2020 British Fixture List Released

[Wandering Eyes]

The 2020 fixture list was published by the British Horseracing Authority on Tuesday. Policies governing the compilation of the list were announced here last month. There are a number of new measures introduced after agreement was reached by the cross-industry Fixtures and Funding Group including:

• no race starting later than 9 p.m. at summer evening fixtures
• no race starting later than 8:30 p.m. the rest of the year
• extending the Christmas and summer Jump racing breaks to four and 12 days, respectively
• ensuring that the days’s first race starts by 2 p.m.

These measures aim to take into consideration the well-being of industry participants, the competitiveness of the racing produce and the commercial need for the list to work for the sport’s customers. Twenty BHA-allocated fixtures were removed from the list and 10 other fixtures staged at Towcester were withheld from the list as the future of that racecourse is being discussed with the new ownership group. It is likely that those 10 fixtures will be added to the list and take place either at Towcester or other venues.

As it stands, the 2020 fixture list is as follows:

• 1481 fixtures (2019 had 1511)
• 2020 fixture surface ratios are Jump: 39.1%, Flat Turf 37.8%, All Weather 23.1% (2019: Jump: 39.4%, Flat Turf 37.3%, All Weather 23.2%)
• 902 Flat fixtures scheduled (13 fewer than in 2019). Of these fixtures, 560 are Flat Turf fixtures (four fewer than 2019) while 342 are All Weather fixtures (nine fewer than originally scheduled in 2019)
• 579 Jump fixtures scheduled (17 fewer than 2019)
• 1,070 afternoon fixtures (11 fewer than 2019) and 411 evening (or floodlit) fixtures (19 fewer than 2019).

In addition, Portas Consulting, appointed by the sport’s executive committee, is developing an independent analysis of the financial and economic state of British racing, which will begin in August and will assist in the size and shape of the 2021 fixture list.

“The 2020 fixture list and the policies governing it aim to balance the impact of the size of the fixture list on the thousands of people that work tirelessly to service it; the need to support the industry’s revenues and prize money levels; and the importance of promoting the longer-term interests of the sport by delivering more competitive and compelling racing,” said BHA Chief Operating Officer Richard Wayman in a statement. “Production of the fixture list is rarely straightforward with sometimes conflicting objectives amongst the different parties within racing. In the current climate it is more important than ever that all the parties involved continue to work together to create a fixture list that delivers the best overall outcome for the sport.

“Looking to the future, it is very encouraging that all involved in the process are supportive of the external analysis of the financial and economic state of the sport that is about to commence. This is an important piece of work as it will provide a basis of agreed facts from which to develop fixture strategy for the future.”

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