‘Dragon’s Den Style’ Event Well Backed; Horseracing on Strong Footing

Flutter and the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) have hailed the success of their Future of Racing Event. Earlier this week, the gambling giants and the BHA teamed up to host a ‘Dragon’s Den’ style event where tech businesses attended a London summit to pitch ideas to drive horseracing forward.

Although horseracing was spared from the tax hikes in November’s budget, there have been underlying concerns about younger audiences being disconnected from the sport.

However, the businesses invited to take part in the summit made sure their voices were heard.

What did we learn?

The idea for the summit stemmed from Project Beacon, which collated the opinions of 7,500 racegoers in a large-scale survey. Indeed, the premise was to reassure those who had ongoing worries about betting terminology, equine welfare, and other matters.

Among the tech firms that were involved in the summit, were E-Nano, which specialises in automated racecourse surface analysis, and Fanbase, which covers raceday management tools and has a fan app too. Several issues were identified, and the themes discussed were:

• Horse welfare - implementing technologies to improve equine safety.

• Education - simplifying the sport for newcomers through a range of accessible tools.

• Raceday Experience - elevating the social and entertainment value of going to live events.

• Behind the Silks - offering fans more exclusive access to what goes on off the course.

It has been suggested that the concepts introduced by the startups were well-grounded and had substance. Moreover, it is hoped that the building blocks have been put in place to effect change in the future.

A ‘heartening’ initiative

The work put in by the tech firms didn’t go unnoticed. David Jones, Senior Independent Director of the BHA, praised the event and the contributions of the businesses that travelled to the event.

He said:

“The Future of Racing Summit was a fascinating event that demonstrated the range of technologies that exist which have the potential to grow our sport.

“It was most heartening to see companies travelling from all over our world to pitch to senior leaders, demonstrating that those of us inside the sport are not alone in seeing the opportunities that exist within British racing; others do too, and we should be excited by what that tells us.

“I look forward to following the relationships that have been developed through the course of this initiative and learning more about how they can help support our goals for racing’s future.”

Flutter opens up on event

Like the BHA, Flutter reserved special praise for the event. They also took the opportunity to welcome the collaboration with the BHA.

Giving her thoughts, Sebastian Butterworth, Strategic Racing Director for Flutter UKI, said:

“We have been delighted to work alongside the BHA, utilising the skills and experience of our internal Alpha Hub team in exploring the world of innovative and emerging technology.

“The event this week was fantastic, and it was great to see a wide array of ideas coming from people from across the globe. I’d like to thank all those who attended the event.

“We are really looking forward to continuing the work with the BHA to progress the programme over the coming months and explore how the concepts we heard can come to life and help grow our sport.”

Staying the course

By the sound of things, the summit was a roaring experience. The BHA has confirmed a further showcase event will be staged at York Racecourse later this year, which will update on outcomes from the London function and drive forward the wider work of Project Beacon.