The Jockey Club saves hundreds of man-hours annually by automating ticketing and finance

About

Founded in 1750, The Jockey Club is one of the oldest and most prestigious commercial horse racing organizations in the UK. It owns 15 racecourses, including world-renowned venues such as Cheltenham, Aintree, and Epsom Downs. Hosting reputable events like The Grand National, The Derby, and the Cheltenham Festival, the organization blends rich heritage with modern operations.

Beyond racing, The Jockey Club also manages racehorse breeding programs, training grounds, and hospitality businesses, ensuring the long-term sustainability of horse racing in the UK.

As The Jockey Club moved to modernize its back-office and online sales systems, the business faced challenges with errors caused by manual processes and disconnected systems. Working with Celigo, they manage to drive efficiencies and make the most of their new tech stack.

The challenge

In a push for modernization, The Jockey Club implemented a new cloud-native ERP as their finance system while simultaneously rolling out a new ticketing system to manage ticket inventory and online sales. These changes introduced several challenges:

• Manual data reconciliation: Ticket sales data had to be extracted from Power BI, formatted into a CSV file, uploaded into NetSuite, and manually reconciled–a process that took several hours per day.
• Lack of real-time data: Because ticketing data is refreshed only once daily, finance teams struggle to ensure accurate reporting and reconciliation, causing repeated errors in ticket processing.
• Limited internal technical resources: The departure of a key finance systems manager during implementation left gaps in expertise, delaying implementation efforts. Most integration projects relied on third-party vendors, leading to high costs, vendor lock-in, and delays.

With no in-house dedicated automation framework and a need to reduce manual workloads, The Jockey Club sought a scalable, low-code integration platform to automate and streamline financial operations.

The solution

The Jockey Club selected Celigo to serve as its central integration hub. The initial selection was primarily based on Celigo’s native NetSuite connectivity capabilities. Over time, however, the team favored Celigo’s platform over other integration solutions thanks to its versatility and ability to handle custom integrations without requiring extensive development resources. The implementation evolved in phases:

• Automating ticket sales integration
  • Celigo connects NetSuite with Power BI to process ticketing transactions. Instead of manual uploads, the integration pulls data directly from Power BI and posts transactions into NetSuite overnight.
  • The previous two-hour daily process is now fully automated, taking just 30 seconds. Error handling and reconciliation are built in.
• Enhancing refund processing
  • Racing events are highly dependent on weather conditions, which means cancellations can result in hundreds of refunds. Manually processing returns requires hundreds of hours of work annually.
  • On a whim, Ray Wootton, The Jockey Club’s Finance System Manager, decided to experiment with Celigo and try to automate the process. Within six hours of development to delivery time, he managed to automate the entire refund process, significantly reducing manual workloads.
• Expanding the integration framework
  • To improve scalability, The Jockey Club introduced Azure API Management, allowing a single API connection to facilitate multiple integrations without exceeding Azure’s connection limits.
  • While Celigo also offers API management capabilities, The Jockey Club’s existing investment in Azure demonstrated Celigo’s flexibility and its ability to seamlessly integrate into a broader middleware strategy. This architecture enables rapid expansion beyond finance, with HR now being integrated as well using the system.

Technical enhancements

• Centralized API management: Azure API Management acts as a single integration point before routing data into Celigo, allowing The Jockey Club to expand its use of Celigo and utilise Azure’s scalability.
• Advanced error handling: Celigo’s built-in monitoring tools provide real-time alerts, enabling Ray and his team to quickly identify and resolve issues, ensuring financial data accuracy.
• Scalability for future growth: With Celigo at the core of the integration strategy, The Jockey Club can quickly connect new systems, minimizing dependence on external consultants and enabling in-house control over automation projects.

The bottom line

By leveraging Celigo, The Jockey Club has significantly improved operational efficiency:

• Near 100% time savings on ticketing reconciliation: From two hours per day to 30 seconds.
• A hundred hours per year saved on refund processing: Fully automated within six hours from development to delivery.
• Future-proofed integration strategy: Expanding beyond finance to HR and other business systems.

“Celigo is at the heart of our integration strategy,” Wootton said. “The platform’s flexibility allows us to quickly connect new systems, automate critical processes, and reduce manual work. It has completely changed how we approach automation.”

With an enterprise-wide dedicated middleware framework now in place, The Jockey Club is well-positioned to expand their automation strategy across the business, ensuring faster, more efficient operations with minimal technical overhead.