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I disagree about moving all these top class events from a weekend date to a midweek date, friggo.
A number of those races mentioned above already take place on a Friday, but I take your point.
I’m against the idea that big racesmust
take place on a Saturday as well, but that’s another argument for another time.
Cheltenham works as an end of season championship over jumps
as jump racing is different to flat racing
. Its a long established midweek festival and are the unofficial championships of jump racing.
I don’t see the relevance of the part in bold, in all truth. The former point of the next sentence is valid, but more of a challenge than an excuse it could be argued- everything now established had to get there first, any such initiative by racing would face the same task.
Are you going to tell Sam Morshead that Perth can’t hold their regular Perth finale in September or shall I? Holding it over until the start of October or finishing in August would be tinkering for the sake of it.
As GC has pointed out September is the quietest month of the NH year – just 16 meetings scheduled this year – and already has a week-long ‘close’ season mid-month. Much as I love NH, I’d personally welcome a whole month free of it (abscence makes the heart grow fonder) to recharge the batteries and thence sit down in early October relishing the prospect of the winter ahead.
Moving 16 meetings say half to August while evening racing is still on (ideal for summer jumps IMO) and half into October wouldn’t be too much of a logistical challenge.
The two day Perth meeting could be used as a curtain-raiser for the ‘new’ NH season. Can’t believe holding it a week or so later than now would inconvenience them greatly.
Chepstow, Wetherby and Perth on the first Saturday in October would be a good geographical spread followed by the existing three meetings at Huntingdon, Kelso and Uttoxeter on Arc Sunday would be my idea of a ‘welcome back NH’ weekend.
Prune the run-of-the-mill Flat meetings to allow for two weekday NH meetings every day until the Flat finishes in mid-October. This would also allow the Flat to ‘showcase’ its premier October meetings: Newmarket Cambridgeshire, a revamped York/Ascot double header, Newmarket Champions on successive weekends.
And after the Flat closes continue with two weekday, four Saturday, two Sunday NH meetings and one AW everyday with the latter forming it’s own six-month ‘championship’ until the Flat resumes the following April, and with it evening racing. Summer jumps begins then and is restricted to evenings and Sundays.
Contingency AW meetings prepared and publicised well in advance over winter to fill gaps caused by NH abandonments
Ezy-peezy, pie-in-the-sky, pigs-might-fly
I’m against the idea that big races
must
take place on a Saturday as well, but that’s another argument for another time.
everything now established had to get there first, any such initiative by racing would face the same task.
Granted every big race cant be run on a saturday but surely the majority should. As someone who works Monday to Friday I cant always see these great races (either on course or via tv) when they are run during the week.
However, you are correct in your last point. Any changes to fixture lists will always take time to establish themselves. It is hard to please everyone where fixtures are concerned. Striking a balance between tradition and the future is not easy.
Finishing the Jumps season at Aintree is a bad idea, Dont forget that the Scottish National,Perth,Sandown,Punchestown and Fairyhouse are also part of the UK/Irish Jumps season.
Sandown has it perfect because it has a smooth transition from the Jumps to the Flat in one perfect day of racing.
The Flat turf does begin with a whimper at Doncaster but should stay where it is and maybe the turf should end at Newmarket on Champions Day or at the very least the week after on Racing Post Trophy day and put the November in with that.
The qualifying idea for Cheltenham is pants and should be binned straight away as all horses are different and have their own training pattern.
The AW should be November to March and Summer Jumps May to September with the 2 day Market Rasen meeting as the Grand finale.
I think the whole thing is managment consultant nonsense based on the idea that Premiership football, that all-pervading, moronic force in British culture and society, is something that all sports should aspire to.
When I used to work at the Racing Post I often wanted to write something in reply to the endless think-pieces on how to make racing more popular, but the conclusions I came to about flat racing and its declining popularity were never going to be well-received in an editorial atmosphere of bookiephilia and libel-paranoia..
The real problem with racing is that it is very much an acquired taste. If you talk to members of the public who go racing through a works jolly or corporate hospitality, more often than not they will say: ‘I never usually bet because I always lose.’ That’s the starter for ten. As things stand it’s too difficult to win and its rules and variables are of byzantine complication. Me, I quite like this because I have acquired the taste and enjoy racing for its own sake, plus I now win regularly enough to keep my interest up.
