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21 Mar 2024
The Racing Foundation has released its 2023 Annual Review and strategy for 2024.
In 2023, the Racing Foundation made grant payments totalling £3.3million to fund charitable activities for the benefit of the racing industry in the areas of people, equine welfare, community engagement and environmental sustainability.
It also provided a £7.5m loan to the Horserace Betting Levy Board (HBLB) as a contribution towards the Weighing Room Loan Scheme being offered to racecourses.
The Racing Foundation’s 2023 highlights included:
• Continued support of the Horse Welfare Board and the delivery of the charitable elements of the industry’s A Life Well Lived horse welfare strategy.
• Continued support for the Scottish Racing Academy; Racing Media Academy; Riding a Dream Academy; National Racehorse Week and Women in Racing’s ‘Racing Home’ activities.
• Collaborating with the HBLB to support the formation of the Industry People Board and the development on an industry people strategy.
• Working directly with the Industry Programme Group to help drive forward the sport’s areas of strategic focus that align with our key areas of giving. This included awarding grants for a Head of Social Impact and a Head of Environmental Sustainability
• Delivering a carbon-neutral Horseracing Industry Conference with a record number of tickets allocated and industry leaders in attendance.
• Producing the Julia Visits video series, to follow our Chair, Julia Budd, on her visits to see the organisations and projects we support.
The Racing Foundation is committed to creating a long-lasting legacy to make a positive difference for the British racing and breeding industries and has awarded over £39m, which represents granting all the income and growth in value in excess of inflation, since its inception in 2012.
2023 also represented the final year of the Racing Foundation’s 2021-2023 strategy.
A single year strategy has been released led by an updated purpose statement ‘to work in partnership with the racing industry to ensure a sustainable future for the sport’ and an updated ambition statement ‘to develop understanding and action around the key charitable issues facing racing and to assist the industry with developing a collaborative and strategic response’.
The Racing Foundation will maintain support for the same four key areas of focus and will look to help strengthen racing’s social licence.
Tansy Challis, Chief Executive at the Racing Foundation, said: “2023 represented the final year of our 2021-2023 strategy.
“When reviewing our progress through our last strategy we assessed our performance against our key areas of focus and the outcomes achieved through our giving.
“Many of those outcomes were directly linked to the development of cross-industry strategies and whilst most of these are taking longer than originally anticipated to be developed, we have noticed a desire among industry stakeholders to work in a more collaborative and strategic manner and an appetite to drive change.
“We see this as hugely positive and feel it is crucial for the future of the sport that this approach is further strengthened over the course of 2024.
“By the end of 2024, we will have a better overview of the development, implementation and performance of industry strategies in our key areas of focus and will be better able to measure the outcomes and impact of our giving.
“As a result, we have decided to deliver a one-year strategy for 2024 that will represent a slight refresh of our 2021-2023 strategy.
“We will use a full review of the 2021-2023 and 2024 strategies to formulate our 2025-2027 strategy.
You can read a full review of our 2021-2023 strategy and a more detailed overview of our 2024 strategy here: https://www.racingfoundation.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/RF-2024-Strategy.pdf
