David Ord on the lessons being learned from Project Beacon

It was to update stakeholders and the media on work now under way following the learnings of Project Beacon and also presentations from the three start-ups involved in the Future Of Racing project.

It made for a busy hour-and-a-half as a whole host of speakers took to the stage armed with PowerPoints and a five-minute window. Sectional timing experts would not have been overly impressed with some of the efforts on the latter.

But the presentations were wide and varied. They had to be - so was Project Beacon, the largest ever customer survey undertaken by the sport with over 7,500 people in the UK Ireland giving their time and opinions.

It identified what motivates racing’s current audiences, what opportunities there are to grow that number and the reasons for rejection and challenges that the sport faces.

Off the back of it, six priority areas were identified to drive further engagement.

• Improving the raceday experience and betting product for fans;
• Makingownership feel more accessible, at lower cost and easier to become involved in;
• Shifting perceptions of welfare and growing understanding of the treatment of horses;
• Demystifying the sport and making it easier to understand for newcomers;
• Creating more of a structure to our racing, making the stories of each year easier to follow;
• Creating stronger emotional connections to our races, people and stories.

And it was against these that the speakers took to the stage to run us through their current workflow and plans for 2026 and beyond.

There were bewildering numbers from the Raceday TV team on how their social media engagements have exploded over the last two years. It was quite clear which of the key-note speakers had spent a couple of nights on Love Island too. Frankie Foster winning both best-turned-out and most confident speaker.

Great British Racing’s Alison Crowe and Kyrsten Halley presented on how Project Beacon insights have shaped their 2026 activity. They touched on the Going Is Good campaign which to many racing fans has been invisible.

That’s by design, it seems. It is targeting people who have never been racing before, or at the very least seldomly, not the current tribe. If we’re seeing it, that audience profiling has failed. It hasn’t for me.

And racecourse attendance figures are growing - 5% up year-on-year, a trend continued through the major spring festivals. But it was the three Racing The Future start-up presentations that felt different – and offered some hope that Bob Dylan might have been right after all and that the times are indeed changing.

This joint-initiative between Flutter and the BHA, also backed by York Racecourse and ClimbUK, sought pitches from businesses with a spotlight on four key themes: horse welfare, education, raceday experience and ‘behind the silks’, offering fans immersive, behind-the-scenes access to the racing world.

Three of those businesses are now exploring pilots within the sport.

Raw Stadia seeks to provide the most accurate ground data possible, and Jan Strycker was very impressive as he presented along with the Horse Welfare Board’s Minette Batters and Pip Kirkby, on how the insights of Project Beacon are helping the sport to address welfare concerns.

And Raw Stadia is interesting, very interesting. Already embraced by the wider sporting world, it will be working with The Jockey Club and Newmarket in particular this summer and autumn.

Evolving the raceday experience has also been identified by Project Beacon’s research as a key focus area, with Aintree’s James Rennard and York’s James Brennan each updating on work in this area. The latter channelled his inner David Brent to sign off with a Tim McGraw chorus. It stole the show.

They were joined by Alasdair Crawley from the start-up FanBase, which is seeking to provide a mobile-first platform for fans to buy tickets, book hospitality and further engage with the racing community.

Crawley was having his first day at the races on day one of the Dante Festival and will be back. And he feels his app will act as a similar hook for casual racegoers, allowing racecourses to communicate more effectively and help transform the once or twice-a-season attendee, to a more committed fan. Now there’s a potential golden goose.

And so is syndicate ownership.

I spoke last week with Fraser Ralston of Horsebox who on Wednesday had the task of closing out the presentations.

He did so quickly and effectively, landing the message that his platform is the potential one-stop shop for all syndicates and racing clubs, allowing the curious first-time potential owner to find the cheapest and most convenient first steps on the ladder while showcasing the full range of opportunities that are available.

Everything can be done there, at two or three clicks of a button.

Sebastian Butterworth, Strategic Racing Director, Flutter UKI, said: “It was particularly encouraging to see the progress already being made by the start-ups we first heard from back in February.

“More broadly, though, what stood out was the growing alignment across the industry around the need to put the customer more firmly at the centre of racing’s future.

“There is still a huge amount of work to do - particularly around welfare and building long-term public trust in the sport - but events like this give real confidence that racing is beginning to move in the right direction.”

And with the headwinds we currently face, having confidence that we can move at all – let alone in the right direction – is very much needed.

The board of the Gambling Commission meet in the near future seemingly set on signing off the implementation of its Financial Risk Assessments despite warnings they are not frictionless, will drive more people to the black market, hit the treasury and cost racing in the region of £250million over five years.

The presentations at York didn’t remove that Sword of Damocles many feel is currently hanging over our sport, but it did at least showcase schemes that offer hope that we are listening to our customers and trying to increase the audience.

And both are vital to a sustainable future for horse racing in Britain.

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