Trevor Beaumont has tendered his resignation as Racing Director of the British Horseracing Board (BHB). Explaining the reason for his decision to leave BHB after one year in the position, he said:†_x001C_When I accepted the position of Racing Director of BHB, having been the Managing Director of Coral Eurobet and a Main Board Director of Coral for eight years, I did so in the expectation that the BHB Board restructure would have been complete by mid 2002, reducing sectional interests, adding additional independent directors and, most importantly, elevating a number of executive directors to the Board.
“It is now clear that this much needed restructure will not take place in the foreseeable future, thereby preventing the senior executive from having a direct vote on policy matters. Without executive Board directors, the opportunity for the senior executive team to forge effective and credible working relationships within the industry is greatly reduced.
“Faced with these circumstances, I feel that it is time for me to move on.
“It is an unfortunate commentary on the current state of British racing politics that I have no doubt that certain elements within the industry and media will attempt to use my resignation to further undermine Peter Savill’s position as Chairman. I therefore feel it is necessary to state that there are absolutely no issues between myself and Peter, who has worked tirelessly to try to bring about the restructure of the Board and who has consistently argued for a more responsible role for the BHB executive. My decision to resign would have been the same whoever the Chairman.”
Greg Nichols, Chief Executive of BHB, said today: “Trevor has been an enormous asset to BHB, with his extensive commercial and bookmaking experience as well as his detailed knowledge of race planning. He will be sorely missed but I fully understand the reason for his decision. I also accept that, pending the outcome of the OFT enquiry and the Racing Review’s proposals for the future governance structure for racing, right now would not be the time for the racecourses to ratify the Structure Review.”
