The Jockey Club, racings largest commercial group, will publish annual results on Tuesday that suggest its 14-strong portfolio of racecourses managed to weather the economic turmoil of 2010. The club showed a net profit of £8.6m on turnover of £138m and is committed to increasing its contribution to prize money for 2011 by £2.7m to a record £15.7m.
The club also reduced its debts by £11.6m following several years of significant investment in facilities at its tracks, raising the prospect that a major redevelopment at Cheltenham, where the annual festival makes a significant contribution to the groups profits, will be approved within the next three years.
That is absolutely the next major project for the Jockey Club in terms of investment, Scott Bowers, the clubs spokesman, said on Monday. Its not something thats going to happen tomorrow because we have to finalise the details and ensure that the funding is in place. Its something for maybe the next three or five years but it could be at the early end of that scale.
What we can guarantee is that, whenever we make money, we will put it back into racing. We had already announced what we would be putting into prize-money in 2011 but this [£2.7m] represents an extra bit on top of that.
The club also reported that its Racing Welfare charity saw a 34% rise in the number of people seeking its assistance in 2010 at a time when donations, particularly from corporate sources, were significantly reduced. Racing Welfare costs money and theyre really struggling at the moment in terms of fund-raising, Bowers said. Thats also a really important part of our group and we need to make sure that the money is there to support it.
The Jockey Clubs racecourses are a key component of Racecourse Media Group, which manages the media rights of 31 tracks in all and owns the Racing UK satellite channel. Subscriptions to Racing UK, which costs £20 for TV viewers and £10 online, rose by 4,000 in 2010 to 41,000, while RMGs overall profit rose to a record £9m.
The success of musical events in boosting racecourse attendance also continued in 2010. Club racecourses hosted 23 evening meetings with post-race concerts, selling more than 250,000 tickets, and will increase the total to 31 meetings in 2011, with acts including Sir Tom Jones, Boyzone and Scissor Sisters.
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