A couple of months after causing widespread astonishment and dismay in the sport by selling some of its most precious naming and image rights to the gaming giant Playtech, Nevin Truesdale, the Jockey Club’s chief executive, stuck his head above the parapet this weekend to defend the Playtech deal and discuss all things Jockey Club, in a fascinating interview with the Racing Post’s senior writer, Lee Mottershead.
The Playtech deal, Truesdale said, had been “a little misunderstood”. The rapid-play gaming products that will be allowed to parasitise events like the Cheltenham Festival and Grand National are, he claimed, “very safe and they’ve been around for years, with close links to racing. For us it’s about saying, if this is already happening using brands closely associated with our own, and if we’re in a position to make some money out of it, shouldn’t we be involved?”
