A one horse town?

The new boss of the Racing Post has warned anyone hoping to start a rival to the bible of British horseracing that there is only room for one player in the market.

After a lengthy battle, Irish private equity group FL Partners was finally confirmed as the daily's new owner today. Its £170m deal to buy the title from Trinity Mirror puts the former Racing Post editor Alan Byrne back at the helm - a move welcomed by staff as heralding a brighter future.

Mr Byrne said he was confident of reversing the 21-year-old paper's declining circulation and making more out of its website, but the new owners have not yet decided whether to charge for online access.

"It's really going to be business as usual in the short to medium term, in that the paper does an excellent job and many people rely on it either for their hobby or their job," Mr Byrne said. "We'll seek to build on what is already there, and over time I hope that we'll expand the online offering."

Mr Byrne was news editor at the Racing Post from 1990 to late 1992 and then editor from January 1993 to January 2002. He described his new role as editor-in-chief as a "sort of homecoming". The paper's buyers, led by former investment bankers Peter Crowley and Neill Hughes, cited the appointment as proof of their long-term commitment to the paper.

The paper's sports editor, Bruce Millington, becomes editor and the editor, Chris Smith, becomes managing editor.

The new owners take over just as a new paper gears up to hit the market. A year after the demise of the Sportsman, Racing Ahead Weekend is due to launch on October 20. Edited by Stephen Mullen, a former Sun racing journalist, the new weekly has vowed to avoid the fate of the Sportsman, which closed after seven months.

The new paper will be targeted at gamblers and will be cheaper than the Racing Post, but Mr Byrne seemed unworried about the competition. "He's moving onto our territory and we wish him the best of luck," he said. "I hope he can expand the market, but it's a tough market out there and I think he'll find the punter is brilliantly served by the Racing Post Saturday edition already."

The Racing Post has suffered from falling sales in recent times, but it still has a circulation of more than 72,000. When Sheikh Mohammed al-Maktoum, the racehorse owner who is now emir of Dubai, set up the paper in 1986 he positioned it as a rival to the Sporting Life, owned by the Mirror Group. The sheikh licensed publication of his title to the Mirror Group in 1997. The group then folded the Sporting Life, leaving the Post as the monopoly provider of daily racing coverage.

Mr Byrne signalled that was unlikely to change. "I've been in this market when we were taking on the Sporting Life and we discovered then the hard way - and the people who put their money into the Sportsman discovered subsequently the hard way - that there's only really room for one paper."

As for how to drive up sales without alienating punters or industry professionals, Mr Byrne said the Racing Post's "balancing act" would go on.

"You try to tick as many boxes for each of the constituencies every day as you can. But you have to accept that what is good for one constituency might actually outrage another in that you'll get bloodstock professionals who say 'why do you have all this sport in the paper?' and you'll get punters who just want to have a bet on the racing at the weekend saying 'what on earth have they got all this bloodstock news in for?'"

One the key priorities for the new managers will have to be making more out of the websites, say analysts.

Mr Byrne said the buyers had an "open mind" over whether it would need to start charging for the vast amounts of analysis and betting data available online.

"We think we have some compelling content in terms of news, analysis, views and opinion and form. A lot of people rely on that content and we think there are new ways we can deliver it to them," he said. "I think in the short term if we are going to experiment with charging we will see if there is a demand for new services. We might add some additional services and see if there is a demand for those."