Premier Fixtures vs Core Fixtures: What the 2024 Fixture Trial Did to Betting
I remember the meeting in early 2024 where I first realised the new fixture structure was going to change everything. A regular Tuesday afternoon punter – the kind who bets £20 a card across four races at a midweek meeting – told me he had stopped betting on Tuesdays. Not because of affordability checks, not because he had lost faith. Because the fields had shrunk, the form was harder to read, and the cards he liked had moved to Wednesdays and Thursdays. The Premier and Core split had landed in his betting life in a way that no industry briefing had captured. He was, it turned out, one of millions.
Two-tier fixtures, two different betting markets
The 2024 fixture-list trial did something British racing had avoided for half a century. It admitted that not all races are equal, and it built the calendar around that admission. Premier Fixtures – flagship meetings, festival days, Saturday afternoons – got more horses, bigger prize pots, ITV coverage and the attention of the betting public. Core Fixtures – Tuesday evenings, Wednesday all-weather cards, summer midweek meetings at provincial tracks – were rebuilt as the racing equivalent of a paperback edition. Cheaper to produce, smaller fields, lower stakes, looser scheduling.
From a punter’s point of view, the change has produced two different betting markets. Premier days feel like the racing of ten years ago – competitive handicaps, full books, sharp prices, BOG promotions in full effect. Core days feel like reduced-quality fare, with smaller fields, wider overrounds, and fewer eyeballs on the form. Average turnover per race tells the story bluntly. Premier Fixtures grew 2.7% year-on-year in 2025. Core Fixtures dropped 8.6%.
The fixture-list trial: 2024 setup
The trial began in 2024 as a deliberate experiment. The BHA, racecourses and key stakeholders agreed to designate roughly 40% of the calendar as Premier Fixtures, with the remaining 60% as Core Fixtures. Premier Fixtures cluster on Saturdays, Sundays and festival weeks. Core Fixtures fill the gaps – primarily midweek evening meetings, all-weather afternoons, and weekday provincial cards that had historically struggled for attention.
Premier Fixtures get higher minimum prize money requirements. Conditions for entry tend to be stricter. ITV’s flagship slots are reserved almost entirely for them. The point was to concentrate quality and reverse the long decline in field sizes, which had reached an embarrassing point by 2023 – small fields, uncompetitive handicaps, and falling attention from punters.
Critics said the trial would simply move the problem rather than solve it. The fear was that Core Fixtures would die quietly, taking with them the smaller racecourses and the breeders who depend on the lower end of the prize-money ladder. The first year’s data, with Premier turnover up and Core turnover down, fed both narratives – the trial worked for the top, and it accelerated the squeeze at the bottom.
Turnover and prize money, one year in
The numbers from the first full year of the trial are the most important piece of evidence we have. Total prize money across British racing in 2025 rose by £4.7m to £153m. Inside that headline, the Premier-Core split is unmistakable. Premier Fixtures saw their share of prize money grow. Core Fixtures dropped a collective £3.6m year-on-year. The growth was not net new money – it was money moved from the bottom of the pyramid to the top.
Average turnover per race in 2024-25 fell 8% overall, sat 15% below the 2022-23 level, and 19% below the 2021-22 figure. Those are alarming numbers for an industry trying to argue that betting markets are healthy. But the Premier-Core breakdown changes the story. Premier Fixtures grew. The decline lives in Core Fixtures, where average turnover per race is now 8.6% below where it was twelve months earlier.
What that means in practice is that the visible decline of British racing as a betting product is concentrated in the bottom 60% of the calendar. The top 40% is actually doing fine. Whether that is sustainable depends entirely on whether the racing industry decides to write off the bottom or rebuild it.
Which racecourses got which days
The allocation of Premier and Core Fixtures across racecourses was contentious. Tracks that historically hosted big Saturday cards kept most of theirs. Smaller racecourses lost ground. Ascot, Newmarket, York, Goodwood, Cheltenham, Aintree and Sandown dominate the Premier list. Most all-weather tracks live in the Core category – Wolverhampton, Lingfield’s midweek cards, Newcastle, Southwell. A handful of summer evening tracks fight for what Premier slots they can get.
One unintended consequence has been a tightening of jockey and trainer commitments. Top-tier jockeys are on Premier days. Apprentices and conditional riders fill out Core books. Top stables run their best horses on Premier days and use Core days for workouts and second-stringers. Reading the racecard is now partly a question of reading the fixture status – a Class 3 handicap on a Premier Fixture is a different race from a Class 3 handicap on a Core Fixture, even with the same rating band.
Why this matters to a £10 punter
«There are several factors impacting that decline, many of which have nothing to do with the fixture list trial. I’ve no doubt that these are headed by the impact of affordability checks and the extent to which they have resulted in people either stopping betting or placing their bets with unlicensed operators where such checks do not take place,» is how Richard Wayman, Director of Racing at the British Horseracing Authority, framed it. He is right that the trial is not the only force at work – affordability checks and the rise of offshore operators are doing real damage too – but he is also right that the trial is reshaping the betting product.
For a punter staking £10 across an afternoon, the practical effect is sharp. On a Premier Fixture you get bigger fields, sharper prices, more places paid on the each-way, and a fairer overround. On a Core Fixture you get the opposite – smaller fields, wider books, fewer place-term promotions, and form that is harder to trust. The same stake produces a different expected return depending on which day you bet.
My practical advice is simple. Concentrate Premier Fixtures, especially the Saturday cards and festival weeks. Treat Core Fixtures as recreational rather than as your main betting diet. If you must bet a midweek card, stick to the bigger Core meetings and avoid the eight-runner Class 5 handicaps at obscure venues.
Criticism, ITV slots and the 2026 review
The trial is scheduled for review in 2026, and the racing industry is bracing for an argument. Racecourses near the bottom of the Premier-Core ladder will push for promotion. Larger tracks will push to keep their share. Bookmakers will lobby for whichever distribution gives them the highest-margin product. The BHA is caught between trying to defend the top end and accepting that the bottom is contracting.
Possible adjustments include reducing the total number of fixtures – the Levy is funded by total betting turnover and would not necessarily suffer if turnover concentrated on fewer days. There is also talk of mid-tier Fixtures, a category between Premier and Core for races that are neither flagship nor filler. None of those proposals are settled. What is settled is that the two-tier model is not going away.
For broader context on how the class system maps onto the new fixture structure, the class-by-class breakdown covers the prize-money flow in detail.
Questions about the fixture trial
How does a Premier Fixture differ from a normal Saturday racecard?
Premier Fixtures are not a separate type of meeting – they are a designation applied to the meetings that already serve as the calendar’s main events. The difference is the formal Premier status brings minimum prize money requirements, eligibility for ITV slots and bigger field-size incentives. Most flagship Saturday cards now sit in the Premier category by default.
Will the trial continue past 2026?
The trial is due for review during 2026 with the racing industry, BHA and Levy Board assessing the financial and competitive outcomes. The 2024-25 data shows Premier Fixtures growing turnover and Core Fixtures declining, so the framework is unlikely to disappear, but the exact split between the two categories may be adjusted based on consultation.
Creado por la redacción de «Bets Horse Racing».
