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A week today, thousands will raise the Cheltenham roof with the infamous “roar” as the runners come in for the start of the Supreme.
It wasn’t quite like that at Lingfield this afternoon – 25 runners contested 6 races. All six favourites went in and at £20 the admission was almost £1 per runner.
Yesterday at Plumpton was little better – 31 runners in 6 races. The more northern meetings at Newcastle today (39 runners in 6 races including 12 in the Bumper) and Southwell yesterday (37 runners in 6 races) have fared little better.
Fontwell, is off tomorrow while Catterick so far has 42 runners (including 11 in the concluding Hunters chase).
These are mainly Class 4 and Class 5 races with an odd Class 3 so what is going on? These aren’t Cheltenham contenders by any stretch.
It might be the ground – it’s March but most courses are still Heavy or Soft following the abnormally wet February and it may be there are dozens of horses waiting for the ground to dry and we’ll see huge fields when that happens.
I don’t suppose betting turnover is the issue – who bets on these races?
Perhaps it’s more evidence there is simply too much racing – in some jurisdictions today’s Lingfield card would have been scrapped owing to insufficient entries and the prize money moved to another meeting but we don’t do that here because the racecourses run racing.
Is there a growing realisation the reality of climate change – wetter winters – means some courses are no longer suited to staging winter jumps cards? How many meetings has Fontwell lost this winter? Do we need to rethink the approach to winter racing in a future of little frost and snow but plenty of rain?
When we had the drought in the summer a couple of years ago they suggested we had to get used to the reservoirs drying up.
Now it seems we’ve got to get used to too much rain in Winter.
If reservoirs are full going into the summer, is there not enough water?
If not then simply make more reservoirs.A while back they said global warming means we are too far south to get much snow … and not long afterwards France got its biggest snow fall in living memory.
Are they now saying Britain is too wet for jump racing?
Value Is Everything“in some jurisdictions today’s Lingfield card would have been scrapped owing to insufficient entries and the prize money moved to another meeting”
Except that if the meeting is scrapped, there is no prize money for another meeting. Because the prize money paid out by Lingfield comes almost entirely from media rights income – no races, no income.
Some people will punt on absolutely any grade/class of race it is a daily habit and the quality is not seen.
The more I know the less I understand.
Leicester today: a walkover in the first race and all the other races have 7 runners or fewer. Not much good for the £2 and £5 each way punters who I expect would make up most of the crowd.
The Cheltenham Festival will take all the headlines but National Hunt racing is not in a good state at grassroots level and hasn’t been for quite a while now.
Realistically, why would anybody want to be a NH owner in this country at present? Two major factors in my view:
1. The dream for most potential NH owners is either a Celtenham Festival runner or a National runner. Both of those are currently made close to impossible as the irish trained horses take up so many of the available slots.
2. The costs are spiralling, from initial purchase, to training fees, transport, riding fees, etc, etc. I had a conversation with a long standing dual purpose trainer last year, who told me had a waiting list of potential NH owners, willing to invest £50 – £80k up front. But he can’t buy decent horses for that sort of money – the stores and point winners go for six figures to Irish stables, the flat horses with hurdling potential go to Australia or the Arabian Gulf for sums that would have been thought ridiculous ten years ago.
When you add in the risk of injury and long layoffs that are inevitable for NH horses, is it any wonder that numbers are declining. And fewer horses in training equals smaller fields in races.
Racing ought to be realistic and cut the fixture list but that is obviously not in the interests of the racecourses. But anyone can see there is simply far too much racing.
What we need, it seems, especially in the jump season but perhaps for the flat too, is flexibility.
It was interesting to see bigger fields at Hereford yesterday where the ground had dried up a bit so clearly there are horses ready to run and waiting for the ground to dry further.
There’s some flexibility in the system now with extra meetings put on after a spell of poor weather or if there is a clear demand from trainers for extra opportunities. The problem for the tracks is these extra meetings don’t attract the punters – look at Plumpton, they lost the meeting on Tuesday January 16th and put on an additional fixture on the following Monday.
The normal Plumpton attendance is about 1,300 for a Monday meeting – the additional meeting had just 506 paying spectators.
It comes down, as @Cork All Star, says to the question of in whose interests racing is run? The courses have far too much power now because they have taken ownership of the product. In other jurisidictions, the central authority tells the courses when they can race and perhaps we need a bit of this here woith meetings which regularly fail to get numbers of runners scrapped (such as the Leicester all chase meetings) and more flexibility to provide additional fixtures if there is demand.
Final thought – if courses want people through the gate for the additional fixtures, they could start by cutting admission prices by 50%. Most courses have social media so can publicise additional fixtures and perhaps offer discounts for last minute bookings for lunch. The alternative is to do what Lingfield does now and close almost all the food outlets and run the whole meeting as cheap as possible – understandable with 150 paying spectators and two bookies. The logical step from that of course is to run the races without any spectators as happened during the pandemic.
From a personal point of view and with no regard to racecourse attendances or the future viability of the sport I quite like to see a card of 5 and 6 runner races
As an OAP who doesn’t get out much I like to pick half a dozen horses to watch during the afternoon and if I bet on them it’s small stakes doubles and trebles
If I’m looking at tomorrow’s cards and see one full of double figure fields I just skip it and move on …… life’s too short to be spending hours looking at 80/90 runners on a card
obviously that’s a personal take on matters !
I agree with CAS; the warning signs for NH racing have been there for a while (and I mean approx 10 years) ….and nothing has been done. And still no sign they’re taking the decline seriously……
Another example of a sport run by people who actually don’t understand it…….
Even at the glory end, the Coral Cup, Ultima and Grand Annual didn’t even fill up despite being very oversubscribed with entries.
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