Ruby – I grew up with the Derby meeting (none of this “festival” nonsense) being over four days, Wednesday to Saturday.
Then you also remember back in the 1990s (might have been over three days already) when you had the Coronation Cup on a Wednesday and then just Class D races for the remainder of the card. I wasn’t much of an experienced racing fan in those days and thought the cards were already quite boring.
If you want to attract more newcomers to the game, you need to make the racing interesting and you need a bit of luck with the weather.