What is the Jockey Club?

Established in 1750, by some of the most influential people of the day, the Jockey Club established the Rules of Racing and was, until 2006, official governing body of horse racing in Britain. However, responsibility for the governance and regulation of British horse racing passed to the newly-formed Horserace Regulatory Authority (HRA) in 2006 and subsequently to the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) – formed by the merger of the HRA and the British Horseracing Board (BHB) – in 2007.

Nowadays, the Jockey Club maintains a portfolio of commercial interests, which ownership involves ownership of fifteen British racecourses, including Aintree, Cheltenham, Epsom and Newmarket, as well as training facilities in Epsom, Lambourn and Newmarket through its property division, Jockey Club Estates. Other concerns include the National Stud, a 500-acre site on the outskirts of Newmarket, which was, until April, 2008, under governmental control. Following the acquisition of the National Stud, the Jockey Club set about reinvigorating and re-establishing confidence in breeding, boarding and education programmes; indeed, the National Stud remains the only working stud farm in the country to offer behind-the-scenes tours to the general public.