But if you made a racing diagram consisting of satisfaction = blue and disappointment/irritation/rage = red, regardless of what venerable old gentlemen punters and highly philosophical gamblers say, for average joe newcomer the red would be as high as the national debt and the blue as small as the amount of Labour voters you’d find in the winners enclosure at the Cheltenham festival.
If I had a pound for every old timer who’s said to me: ‘it just gets harder and harder.’In the past, when people had more patience and larger attention spans and fewer options leisure-wise, punting your hard-earned cash on horses was massively popular. Everybody did it. Housewives did it, schoolkids did it – if they could. Now, with declining attention spans and the availability of many ‘instant gratifications’ (please note ironic apostrophes) the average newbie punter is likely to find the whole thing alienatingly annoying and absurdly weighted in favour of the bookmaker at all times. Youth would, rightly or wrongly, rather get smashed, snort a line of cocaine and watch football than squint at form for ages, place a bet and, as likely as not, watch a horse make a mockery of the formbook and the betting. The payoff is too elusive for the average person to keep coming back. They are up against the bookie’s margins (‘The golden age of punting is over’ – Dave Nevison, A Bloody Good Winner) and that strange, tight-lipped community of trainers and jockeys, who, let’s be honest, often are in possession of knowledge or instructions that would significantly alter their nag’s price if it was widely known. I am not saying this is crooked, but anyone who doesn’t think there is what we might call gamesmanship in racing is deluding themselves. Racing has a slightly seedy reputation among the general population and it has only itself to blame for that, though I accept that much has been done to clear the sport up.
The whole thing about racing personalities is a bit overplayed: look at Lester Piggott, a man with all the personality of a paper cup but still the housewives’ favourite in his day simply because he won them money regularly and made people feel they were getting their stake money’s worth! Jockeys, to quote Jeffrey Bernard, are ‘rich little men’, a description in which I’d replace ‘men’ with ‘miseries’, but that doesn’t matter, because if they win enough and big enough they’ll have their followers.
Racing has also vanished from popular culture. When you think about how our language is littered with racing terminology it’s strange that, unless you go out of your way to follow it, it has become almost invisible. I put this down to a certain creeping liberal priggishness about anything that makes money out of animals, especially animals that are whipped to succeed. The fact is that in an age when our popular culture is molded by nominally centre-left, youth-obsessed trendies, anything to do with a sport enjoyed by the Queen and the monied country set in general will be deeply infra-dig. The fact that it has a following at all classes is overlooked, as we saw from the BBC’s attitude towards it. Why isn’t a brilliant sportsman like Tony McCoy a household name?
In the end, I concluded, the only thing that can arrest the slow swan dive of interest in racing in Britain will be if the big bookies, greedy leeches that they are, are prepared to do something that is an anathema to them: give something away. Most industries have loss leaders. Look at pubs. They’ve created a generation of alcohol abusers by the simple expedient of making the top-shelf within the financial reach of everyone. They will, at various times, have had to take a hit to do it. Pubs that have house double special deals on spirits find that after the deal is up people drink at the raised price. Bookies will have to do something similar, because in order to profit from a taste you first have to create that taste in the first place: if young people can be induced to blow money on some of the drinks they do, then there’s a chance they can be induced to throw their money away backing favourites that lose – the bookies bread and butter and the racing industry in a nutshell.
Of course, the big bookies won’t do this. For them it’s roll on the day that it’s all cartoon racing and bleeping FOBs. Some bookies, like Paddy Power and Bet365 do new things and give bits back. But look at Ladbrokes’ loyalty card – after you’ve lost a packet with them they’ll give you a 20 quid free bet – and deduct the 20 quid which wasn’t free but a LOAN. I’m sure the managing director of Ladbrokes is one E. Scrooge.Somewhere in all this is a great sport and great fun. But, as I say, it is an acquired taste the younger generation will find it hard to take to.
- Total Posts 17716
Some interesting points, bettingboy, but if you’re suggesting that breeding a generation of compulsive gamblers (to go along with the binge drinkers and criminals we have already successfully cultivated) is racing’s saviour then I’d rather see the sport vanish without trace.
