Is Denise Coates Planning a Racing Future? Bet365 Founder Revealed as Push The Limit Owner
For someone who has spent much of her working life around betting and sport, Denise Coates has generally stayed away from the other side of the racecourse.
That may now be changing.
The bet365 founder has been revealed as the owner of Push The Limit, the former Flat horse bought for 580,000 guineas last October and now being prepared for a novice hurdle campaign by champion trainer Dan Skelton.
Push The Limit has not even jumped a hurdle in public yet, but he is already around 40/1 for the 2027 Supreme Novices' Hurdle at Cheltenham.
The horse alone makes this an interesting story. But look a little further back and Coates' move into ownership starts to look less like a one-off purchase.
Coates-Smith Racing Was Set Up in 2024
In May 2024, Coates-Smith Racing GP Limited was incorporated, with its registered address at bet365 House in Stoke-on-Trent. Companies House lists its business activity as “activities of racehorse owners”, while Denise Coates is registered as the person with significant control, owning at least 75 per cent of the shares and voting rights.
Then, on June 4, 2024, Coates-Smith Racing LP was incorporated at the same address. The name combines Coates with that of her husband, Richard Smith.
Two years later, that ownership name is now attached to Push The Limit.
It is worth making one distinction. This is not necessarily Coates' first connection with racehorse ownership. Dan Skelton has said that Coates and her family have previously been involved with horses on the Flat. Push The Limit does, however, appear to mark the start of a much more visible racing operation under the Coates-Smith Racing LP name.
And they have hardly started at the cheap end.
580,000gns on a Potential Cheltenham Horse
Push The Limit was rated 103 on the Flat for Ralph Beckett and won twice from six starts, including at Glorious Goodwood.
When he appeared at the Tattersalls Autumn Horses in Training Sale last October, Skelton and bloodstock agent Ryan Mahon paid 580,000gns for him.
Skelton has since confirmed that the horse was specifically bought with Coates and her family in mind, rather than being purchased first and then offered around potential owners.
That is quite an important detail.
This was not simply someone taking a share in a horse already sitting in a trainer's yard. Coates wanted a horse, Skelton went looking for one, and they spent heavily to get him.
Push The Limit was then given almost a year to switch from Flat racing to jumping. Skelton hopes to have him out by the end of October and reports that he has been jumping well at home.
If things go well, Cheltenham could eventually enter the plans.
Is Denise Coates Preparing to Step Away From bet365?
This is where things become interesting, although it is important not to turn possibility into fact.
There is no public evidence that Denise Coates is retiring from bet365.
She remains an active director of bet365 Group and is still listed as its joint chief executive. Companies House also records her as having control of more than 50 per cent of the company's shares.
However, there has already been serious talk about the future of the business.
In May 2025, it was reported that the Coates family had held talks with advisers about options including a full or partial sale of bet365, potentially valuing the company at around £9 billion. Another possibility discussed was eventually listing the business in the United States.
More than a year later, bet365 remains privately owned and Coates remains at the top.
So linking Push The Limit directly to retirement would be a stretch.
But it is reasonable to wonder whether racing could become a bigger part of her life in the years ahead.
One Horse or the Start of Something Much Bigger?
That may be the real question.
Coates-Smith Racing was created before Push The Limit was bought, and setting up a dedicated racing structure suggests at least some thought had gone into ownership before the 580,000gns purchase.
There are also few better trainers with whom to start a serious jumping operation than Dan Skelton, who won his first trainers' championship last season and is attracting an increasing number of major owners.
Perhaps Push The Limit will remain a very expensive hobby.
Perhaps more horses will follow.
And perhaps, as Coates eventually reduces her day-to-day role in the company she built, racing will become one of the ways she chooses to spend more of her time.
For now, that remains speculation.
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What we do know is that Coates-Smith Racing exists, Denise Coates has backed it with a 580,000gns purchase, and its first major jumps prospect is already being quoted for Cheltenham.
If Push The Limit turns out to be as good over hurdles as his price suggests he might be, we may be hearing a lot more about those colours.
