What is the Jockey Club?

Originally founded in London in 1750, the Jockey Club moved to Newmarket soon afterwards, where it established its own rules of racing, initially applicable only to Newmarket Heath, but subsequently adopted nationally and internationally. Indeed, until 1993, when the governance of horse racing was ceded to the newly-formed British Horseracing Board (BHB), the Jockey Club was officially reponsible for the control and regulation of the sport in Britain.

The Jockey Club retained its regulatory responsibilities until 2006, when they, too, were ceded to the newly-formed Horserace Regulatory Authority (HRA). A year later, the BHB and HRA merged to form the British Horseracing Authority (BHA), such that governance and regulation of horse racing were, once again, performed by a single body.

Nowadays headquarterd in central London, the Jockey Club is the largest commercial horse racing organisation in the country. It operates a total of 15 racecourses, including Aintree, Cheltenham, Epsom Downs, Kempton Park and Newmarket, to name but a handful, and has various other commercial interests, including the National Stud. The Jockey Club is governed by Royal Charter, such that all the profits from its commercial activities are returned to racing.