The simple fact is that the proposed changes offer nothing new and will only serve to give the current customer base something else to become accustomed to (as well as annoy those directly involved, in the case of the suggested qualification for the Cheltenham festival). Racing needs to learn that, in its current guise, it can’t compete with Premiership football, rugby union and rugby league, and as such dressing up (re-branding) a flawed product is only going to draw money out of the sport in the long run.
I guess this is what you get for listening to cash-hungry consultancy firms who exist only to tell you what you want to hear.
Some interesting points, bettingboy, but if you’re suggesting that breeding a generation of compulsive gamblers (to go along with the binge drinkers and criminals we have already successfully cultivated) is racing’s saviour then I’d rather see the sport vanish without trace.
I’m not saying that, but I am saying that gambling in inextricably linked with racing, always has been and the more people who understand the pleasures of punting the safer racing’s future will be. This doesn’t have to mean the creation of problem gamblers, just people whose interest is piqued by having the winning experience. Winning and losing, be it horse, punter, trainer or jockey is what the whole thing boils down to.
However, the gambling industry is shored up by ‘problem’ gamblers just as the alcohol industry grows fat on alcohol misuse. Although brewery and distillery bosses might say otherwise, they’d be mortified if the general population started to religiously abide by government health warnings about drink – thin pickings for them. So it is with the big bookies. It’s never a pretty sight to see these sad sacks pacing up and down in bookies and betting on dog races at 11am and the idiots mewling after they’ve lost 100 quid on an odds on fav, but Mssrs Ladbrokes, Coral and Hills LOVE ’em and wouldn’t want to be without them.Superb post, bettingboy……if somewhat light on solutions.
You must have read it twice Grass also! Excellent piece "Bettingboy" but the times they are a changin,the days of the old school "Red chalk" boys are gone,nowadays Gambling on horses is more in tune to Stockbroking,the younger brigade will look at horses as numbers/prices and thats why we can all be arbors when/should we need too! I for one who has moved with the times will back a horse at 33/1 only to lay it at much shorter odds to guarantee a profit.That is the future and no matter what the high street bookmaker trys to do, to seduce us,we will only fall for it to suit our short term needs! The future is in the exchanges,mechanical as it is,the days of Punter/bookmaker exchanging
cash on the high street are dying!if somewhat light on solutions./quote]
Well, yes. But the biggest solution to attract new punters will be bookies
making it easier to win
. Not all the time but sometimes. But they are too greedy.
The future is in the exchanges,mechanical as it is,the days of Punter/bookmaker exchanging
cash on the high street are dying!I agree but arbing isn’t the entire future, or, if it is then there isn’t much of a future. How people hunched over betfair will replace the levy contributions to racing and beef up attendance figures at race tracks isn’t clear. Whether the arber realises it or not, he needs new mug punters drawn into the sport to keep the cash circulating so he can get his rake-off.
Good post bettingboy. Your point about racing and gambling being intrinsically linked is well made and definitely something I agree with. The BHA are fooling themselves to think otherwise.
ICheltenham works as an end of season championship over jumps
as jump racing is different to flat racing
. Its a long established midweek festival and are the unofficial championships of jump racing.
I don’t see the relevance of the part in bold, in all truth.
Seriously?
There is at least one huge difference – horses come back year after year, either to contest the next step up championship or to hold onto their crown. The Irish challenge is part and parcel of the fun and competition – that doesn’t happen in flat racing. It’s what many owners and trainers aim for all year – there’s no Arc or Breeders Cup to distract from it.
What I would like to see is a separate summer jumping season, with it’s own championships and targets. I loathe this 12 months of jumping, and I’m bored to death of the McCoy stranglehold (although I accept it makes punters happy). Summer jumping is like winter AW and should be treated as such.
Not sure I agree it’s as straightforward as that, bettingboy.
There isn’t an untapped market out there, just waiting on lower over-rounds and/or concessions from high-street operators, before they pile in with their disposable. And you have touched on the reasons why this isn’t the case in your opening post.
For an industry that promotes itself as a vital and vibrant part of the Uk economy, they do an absolutely atrocious job at marketing their product. So much so that they won’t even allow historical, classic (deliberate small ‘c’) races to be shown via the Intenet……………where their target 18-30 demographic spend 90% of their spare time.
The way to get new people interested is to show them how exciting racing can be – even without a bet. To do that, they have to place the product in a shop window.
