Douglas Erskine Crum is Chief Executive of Juddmonte Group. Under the vision and direction of the late Prince Khalid bin Abdullah, over the last 40 years Juddmonte has become one of the leading thoroughbred racing and breeding operations. Now under the direction of his family, it is consistently producing top-class horses from its select stallions and 200 broodmares on its stud farms in England, Ireland and the USA, and competing at the highest level on racecourses around the world. It has bred and Prince Khalid has owned over 100 individual Group/Grade 1 winners of over 200 Group/Grade 1 races racing in his famous pink, green and white colours. Champions include Frankel, Arrogate, Dancing Brave and Enable.
Following a successful Army career, including Commanding Officer 2nd Battalion Scots Guards and Commander 3rd Infantry Brigade in Northern Ireland when awarded the CBE, Douglas was asked to apply for, and subsequently appointed to, the role of Chief Executive at Ascot Racecourse. At that time, Ascot faced several challenges including being significantly unprofitable. Together with the Board of Trustees chaired by the Duke of Devonshire, Douglas embarked on an ambitious strategy to transform the business, which enabled it to assemble the team to finance and execute the replacement of the outdated grandstand, track and additional facilities and for Ascot to become the leading international horseracing brand for which it is now recognised.
Following Ascot, Douglas directed a project to set up a $500m horseracing and leisure business in Moscow and subsequently became Chief Executive of the Horserace Betting Levy Board, responsible for collecting and distributing £80m+ of annual levy from the betting industry to the racing industry. He was Trustee of the National Army Museum from 2013 to 2019, during which he chaired the ‘Building for the Future’ committee, delivering a £25m redevelopment of the Museum.
