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Equinties - the budget
BGP Capital
November 27, 2025
Gm Equinauts
So, the big story that affected us all in the UK yesterday was the budget announced by Rachel ‘from accounts’ Reeves.
In short, she’s taxed the f out of everything that moves and every thing that doesn’t. For a more detailed over view, here’s the money man rounding it up in 9 mins:
The budget is fairly important for all facets of life, but let’s see how the budget will affect racing:
Because we have a feeling they’ve appeared to help us out, but in fact made it a whole lot worse.
Let’s dive in!
HEADLINE ROUNDUP
THE BUDGET
Let’s get straight to it. The tax rate paid on horseracing will remain at 15 per cent both in retail and online, in a significant victory for the sport. General betting duty, paid on other forms of sports betting, will remain at 15 per cent in betting shops - but from April 2027 will rise from 15 to 25 per cent online. Remote gaming duty, paid on online casino betting, will rise from 21 to 40 per cent from April 2026. Machine betting duty, paid on land-based betting terminals, has not been adjusted.
In total, these measures are expected to raise £1.1bn by 2029-30. This is a win for racing, right? Well, yes and no. Let’s be real, whatever was announced in the budget was never, ever going to be ‘good’ for racing. The government needs money, and instead of getting it from investments into the strategies to promote British business growth, the short-sighted methodology so typical with Labour is to take it as much from the every day person as possible.
On the face of it, with the government excluding horse racing from the tax rises on general betting duty and remote gaming duty, that is a stroke of kindness that we were hopeful of receiving, but as Tom Kerr wrote in the Post: “One of the Treasury's oldest tricks is to trail such terrifying ideas before a budget that when the chancellor finally delivers something merely awful, the country breathes a sigh of relief. Racing finds itself in exactly that position today.”
He’s probably not far from the truth, though racing’s efforts with the Axe the Racing Tax movement should be commended.
One could also assume that if the tax rates for horse racing are staying the same while other sports are rising (as well as the online casino sections of bookmakers), horse racing may get a bigger push by bookmakers. It doesn’t seem to be as simple as that.
If racing is generally not a massive money maker for the sportsbooks in the same way that football, tennis, and other sports are, why would a bookmaker through more resources at a smaller money-making product while they are leaking money in some of their more profitable areas? As the old saying goes, stick to your strengths.
That’s certainly an angle that wouldn’t necessarily be at the forefront of people’s minds, rightly or wrongly. There is also the case that if bookmakers are simply set to lose more of their profits due to tax, bookmaker-sponsored races/events/meetings may start to decline. Big-race sponsorship from bookmakers would probably be okay, as it does a lot of good to the ‘brand’ of the bookmaker, but there would have to be worries about the level of prize money put up for certain races if bookmakers decide to pull put from their lower-level sponsorships in the sport.
We have already seen the first bookmaker cut all horse racing sponsorship. A sign of things to come?
It also mustn’t be forgotten that Flutter did pull their funding of the Champions: Full Gallop series in September due to fears the government will sharply raise betting taxes, and there hasn’t been a peep about the David Power Jockeys’ Cup either.
Furthermore, just look at Evoke, the owner of bookmakers like William Hill and 888casino/888sport/888poker. They are going out start backing out immediately on its investment into the UK. Lord.
These are, of course, early days for the budget and its effect on the future of horse racing. On the surface, racing got away with it, but the issues that are set to come go much, much deeper. Bookmakers will now be taxed more, which will create smaller profits, and that will create tighter margins. If you thought prices in horse racing were already bad, just wait for what come be lurking around the corner.
Horse racing, and UK gambling in general, is still in the woods, and the path to freedom is hard to find.
THE CHAMP
There’s been a good little bit of noise about Faye Bramley since she saddled her first winner this year, and it’s for good reason. The yard is operating at a 17% all-time strike rate from 52 runners (nine winners), and just across her last eight runners, three of them have won.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Bramley and her operation, she currently trains at Lodge Down Stables in Lambourn, the champ AP’s yard. Faye herself used to ride, and she had 14 winners on the Flat as well as four over jumps.
McCoy is obviously her landlord at Lodge Down Stables, but it’s pretty well-known that he is much more than that in the set-up. After all, he turned up to Newbury’s Coral Gold Cup Gallops morning with PAGGANE’s silks on!
The rumour mill is fairly rife about how big of a roll McCoy has in Bramley’s set-up, but it’s fair to make the assumption that it’s quite a big one, and some would say he’s basically training them alongside Bramley without having his name on the licence.
He is an ultimate horseman, after all.
