He said: ‘‘I’ve always given the principle of racing on dirt surfaces the thumbs-up but in recent years I’ve decimated my number and quality of runners because I think the racing has gone desperately downhill.

‘‘Where I would still support the principle of racing, I support most of what’s been said in the papers, I don’t think it’s got anything to do with if you’re on Fibresand or Polytrack or whatever, it’s about maintenance and investment in the track and investing in the racing.

‘‘You’ve got to put on better racing than we’re seeing at the moment.’’

Johnston believes that improving the quality of all-weather racing would be hard to achieve and he would like the profile of the fixtures raised.

He added: ‘‘It would be difficult to get better horses running as we’re off to a bad start and if you just launch one good race in December that’s not going to bring a whole population of horses in to racing.

‘‘We have got to attract people to the principle of racing good horses on dirt and we’re going the wrong way about it at the moment.

‘‘We’ve had some great days on the all-weather and some great fun and it’s been great for the owners and great to keep the horses going but it’s been in a downward spiral.

‘‘Hopefully, they will turn it around but it has definitely been in a downward spiral and it’s not what British racing wants to see, bad racing like we’re seeing at these tracks at the moment.’’