Injecting a much-needed boost into racing: Celebrating retired racehorses’ ordinary and extraordinary achievements

But there is another threat to the sport which racing practitioners like to talk about much less boldly, and which those who govern the sport refer to somewhat opaquely as racing’s ‘social licence’.

Put bluntly, will a public – one whose ideas about what is and isn’t acceptable continue to evolve and change across a broad range of topics – still be ‘okay’ with racing horses in a format where, as often as not, fewer competitors finish the contest than set out.