The refusal of the tracks (and whoever else may be responsible) to allow old races to be uploaded to You Tube and other portals, is
completely
at odds with the BHA’s desire to create interest in their product amongst new consumers.
Why are the BHA not pushing the tracks to allow this? Why are the tracks too myopic to see that this might actually generate them additional revenue in the long term? What benefit is there in refusing permission to show old races? Let’s face it, their intrinsic value equals zero.
The various strands of the racing (not bookmaking) industry cannot even see this simple fact-of-life. If the BHA can’t see this simple – and , importantly
zero-cost
– act as a good thing……..and the tracks can’t see the potential benefits…..then this latest initiative is also doomed to failure, because it is merely a continuation of the customary blind-leading-the-blind, throw-money-at-a-consultancy-group half-witted mismanagement that we have seen for years.
Our industry ‘leaders’ are nothing but a shower of ar*seholes.
There….I said it.
The future is in the exchanges,mechanical as it is,the days of Punter/bookmaker exchanging
cash on the high street are dying!I agree but arbing isn’t the entire future, or, if it is then there isn’t much of a future. How people hunched over betfair will replace the levy contributions to racing and beef up attendance figures at race tracks isn’t clear. Whether the arber realises it or not, he needs new mug punters drawn into the sport to keep the cash circulating so he can get his rake-off.
Agreed! My very next point would be the Levy! Panic on the streets of London! in the words of Morrissey!
I take your point but I assumed we were taking as read racing and betting’s marketing strategy is atrocious. Agree about the people who run the sport – as someone once said about a former Secretary of the Jockey Club, if people knew the tiny amount this man thought was a worthwhile bet they wouldn’t want him running racing. Like politics in this country, the sport seems run by people who haven’t seen enough of the business end of life – in the case of racing the dirty mug money that keeps the whole thing going.
I agree that racing is exciting in itself – i’ll sometimes watch some very undistinguished races on ATR just because of that curiosity factor.
I thought of a billboard poster campaign that would be very effective in getting 18-30s going racing: A group of sexily dressed female racegoers being followed along by some suited young men with their tongues hanging out. Then, in big letters: YOU DON’T SEE THIS DOWN AT MILLWALL ON A SATURDAY AFTERNOON… That should sort it…
Are you going to tell Sam Morshead that Perth can’t hold their regular Perth finale in September or shall I? Holding it over until the start of October or finishing in August would be tinkering for the sake of it.
As GC has pointed out September is the quietest month of the NH year – just 16 meetings scheduled this year – and already has a week-long ‘close’ season mid-month. Much as I love NH, I’d personally welcome a whole month free of it (abscence makes the heart grow fonder) to recharge the batteries and thence sit down in early October relishing the prospect of the winter ahead.
Moving 16 meetings say half to August while evening racing is still on (ideal for summer jumps IMO) and half into October wouldn’t be too much of a logistical challenge.
The two day Perth meeting could be used as a curtain-raiser for the ‘new’ NH season. Can’t believe holding it a week or so later than now would inconvenience them greatly.
Chepstow, Wetherby and Perth on the first Saturday in October would be a good geographical spread followed by the existing three meetings at Huntingdon, Kelso and Uttoxeter on Arc Sunday would be my idea of a ‘welcome back NH’ weekend.
Prune the run-of-the-mill Flat meetings to allow for two weekday NH meetings every day until the Flat finishes in mid-October. This would also allow the Flat to ‘showcase’ its premier October meetings: Newmarket Cambridgeshire, a revamped York/Ascot double header, Newmarket Champions on successive weekends.
And after the Flat closes continue with two weekday, four Saturday, two Sunday NH meetings and one AW everyday with the latter forming it’s own six-month ‘championship’ until the Flat resumes the following April, and with it evening racing. Summer jumps begins then and is restricted to evenings and Sundays.
Contingency AW meetings prepared and publicised well in advance over winter to fill gaps caused by NH abandonments
Ezy-peezy, pie-in-the-sky, pigs-might-fly
Drone, can we keep some of the Saturday summer jumps fixtures as my mate Woody does enjoy the Summer Plate meeting and it is a pig to get to Market Rasen by train on a Sunday from Grantham (he like me doesn’t drive) and back again. Bad enough on the Saturday.
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