced the nominations for this year’s racing broadcasters of the year, two each from ITV and Racing TV: Ed Chamberlin, Francesca Cumani, Lydia Hislop and Nick Luck

British Fixtures

Fixtures in red are scheduled to be on ITV/ITV4

Fixtures are subject to change

More on The Racing Hub

News Update http://wp.me/P8e3Dl-Mx