How exciting is flat racing at Newcastle these days?

[ascot]

Space Cowboy wrote:

The pundits who want to see the proliferation of AW tracks appear to be the same people that need sectional times, the pre race weight of horses, know which way the tractor went on the course, which side it was on, whether it carrered 25.2 mph or 31, is there 0,034 dgree headwind, has the horse had a **** in the parade ring, on and on and on.

I’d just be happy if I knew when an all weather horse wasn’t off.

[graysonscolumn]

yeats wrote:

Can’t see the run of the mill meetings at Newcastle having big attendances after the novelty factor has worn off, especially if they charge for entry. What have the attendances been so far?

Of 33 meetings held on Newcastle’s Tapeta so far this calendar year, 18 (so 54.54%) have netted four-figure totals of paying customers. The equivalent figures for the other artificial surface courses are:

– 16 out of 60 Polytrack meetings at Chelmsford (26.67%),
– 48 out of 56 Polytrack meetings at Kempton (85.71%),
– 14 out of 53 Polytrack meetings at Lingfield (26.42%),
– 2 out of 29 Fibresand meetings at Southwell (6.90%),
– 23 out of 76 Tapeta meetings at Wolverhampton (30.26%).

In other words, Newcastle currently returns the second best strike-rate in terms of 1,000-plus attendances, but it’s not all good news, as only two of their last 15 Tapeta fixtures have drawn a four-figure paying crowd and nine of them attracted 400 or fewer punters (the 189 of November 4th representing the nadir).

Only time will tell whether that is due to the weekday evenings of a good number of those recent fixtures being too perishingly cold for anyone to want to stand outside watching racing in it; though considering the Geordie’s incredible gift for standing in St James’s Park with only half of their clothing on, that’s no certainty.

gc

Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.

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