Jockey Club Records Strong 2014 Profits

20 Apr 2015 | sigadmin

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The Jockey Club, which runs 15 racecourses across the UK, has announced profits of £21.7m for 2014, while turnover rose by 5.1% to a record £171.2m.

The profit for 2014, representing a sixth consecutive year of turnover growth, was just short of the previous year’s record £22m.

Key to this turnover were ticket sales, particularly at the Group’s major racing festivals, hospitality and catering sales, media income, music nights and non-racing events at its venues.

The Jockey Club, which reinvest all profits into British racing, owns some of the world’s leading racing festivals, including the Crabbie’s Grand National Festival, The Cheltenham Festival, The Investec Derby Festival and the QIPCO Guineas Festival.

Returns from The Jockey Club’s commercial operations have allowed it to pump more than £400m into prize money and facilities for customers and facilities in the last decade.

This performance allowed The Jockey Club to contribute a record £19.1m to prize money in 2014 – up from £18.2m in 2013 – taking its prize money contribution in the last decade to £146.4m.

In 2014, the Group also invested £34.1m on new and upgraded facilities and maintaining standards and racing surfaces across its 15 racecourses nationwide; training grounds at Newmarket, Lambourn and Epsom Downs; the historic Jockey Club Rooms; and The National Stud. This combined reinvestment in British racing through prize money and facilities of £55.2m in 2014 was an increase of £21.7m on the previous year.

Simon Bazalgette, group chief executive of The Jockey Club, said: “By maximising returns from our commercial operations we’ve been able to invest more than £400 million into the sport in the last 10 years. We’ve done that through prize money and facilities for customers and participants, and also supporting the sport’s promotion.

“This is something our people feel very proud of and it is thanks to their hard work striving to give customers of all types the best possible experience and promoting British racing as a sport, nationwide. It’s also been essential because of racing’s flawed funding model where Britain remains the poor relation to other racing nations thanks to an outdated Levy system that needs replacing as quickly as possible.

Bazalgette added: “Jockey Club Racecourses is staging fewer fixtures this year as a result of the changing landscape on the all-weather, which is a shame because that removes around £1 million from the profits we use to reinvest in British racing, but despite this we are on track to contribute a new record amount to prize money of £19.9m before abandonments in 2015.”