Anyway, we’re bringing this up as it seems the team have a pretty smart mare on their hands with PAGGANE, the former Willie Mullins-trained six-year-old. They’ve played it fairly cute with this Muhaarar mare ever since they bought her for 100,000gns at the Tattersalls June Online Sale, and they must be doing something right down at Lodge Down Stables, as Ronnie Bartlett is one of her co-owners.
They started her out on the Flat before eventually finishing second to RAMBO T in the Silver Trophy at Chepstow. This was all a bit of a warm-up for her return to fences, as she did win one chase race when with Mullins. Since coming back to the bigger obstacles, she bolted up at Carlilse at the start of this month and then did something similar at Market Rasen today under a penalty. After these two successes, she has to be a potential for the Mares’ Chase in March, but Bramley doesn’t want to get too ahead of herself.
She said: “We just put her in the Coral Gold Cup to have a look, but it was a big ask, however the owners were happy to enter her in everything.
“She just keeps improving and I can’t get my head around it. She had good form for Willie and I’m just hoping to keep it up and she is doing just that.
“Her path would be Listed chases and with her rating it would be easy to map out her future so it was here, and if all went well today, and it has, then we would go to Doncaster at the end of next month.
“That is a seventy-five thousand pound race so we will see what the Irish bring over and how she gets on there.
“I thought after today it would be Doncaster then we will see what we do as I’m only just learning my way, and finding my feet training, as it is my first full season.” That sounds fairly bearish about Cheltenham, but that’s fair enough. She can just hop from Listed Mares’ Chase to Listed Mares’ Chase under a penalty and probably sweep them up pretty easily. There are literally five more before the season finishes, which is plenty!
Nice horse, and we don’t actually know how good she could be, but she probably would be 10lbs away from someone like SPINDLEBERRY.
TARGET IN MIND
Luckily for us, PAGGANE wasn’t the only notable performance at Market Rasen yesterday. It may sound silly to say, but the effort of C’EST DIFFERENT to win the Pertemps Qualifier was very notable, even if he was doing this off a mark of just 109.
So, why are we highlighting this horse? Well, he is now three from three in handicaps, he is the right age to continue his improvement, Sam Thomas and connections thought he was very well-handicapped coming into this season (this looks very true now), and he has just booked himself a spot in the Pertemps Final at the Cheltenham Festival if connections choose to go down this route.
Well, it’s whether they decide to, and whether he is high enough in the handicap. If you don’t quite remember, a new rule was brought in last year to offer all Pertemps Qualifier winners first refusal on a spot in the Final as long as they weren’t deemed to be out of the handicap at the time of declarations.
C’EST DIFFERENT won yesterday off 109, but the manner of his victory will surely see him rise at least 10lbs in the handicap, and we could see him being a 122ish horse by the time he is reassessed next Tuesday.
This may seem harsh, but if he wants to run in the Pertemps Final, he will need that. 130 would get him safely in; 125 could be touch and go, assuming it’s a maximum field.
But why shouldn’t connections have a pop at something like this with him? He is super likeable, and he was beaten a total of 107 lengths in three maiden/novice hurdles. Since then, he’s won by just under a length, two lengths, and now eight-and-a-half lengths, which is a rapid rate of improvement.
With such a “conservative” start to life as a hurdler, he could have any amount of improvement to come, and we’re excited to see this. He will make some chaser as well.
Post-race, Dylan Johnston said: “I thought he might have progressed nicely over the summer. He was a bit of a work in progress last season, but he got the hang of things eventually and it is nice to win a nice enough pot with him. He has grown up over the summer and hopefully we haven’t got to the end of him yet.
“I think one hundred and twenty-four was bottom weight in the Pertemps last season so he has a way to go to get into it, but he is off to a good start.
“I actually think in a better race off a stronger gallop he would be better following a few more as he is still big and raw. Hopefully, in a better race, we could ride him half-way and we could improve again.”
Sam Thomas has been bang on the money so far this season, and he is becoming a really smart trainer when it comes to picking the correct races for his horse.
He will know whether the Pertemps Final is worth chancing, and if it is, he could be dangerous.
RISK ON
We’ve been quiet the last few days but we’re going to pick the tools up for a couple:
14.15 MOUTARDE
With the ground good to firm (at the time of writing), we think two will go well in this race in MOUTARDE and SEEYOUINMYDREAMS. Playing both and 20/1 and 5’s respectively.
15.15 JUSTLIKEFIRE
We backed this last time out when he stopped very quickly having travelled so well. Given his pedigree, we think he’s worth chancing again today for connections who like a punt. 5/1 ew.
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