Club calls for funding to secure the future of horse racing in Jersey as profits plummet

  • ITV Channel's Phil Wellbrook looks into the future of horse racing in the Channel Islands. Broadcast on Tuesday 4 June

Organisers of Jersey's most popular sports event say it needs to be restructured to secure its future.

Horse racing has dominated the Channel Islands' sporting scene since 1832 with Princess Anne even taking part in a Jersey race in 1988.

However, recent times have been tougher with Guernsey not hosting a race since 2020.

Now Jersey Race Club tell ITV News that a combination of falling ticket sales and a lack of sponsorship is cause for concern.

Chair Jim Cantle explains his view on the decline in attendances: "I just think there are other things to do, it is the lack of interest in racing on the island which I can never understand.

"We do a lot of marketing but we just need to try and get more people involved.

"We're shocked by some of the sponsors who have been with us for the last three years but times have changed and so have the economics of it all, obviously the first thing they're going to pull in the budget is sponsoring horse racing."

It costs £600,000 to run a series of race meets each year, 15% more than five years ago, and with attendances dropping from 6,000 two decades ago to as little as 1,000 per race now, there is growing concern about where the lost money will come from.

The club is currently just about breaking even.

Costs to run a racing series have increased by 15%. Credit: ITV Channel

Staffing has been cut from its heyday with Glyn Mitchell now one of only two groundsmen left at the club.

He says: "I stopped my own business to do this so it was quite a big knockback but to be honest, I am so passionate about this site and racing in general. But It needs an uplift."

Jersey's government supported horse racing with a financial grant during the Covid pandemic but has not invested in the sport since.

Sports Minister, Constable Andy Jehan, says: "All sports are struggling for financial support during this time, we've not seen anything to do with their books to see how sustainable they are and at this time we are not offering grants to organisations.

"But if they have problems we are happy to talk to them again."

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