Jockey Club Invests In Grassroots Racing

23 Nov 2012 | tshego

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Jockey Club Racecourses (JCR), the UK’s largest racecourse group, has announced the launch of The Jockey Club Grassroots Jumps Series in 2012/13.

Aimed at supporting grassroots levels of the sport, the Series launches at Carlisle Racecourse on Saturday 2 December 2012 and culminates in two £50,000 finals at Haydock Park Racecourse on 30 March 2013.

The initiative follows on from the highly successful one-year Betfair Jumps Series run exclusively at JCR tracks. Betfair’s previous voluntary investment into prize money for the Series via JCR has been directed into the Levy funding pot as part of the major five-year deal worth at least £40m that British Racing agreed with the betting exchange, where The Jockey Club played a key negotiation role alongside the British Horseracing Authority.

‘We’re really proud to be the largest racecourse contributor to prize money in British racing,’ said Paul Fisher, Group Managing Director of Jockey Club Racecourses. ‘Protecting quality is really important to The Jockey Club, but so is supporting all levels of our sport. We think this grassroots series is a great way to do that, so we’re stepping up to the plate to invest in the initiative for 2012/13.

‘With £100,000 worth of finals in March on offer we hope owners and trainers will get behind the series and build on the real success of the Betfair Jumps Series last year.’

The Jockey Club Grassroots Jumps Series will consist of 32 Class 3 and 4 qualifiers split into 16 Hurdle qualifiers and 16 Chase qualifiers, run at eight of its Jumps tracks. To qualify for entry into either of The Jockey Club Grassroots Jumps Series finals – a 2m6f Open Handicap Chase and a 2m4f Open Handicap Hurdle – horses must run at least once in a corresponding qualifying race.

After winning both 2011/12 Betfair Jumps Series finals, Brian Ellison said: ‘Initiatives like this are valuable to support the foundation levels of British racing. This support can make a real difference to those operating at the grassroots level of horseracing.’