PRIZES IN BRITAIN REACH £2 MILLION

Press, Volume C, Issue 29702, 21 December 1961, Page 4

PRIZES IN BRITAIN REACH £2 MILLION

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.)

'LONDON, Dec. 20. Prize money distributed by 45 flat racecourses in England. Scotland and Wales -this year reached the £2 million mark for the first time, says the “Daily Telegraph’ ’ racing writer. The figure had been creeping up steadily in the last five years, he says, but it is not yet keeping pace with extra costs owners have to find to keep a horse in training. The prize money for the 1961 flat racing season was £2,057,447, of which owners contributed 32.75 per cent, and racecourses and sponsors of the races 67.25 per cent. Last year it was 32.27 per cent. In France, where all betting is with the totalisator and where all of the course betting comes back by way of the totelisator to a racecourse pool, owners put up ocriy 5 per cent, of the prize money distributed. Owners’ contribution in America, where there is also a totalisator monopoly but nd legalised off-the-course betting, fa less than 2 per Cent. . “ ’’At the moment, therefore.

owners in Britain are far worse off than in France and America and it certainly is to be hoped that when off-the-course bookmakers begin to give substantial help to racing in 1963 the horserace Betting Levy Board will see fit to give some help to owners and breeders. Compared with 1960, racecourses, with the help of sponsors, put up £ 80.000 more last year and owners, themselves. £52.000 more. The hope is that in a few years’ time when the levy board is in full swing the owners’ contribution will have fallen to about 10 per cent, of the prize money. “This is still double that of the French but is a reasonable target.”