I blogged on this yesterday, mostly in response to Lydia’s reply to one of my posts on X: Lydia strongly believes that a commercial case can be made for Kempton’s contribution to racing in general via the facilities (racing-wise) it provides for the development of good horses.
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The threat of closure looms again after Jockey Club CEO Jim Mullen claimed last week that the future of Kempton is now out of his hands. A deal was done in 2018 with house builders Redrow, who have the option of building there. That option expires in 2028. Redrow reportedly have no current plans to execute the option.
Mullen says the Jockey Club has costly investment plans, mainly for Aintree and Cheltenham, though all tracks are expected to benefit. The Club owns:
North
Aintree
Carlisle
Haydock Park
Midlands & East
Huntingdon
Market Rasen
Newmarket (both the Rowley Mile and July Course)
Nottingham
London
Epsom Downs
Kempton Park
Sandown Park
South West
Cheltenham (home of the Cheltenham Festival)
Exeter
Warwick
Wincanton
The Jockey Club has for some time nurtured plans for building a track at Newmarket for all weather racing.
Jack Keene reported in The Sun on December 17th:
With the government set to relax planning laws and the threat to Kempton ramping up, Amy Starkey, who was appointed the Jockey Club’s ‘Project Newmarket Director’ in May, has been driving plans for a new all-weather track forward.
She has made presentations to Jockey Club members and various racing stakeholders around the proposed new racecourse, which would be situated on the large expanse of land behind the grandstands at the Rowley Mile.
The floodlit all-weather track would replace Kempton’s 54 Flat fixtures, were Kempton to close, while the plans for Newmarket also involve building new homes and a country park.
The Jockey Club declined to comment on the Newmarket project.
Jim Mullen, speaking this week on the Nick Luck podcast, said that Jockey Club Racecourses must be lean and fit before it begins investing, hence the plans for some redundancies. Should we assume that this drive for a lean and fit organisation has included a detailed consideration about the wisdom of closing Kempton. Does it make commercial sense? Does it make sense for an organisation whose very existence, as a non-profit group, is premised on investing in racing?
Does investing in racing mean racing in general or only in the tracks owned by the Club?
Reactions to the proposed closure of Kempton have been mixed except from those working in the industry, who, on the whole, condemn it in the strongest terms—“Jockey Club should hang its head in shame.”
The protests seemed, to me at least, more emotional than practical. The King George VI Chase, first run in 1937, is dear to the hearts of long-term fans. But professionals also value Kempton for its flat, right-handed layout and its provision, consistently, of decent ground in the depth of winter.
While the King George is the diamond event at the track, Kempton hosts numerous other graded NH races:
Grade 1 Races
King George VI Chase
Kauto Star Novices’ Chase
Christmas Hurdle
Desert Orchid Chase
Wayward Lad Novices’ Chase
Grade 2 Races:
Dueling Grounds Juvenile Hurdle
Adonis Juvenile Hurdle (February)
Pendil Novices’ Chase (February)
Ballymore Leamington Novices’ Hurdle (January)
Grade 3 Races:
Lanzarote Handicap Hurdle (January)
Coral Handicap Chase
Coral Racing Club Handicap Hurdle
(the above list from Claude:AI: I have not double-checked them)
Broadcaster and journalist Lydia Hislop, a strong supporter of Kempton, said today on X: “The value of Kempton to top-class jump racing has not been evaluated in any spreadsheet, I am willing to bet. This is not an emotional argument I am making; it is a commercial one.”
And this returns us to the lean and fit claims made by Jim Mullen. Has the commercial impact of closure been reliably evaluated in that specific instance – “to top-class jump racing”? Do the ripples from Kempton’s NH fixtures spread far enough across the sport to deliver a commercial ‘trickle down’? If so, is Mullen willing to cut off that supply on the basis that there is no measurable financial benefit to the Jockey Club via the Kempton coffers?
If a convincing commercial case could be made that all of racing benefits financially from Kempton, might Kempton have a stay of execution in exchange for the track billing all other NH courses by way of a tax on the Kempton Trickle Down?
That sounds to me like a very tough vessel to launch and keep afloat, but there are few commenting on this subject who have the rounded experience in the industry that Hislop has.
If it’s true that Mullen believes All Weather at Newmarket is a better proposition than all weather at Kempton, it brings the sport no further forward, because it deepens the reliance on bookmakers, though that argument itself is probably pointless as racing has so many eggs in the bookies’ basket, one more won’t matter.
The sport should at least try to diversify. Mullen wants the best from each asset, yet racecourses, on the face of it, present one of the worst business proposals you could imagine. Take Aintree: the venue covers 270 acres and has five grandstands: the core business uses these assets to the full on 7 days each year.
In what universe does this make sense? And it is not at all uncommon in the sport. Even triple that number of racedays, and it leaves these huge, expense-hungry businesses effectively idle for 90% of the year.
Other events take place—weddings, conferences, some have golf courses, car boot sales, exhibitions, but these must contribute a tiny percentage of total income.
Look at the advantages the Jockey Club would have in, for example, setting up a nationwide car hire business. Driving schools. Green gyms. Office space rental—this is a potential big earner: how many hospitality boxes sit empty when they could be rented out to businesses at various levels? A premium deal, perhaps including a package for each raceday to entertain clients?
Leasing space for Travel Inn type hotels. Providing business hubs, pop up shops/offices. The land could be used for flight schools, for hire to local authorities for training purposes, management away-day companies, team building.
I’m certain half a dozen innovators bouncing ideas around could suggest a raft of income streams to make those empty acres and vacant buildings much more commercially viable.
With millions in media-rights cash flowing into racecourses, they’ll never be in a better position to invest in diversification, which is one of only three strategies any business has (market penetration and market development the others, and we’ve made a pretty poor fist when trying those two). Far too many businesses fear diversification. I worked at Aintree in the mid ‘90s. After my first Grand National in 1994 I recall seeing the invoice for temporary tentage – it was hundreds of thousands. I proposed that Jockey Club Racecourses set up their own tentage company, given it would be easily able to justify such an investment with the number of tracks it had. The answer was: ‘our business is to run racecourses’.
More all weather tracks are not the answer, especially when bookies are assuring us racing is dying as a betting product (without mentioning the stranglehold they have on clever punters).
The Jockey Club ought to widen its thinking on Kempton, on its tracks, and on its obligations to the sport. Radical change is needed. What Jim Mullen seems to be promising is more of the same.