A new brand of horse racing "unique in concept and with a vision to attract blue-chip sponsorship from across the world" could launch in Britain next year, according to Lewis Porteous of RACING POST. Championship Horse Racing would center on a team competition with a scoring system similar to Formula 1, "pitting 12 global brands against each other in an eight-week summer series." Although "still in its infancy," plans are geared toward a '19 launch and would include:
- Twelve branded teams "similar to Red Bull in F1 or Team Sky in cycling."
- A £10M ($13.8M)-plus investment in British horse racing.
- Six £100,000 ($138,236)-plus handicaps per meeting.
- Squads of 30 horses and four riders per team.
The "driving force" behind the concept is former League Two side Swindon Town Chair Jeremy Wray, who hopes the series can "turbo-boost audience, prize-money and participation growth rates" as recently seen in other sports like the Twenty20 format of cricket and darts. Wray said, "I'm not going to claim to know where they're all going to come from, but I'd like to think there will be a couple of brands you or I haven't heard of because this is an opportunity for countries who are looking to break into the U.K." While racing has "struggled in the past to attract powerhouse brands to the sport," Wray is "confident the concept of owning a team makes this a very different beast to traditional race sponsorship." He said, "If you think more Indian Premier League than F1 here, it could almost become a brand playground if you go to the right people" (RACING POST, 2/12).
