2023 UK Racing Fixtures published

I believe a maximum of five fixtures on a Saturday afternoon(plus two from Ireland of course)

A complete cop out as they await the results of yet another review.

The press release with the fixture list leaves nobody in any doubt who runs racing and it ain’t the BHA!

The sport is run by the useless. The BHA are totally inept.
How much evidence do the clowns require that there is far too much racing yet continue to do sweet FA.
It tells you something when a lot of trainers and bookmakers consider there is far too much racing.
I would like to see a legal challenge regarding fixtures but don’t expect to see one from this lot.
Doubt much will change for the rest of most of our lifetimes

There will be more, not 4 fewer, as the Sunday & Racing League fixtures need to be added.
When the Bath fixtures were abandoned this season they quickly switched them to other tracks. Might it have been a good idea to have a few less fixtures instead?
There is no proper leadership of the sport from those at the top.

The tone of the comments so far suggest that the majority wanted a reduction in the number of fixtures. I’d be interested to know what you think would be achieved by such a change, and how many fixtures should be eliminated.

“At Fontwell Park the track is so beaten up they’ve had to bring in AW bends.”

It looks awful, doesn’t it? What was once one of the nicest tracks in the country has been ruined by over-racing.

Agree about field sizes as well. I am not blaming Bangor but when I was there on Tuesday, the first 5 races had fewer than 8 runners. Maybe that is to be expected over jumps at this time of year but personally I enjoyed the last 2 races more because I could have an each way bet.

I know lots of punters who like each way betting and the sort of small fields the July Course has been offering up throughout the season make no appeal at all.

Worcester opened its card on Tuesday with a 2 runner chase and Sedgefield yesterday offered us the enthralling spectacle of a 3 runner novice hurdle with a favourite at the enticing odds of 1/50. Not good for the Levy, to say the least.

Whilst I agree that there probably is too much racing, nobody is compelled to enter their horse into, attend or bet on (as punter or bookie) any given race. There is therefore one way to get the message across but it’ll never happen.

“Levy generates a lot of funding, each-way betting is popular, and I think striving for fields averaging eight or more is the way forward.

Fewer races must mean more horses facing each other and a reduced total would facilitate higher average prize money too.”

Picking up on these points from ID – yes the Levy is important, but a lot of the money from that source goes to pay for the admin around each meeting (stewards, judge, clerk of the scales, starters and stall staff, equine welfare, vets, doctors, stable security, cameras, commentator) all covered by the basic Levy grant for each meeting.

Prize money primarily comes from five sources – media rights, admission charges, hospitality, sponsorship and entry fees. If you remove a meeting, none of that money exists to be spread around as increases in prize money. And you save very little of the Levy money, as the majority of the staff mentioned above are employed by the BHA and paid a salary, not paid per meeting.

A someone who does his own entries, I can see several things would could be changed (regardless of the number of fixtures), which would increase field sizes. The first would be to bring the handicap rating system into the 21st century and make and apply rating changes immediately. For example, if you run your horse on a Sunday and it gets beaten, leaving you knowing that the rating will be reduced, there is zero incentive to run again before that reduction takes effect, thirteen days later. And even if you know that the rating change will allow you to enter a lower grade of race, you’re not allowed to make such an entry.

And a simple one-off way of increasing field sizes and giving more owners access to higher prize money – just increase the current handicap mark of every horse in training by the same amount, whilst leaving the race bands the same. Again, for example, make my 72 rated handicapper an 82, and I’ll make up the numbers in 0-90 races.

It would also help increase field sizes if there weren’t so many races with restricted entry conditions – in paerticular there are far too many races limited to fillies and mares only. Fair enough at maiden/novice level, where there are enough horses to fill that type of race. But the number of fillies handicaps, often with excellent prize money, has grown like bindweed over the last ten years.

The whole issue of small fields in NH races could, in my view, be changed overnight by simply doing away with the category ‘novice’. There’s no such thing as a novice hurdle or novice chase in the French NH program and small fields are a rarity over there. But it’s way too radical for the NH establishment in the UK!