The Jockey Club is the guardian of horse racing in the United Kingdom. Since its inception, it has expanded its responsibilities for Horse Racing across the United Kingdom while faithfully maintaining its legacy as the gatekeeper for the Sport of Kings in one of the continent’s most watched horse racing jurisdictions. The Jockey Club employs about 500 regular employees and over 3,000 workers on an event basis throughout the UK in a variety of vocations.
Who is the Head of the Jockeys Club – The Chief Executive Officer of the Jockey Club is Nevin Truesdale. Nevin oversees The Jockey Club’s executive management, commercial performance, and, ultimately, the group‘s ability to accomplish its objective of providing long-term value to British racing. The rest of the Executive Team reports to Nevin, who reports to The Jockey Club’s Board of Stewards.
He joined Centrica plc in 2013 as Group Finance Director after serving as Finance Director for British Gas’s £9 billion Residential Energy segment and Commercial & IT. He was then elevated to Chief Financial Officer of The Jockey Club before becoming CEO in August 2020. He formerly worked at The AA and EY (Ernst & Young) and graduated from the University of Cambridge.
He is a Full Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and has been a certified Chartered Accountant since 1998. Nevin serves on the boards of the Racecourse Association, Racecourse Media Group, and The National Stud on behalf of The Jockey Club. He owns racehorses and is an enormous enthusiast of the Sport.
His Second in Command – Director of Racing Richard Norris
Richard is the Racing Director of The Jockey Club, where he oversees fixture planning, race programme creation, and maximizing commercial returns to reinvest in British racing. He was appointed Group Racing Director in 2010 after serving as Group Racing Manager.
After completing the British Horseracing Authority Graduate Development Programme, he joined The Jockey Club in 2003. Richard is a member of the BHA Fixture and Funding Group, the HBLB Betting Liaison Group, the BHA Jump Pattern Committee and The Jockey Club’s Welfare Strategy Group.
Nevin Truesdale – Background and Values
Nevin Truesdale is the Group Chief Executive Officer of one of the United Kingdom’s most prominent sports and hotel organizations. He has extensive financial, strategic, and commercial expertise, which he has acquired in his studies and his positions in his previous organizations. Previously, Truesdale was the Group CFO of an Oil and Gas Company, which allowed him to gain extensive experience in people and corporate leadership, goal setting, and managing complicated stakeholder relationships. He has therefore built a strong leadership team within the Jockey Club, developed an appropriate depth of knowledge, and established a new culture throughout all the JC divisions.
The Jockey Club is a well-known sports and hospitality enterprise in the United Kingdom and is the most important employer in the British horseracing industry. It is a multi-venue leisure, media and digital rights firm that manages fifteen racecourses and is in charge of the Cheltenham Festival, The Randox Grand National, and The Derby, three of the most critical and high-profile sports events in the United Kingdom. It has financial interests in horse racing, betting, hotels, real estate, live music, catering, and horse breeding, as well as a charitable organization called “Racing Welfare”. After contributing £28 Million to prize money and investing roughly £12 Million on Capital Expenditure projects, the corporation has a revenue of over £200 Million and Earnings Before Interest Depreciation and Amortization of over £20 Million in profitability in 2022.
Truesdale also serves on the boards of the Racecourse Media Group, the Racecourse Association, the Jockey Club Catering, and The National Stud. Following a period of uncertainty after his appointment, he was instrumental in the license renewal of media and data rights for all the Jockey Club and twenty other racecourses back into the Racecourse Media Group in 2020/21. He also has extensive expertise in all aspects of industry governance and politics, having worked within the British Horseracing Authority, the governing body, and various industry stakeholders ranging from participants to sponsors and critical media partners.
As the Jockey Club’s Chief Executive Officer, he is the firm’s public face on all significant industry and commercial matters and many of their hallmark events. Truesdale also plays an essential role in addressing several critical political issues plaguing the horseracing industry, such as long-term funding and equine welfare. He works tirelessly to build collaborative relationships with industry stakeholders and has overseen a complete overhaul of the company’s structure, culture, and strategy internally.
Values of the Jockey Club (JC)
- Integrity: The JC will always do what is right to maintain the BHA’s reputation for fairness and the trust of our stakeholders.
- Accountable: The JC takes personal responsibility for their actions and works to improve the health of British racing.
- Credible: They have an open and honest policy about what we do, and everyone is treated equally and politely.
- Responsive: The JC communicates with the Sport’s numerous stakeholders to achieve agreed-upon objectives and goals effectively.
- They promote a forward-thinking and collaborative culture while honoring British Racing’s long history as a sport and a business.
The Jockey Club is vital to the Sport of horse racing in the United Kingdom. They work relentlessly to maintain the smooth running, preservation, and longevity of horse racing in the United Kingdom. They work tirelessly to guarantee that race meetings around the country are run efficiently and fairly, per the rules and regulations of the horseracing regulatory organizations.
Nevin Truesdale – The Leader
Nevin Truesdale is not only an enormous enthusiast of the Sport but also an owner of racehorses, a graduate of the University of Cambridge and a Chartered Accountant. He leads one of the caretakers and gatekeepers of the Sport of Horse Racing in the United Kingdom into the Digital Age.
His qualifications and love for the Sport speak for themselves, and if he continues to walk the talk as he has since become the CEO of the Jockey Club, Horseracing will continue to be transparent and scandal-free with its integrity intact as we enter 2023.