A $15m jockeys racing league would relegate real stars to supporting role
The concept may help revolutionise global horseracing but downplaying the thoroughbreds misses the point
On Monday morning, the racing world was hit with a wave of marketing buzzwords as news broke about a bold new venture: a global jockeys’ league set to launch in 2026. A dozen top riders — including big names like Frankie Dettori, Ryan Moore, William Buick, and Yutaka Take — have already signed up to compete in what’s being touted as a “revolutionary” competition.
The format will feature up to 10 six-race fixtures each year at some of the world’s most iconic racetracks. Organizers say the league will have a “franchise-based structure,” with jockeys not only riding but owning equity in their teams and acting as team principals. The goal? To transform these riders into “global icons” and attract a “fresh audience” to a sport often criticized for its aging fanbase. With a $15 million prize pool in sight, the commercial stakes are high.
In addition to the star riders already mentioned, others onboard include James McDonald, Flavien Prat, Irad Ortiz Jr, Vincent Ho, Mickaël Barzalona, and Christophe Lemaire. Yet, beyond the glitzy rider lineup, many details — such as venues, dates, and the precise structure of the league — remain unclear. For now, the emphasis appears to be on drumming up commercial interest and securing sponsorships for both the overall league and the individual franchises.
The initiative is spearheaded by John Ferguson, a former Godolphin CEO and current board member of the British Horseracing Authority, and Lachlan Fitt, who recently stepped down as deputy CEO of Entain’s Australian division. Their combined industry experience gives the project credibility, and their ambition to bring new energy, funding, and fans to the sport is hard to dismiss.
However, despite the fanfare, a fundamental issue lingers: this is still horse racing — not jockey racing. For decades, promoters have struggled with the fact that the stars of the sport can’t speak. Efforts to pivot attention toward jockeys aren’t new, and aren’t always enough to truly shift the narrative.
Events like the Shergar Cup at Ascot or the International Jockeys’ Championship in Hong Kong have put riders center stage for years, but they’re largely seen as light-hearted exhibitions rather than serious competition.
For this new league to rise above novelty and offer meaningful insights into jockey performance, it must somehow balance the vastly differing abilities of the horses involved without becoming overly complex for fans to follow. After all, a jockey’s job is to get the best possible performance from their mount — but they can’t make a horse run faster than its breeding, conditioning, and natural ability will allow.
An underdog horse finishing a close second might speak volumes about its jockey’s skill — far more than a favored winner cruising home. That’s a subtlety casual audiences may not easily grasp, no matter how flashy the presentation.
In the end, while the concept holds promise and features a world-class cast, its success will depend not just on clever marketing but on whether it can truly engage fans in a sport where the real stars don’t talk — and don’t always win.
There’s certainly nothing wrong with injecting a bit of fun into horse racing. Events like the Shergar Cup — flag-waving and all — may not appeal to everyone’s tastes, but it was still Ascot’s second-most popular fixture last year, after the Royal meeting. That says something.
But with talk of a $15 million prize pool and bold claims from co-founder Lachlan Fitt that this “concept we’ve developed with our foundation jockeys can help revolutionise global horseracing,” the ambitions behind the new international jockeys’ league clearly reach far beyond entertainment. It wants to be more than just a novelty sideshow.
Still, details remain scarce. There may well be a well-thought-out plan to create a meaningful, competitive format that compares jockeys across vastly different racing cultures. It may even succeed in attracting the fresh audience it seeks. But from the viewpoint of many racing purists, a league that sidelines the horses — the very heart of the sport — risks missing the essence of what makes racing compelling in the first place.
Horses are not interchangeable parts of a spectacle — they’re the sport’s soul. Without their stories, rivalries, and brilliance, it’s hard to imagine any format truly capturing the magic of racing.
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