Now ATR Madness Is Over, Can Racing Heal The Wounds

If there is one thing worse than getting beaten up, it is getting beaten up and then being invoiced by the hour for the privilege. So it was not the greatest of surprises when the At The Races consortium decided to bail out of its court case against 30 British racecourses last week, having taken quite a pasting in the opening rounds at the High Court.

"The case wasn't going according to plan," was how Mark Elliott, the chief executive of Arena Leisure, an At The Races partner, put it, "and a settlement was the best thing."

The implication was that At The Races was starting to consider the possibility that, far from winning the £51m it was seeking from the tracks who left the old At The Races consortium to set up rival channel Racing UK, it might also lose to Racing UK