Trainer interview boycott proposed for Sandown on Saturday called off

Trainers will make themselves available for television interviews at Sandown Park on Saturday, after a proposed boycott was called off.

The boycott had been proposed by the Professional Racing Association, a body founded by Peter Savill – a long-standing racing figure and former chair of the British Horseracing Board which was the forerunner of the British Horseracing Authority.

Members of the PRA have asked for payments from media rights companies to allow access to its trainers on racedays, putting them in line with jockeys, who receive an annual group fee for TV input which is put towards their insurance scheme.

Savill has stressed “the money would not go to trainers personally – absolutely not”, and instead be used to aid “benevolent causes and the Injured Jockeys Fund, that need funding”.

The PRA claims to represent the interests of around 170 handlers and said in a statement on Monday: “Unless the racecourses and media companies resolve this particular issue by Saturday, the PRA trainer members will refrain from giving interviews at Sandown on Saturday.”

But the Thoroughbred Group, the body which represents the Racehorse Owners Association, the National Trainers Federation, the Professional Jockeys Association, the National Association of Stable Staff and the Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association, made it clear on Tuesday it did not support the action.

A subsequent PRA statement said: “The PRA has decided to call off the withdrawal of trainer interviews this Saturday to avoid further public conflict between two organisations that are fundamentally aligned.”

The Thoroughbred Group, which has been working on proposals for new commercial partnerships, had earlier pleaded for unity within racing.

It said: “The sport should be working together to ensure that everybody is remunerated fairly, and any increased contributions should not be helping to fund groups that sit outside of the sport’s governance structure.

“Thoroughbred Group members are confident that the Commercial Partnerships proposal that is currently being debated by the industry presents a more constructive blueprint for the growth of the sport.”

Louise Norman, chief executive of the ROA, said the action had generated “disruptive headlines” and that “the sport needs the media and broadcasting support, not a divisive demand that simply takes money for the administration of the PRA via a trainers’ commission”.

The PRA refuted that suggestion and insisted the boycott proposal had highlighted the issues within racing’s finances.

Its statement continued: “Trainers fully understand the positive effect that the media have on our sport and the insinuation that any trainer who supported the withdrawal of interviews might be letting the industry down was therefore disappointing.

“The publicity that this issue has attracted has highlighted one of the many inequalities in the distribution of racing’s finances.

“The main inequality though is the unfair distribution of racing revenue between horsemen and racecourses that filters down from the racecourse into prize-money. This is the PRA’s main concern, and we do not want the current issue to deflect from that focus.”

The PRA statement called for racecourses to treat the sport’s participants as partners and for “horsemen and the BHA to demand a seat at the table of all future media rights discussion… so that horsemen finally receive their fair share of those deals and there is no misunderstanding as to how the income will be shared”.

It added: “It is unacceptable that racecourses have excluded them both from these negotiations for so long.

“The PRA will continue to intervene where those in the official industry structure are unwilling to do so. Our goal continues to be to have the whole industry working together to increase the income for British racing, but this cannot happen till these imbalances are resolved.”