Racing trainers abandon TV interview boycott plan to avoid ‘public conflict'
Plans to boycott television interviews by trainers at Sandown on Saturday have been abandoned 'in the best interests of the sport', the Professional Racing Association announced on Tuesday.
The PRA, which was founded in 2024 and headed by the former British Horseracing Board chair Peter Savill, claims to have around 170 trainers among its members and had said only on Monday that they would be instructed to decline interviews with both ITV Racing and Racing TV at this weekend's feature meeting in Britain unless Racecourse Media Group, which owns the media rights for Sandown and several more of the country's most high-profile tracks, agreed to a demand for an annual payment of £500,000 for interviews at RMG courses.
The payment, it said, would put trainers on the same footing as jockeys, who have received a collective fee for interviews since 2008 which subsidises their career-ending insurance scheme, and would be used 'for the benefit of the sport including … the National Trainers Federation Benevolent Fund and Racing Welfare' as well as 'defraying' some administration costs incurred by the PRA.
Tuesday's rapid climbdown followed an intervention by the Thoroughbred Group, an umbrella body which represents owners, trainers, jockeys, stable staff and other professionals working with horses.
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In a statement, the group said that it 'cannot support the action proposed by the PRA', and that 'any increased contributions should not be helping to fund groups that sit outside of the sport's governance structure', while Louise Norman, the chief executive of the Racehorse Owners Association (ROA), underlined the importance that owners attach to both terrestrial and digital television coverage of the sport.
'The sport needs the media and broadcasting support,' Norman said, 'not a divisive demand that simply takes money for the administration of the PRA via a trainers' commission.'
Norman continued: 'At a time when the sport should be focused on driving increased revenue and engagement into the sport, these disruptive headlines simply accelerate the loss of fans and owners, and continue to harm British racing as a whole. I know from frequent discussions with owners, including from this weekend at Cheltenham, that many of them to do not support this.'
The PRA later said in a statement that it had 'decided to call off the withdrawal of trainer interviews this Saturday to avoid further public conflict between two organisations that are fundamentally aligned. We believe this is in the best interests of the sport.'
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