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2024: 27,000 (approximately)
2023: 25,413 (affected by rail strikes and early start due to FA Cup Final)
2022: 37,274
2019: 38,044
2018: 35,258There was obviously a good excuse for the 2023 figure but this year’s attendance can only be described as disappointing, no matter how Epsom tries to spin it.
I am not convinced moving the race back to Wednesday will help much. Do we just have to face up to the fact that the Derby’s heyday is over? We live in a very different country now and London in particular has changed beyond all recognition. Is it realistic to expect a horse race to have the same hold over the collective imagination?
Aside from the official attendance, the crowd on the hill looks massively down. When I attended the Derby from 2001 to 2015, there was often a huge crowd on the infield, with plenty of young people. Now it looks almost empty.
The hill is free, so Epsom cannot blame the cost of living crisis.
I only watched on television and they kept saying how packed it was and my first thought was the opposite.
The more I know the less I understand.
My last visit to Epsom was for the April meeting in 2019, which had a crowd of about six thousand. I came away thinking that if it seemed busy enough in their new stand with that many present, then Derby Day would be intolerable.
Even down to 27,000, I can’t imagine many of them get a decent view of the race except by being close to a big screen – and almost everyone can do that at home!
There isn’t a great deal of space between the track and the main road and they used up half of that putting the paddock and saddling boxes directly behind the stand. I can understand why they took that option, rather than the old set-up that had the paddock out of sight of most racegoers where the horses pull up, but the result is cramped facilities that I suspect leave people thinking ‘never again’.
The new stand in Tatts is rubbish. The old stand was much better. I usually watched from the top of it, which offered a panoramic view of the course.
Once the new stand was built, I generally watched from the betting ring. At least the slope meant that you got a view of sorts but it was not as good.
If young men are not being socialised to racing in the betting shops like they were of yesteryear they are less likely to feel the pull of the racecourse. Alan Sweetman had a good column on the urban decline last week.
27k is average home gate of Derby County, for some perspective.
City Of Troy may be the new Kevin Hector.
Probably didn’t help that the official (Jockey Club) website is still saying that there are no trains to Epsom, Epsom Downs & Tattenham Corner on Derby Day because of a rail strike, especially given the chaos on the M25 due to roadworks at the A3 interchange.
Not that I disbelieve you Tonge but if that is the case then that is very poor.
Though they do have the line up of races for Derby and Oaks day for 2025.
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