In our latest blog, we hear from Sean Simara, Careers Marketing and Recruitment Assistant at Careers in Racing, reflecting on its 15 years serving the sport.

When I joined the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) four years ago to work as part of the Careers Marketing team as a Marketing Assistant, I was really interested to find out about how the area had developed. Just over 15 years ago, a large study was carried out into issues around Stable Staff and the challenges of recruiting an adequate workforce to work with horses. From that study several major new initiatives were put into place by the BHA on behalf of the whole industry. The brand of careersinracing and the website portal was one of those initiatives.

Fulfilling a vital need

Before careersinracing.com there really was very little in the way of finding out about working with horses or in horseracing, generally. In the Racing Post you would find some jobs advertised in the classified section, or it might have been that you already knew someone working in racing and found out about vacancies by word of mouth. This has changed a lot! 

After 15 years of building the brand and website, the horseracing industry is proud to have a vibrant job board that advertises an extensive range of jobs across the industry and around the country. Last year we advertised over 1,800 jobs on behalf of racing employers.

The job board is free to use for both recruiters and job seekers. With opportunities found at every level and in every sector of racing. Watch out for version 3 of our job board, due to be launched later this year, with up-to-date functionality to make a job search easier and mobile friendly. 

Watch this fantastic film showcasing the work of Careers in Racing

Career programmes for today and the future

Under the Careers in Racing brand, we run everything from educational partnerships to early careers programmes, which includes our established British Horseracing Development Programme (formerly known as the Graduate Programme). Many graduates of this programme have developed successful and rewarding careers across the sport and beyond. A couple of our new and exciting programmes are  Step on Track and the Youth Collaboration Group.

We also collaborate with many other youth projects both in and outside the racing industry. Recruitment events are a good opportunity to work with our training provider colleagues throughout the year with our award-winning stand and we have a vast amount of careers content for whatever stage you are at, within your own career path.  The Pony Racing Authority and Racing to School are particularly close partners of ours, as two of the other organisations who are most focused on youth engagement.

The team is always on hand to offer advice, you can get in touch via social media, email or simply a chat on the phone.  It’s been quite a journey for us which started out as two people and now we are four.   

Embracing digital opportunities 

For the future, I am really excited to be part of the team. The brand and the programmes that come under it, have really evolved over the last 15 years and we have some great things in the pipeline. While it was issues around recruiting stable staff that started the project, careersinracing is now very established as the first point of contact to find out about any job in horseracing.  

Personally, I am really looking forward to increasing the work that we do in the digital marketing space, working with our volunteer content creators, which has been a massive success for us and them. Many are now contributing to other racing outlets, too. I am really proud to be managing Step on Track and I hope it continues to grow over the years. This is taking racing to a more diverse audience with the support of Sky Sports Racing.

The Careers in Racing job board is updated daily so it is well worth keeping an eye on it if you are looking for a career move in 2022.