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I like the jumps at Lingfield. The viewing is good when sun isn’t the eyes and the atmosphere decent and it was good to go there yesterday for their first Sunday card
The racing is pretty low grade (one ok race on card) but i dont mind that too much on the jumps around the plumpton fontwell etc circuit (although i find it better to watch than bet on)
So why was yesterdays crowd so small? Car park thin and virtually no one getting on and off the train. Not the usual bunch of old geezers you see around the circuit. It was a smaller crowd than I’ve seen on cold Tuesdays there
Ill tell you why. I’m not the slightest bit price sensitive but it was £27 for ascot Saturday and £16 plumpton today
Lingfield ? £23 plus a ******* £2.50 “facility fee”. For what was a rock bottom quality card
Racing isn’t actually expensive compared with other sports but surely most looking at the calendar would have opted for Ascot or plumpton?
And half the facilities were shut.
Not wishing to sound like one of those old men in weatherspoons endlessly going on about the price of a pint but this is dreadful marketing by arena.
Lingfield ? £23 plus a ******* £2.50 “facility fee”.
Ouch. Down Royal was £20 on Saturday. Sold out.
Clive,
Have they ever raced (NH) on a Sunday before? This fixture doesn’t seem to have existed in previous years, and that’s always a negative in terms of attracting a crowd.
And maybe all the ‘old geezers’ have traditional ideas about Sunday roasts and visits from the grandchildren!
AP
No they haven’t. Pretty sure of that
That’s a fair point. Also the day they spend dribbling over a half of bitter at the legion
£23 for a poor jumpd card is taking the p*ss. I paid £20 at Aintree the Sunday before last but at least that had the Old Roan Chase, a fair supporting card and a few activities in between races (it was countryside day, with things like falconry displays etc).
The comparison greenasgrass makes with Irish racing is a good one. I went to Leopardstown on Champion Stakes Day in 2015. Two Group 1s (one won by Golden Horn), two supporting group races and two good handicaps. Price: €16.
A month later I went to Ffos Las. Two novice hurdles, a novice chase, three moderate handicaps and a bumper. Price: £22.
I wonder which was better value for money? OK, I know Irish racing is funded differently – but if you charge premium prices for moderate racing, do not be surprised if hardly anyone goes.
Is there any way to avoid paying this so called facility fee? If not then why not call it what is, i.e. part of the entry fee?
Racecourse admission prices vary wildly and often don’t reflect what’s on offer.
£23 at Lingfield Sunday for a low-grade card when it’s routinely £10 for a Kempton AW fixture.
£35 in the Richmond Enclosure at Goodwood for a bang average Sunday card recently when it was the same price in the Queen Anne at Ascot on “Champions’ Day.”
You don’t always get what you pay for – not in racing, anyway.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"A long time ago. they actively considered closing down the jumps at Lingfield and moving all the cards to Folkestone. Obviously, that didn’t happen but the mid-December card which had the Grade 2 3-y-o hurdle and novice chase was gutted and the races moved to Doncaster and Hereford respectively leaving the Surrey National (don’t laugh) as the feature jump race of the season.
The other problem has been waterlogging to which Lingfield has been prone – they lost a big part of the turf flat season following the heavy rains in June and July which meant meetings switched to the Polytrack.
In past winters, they’ve had nothing after Christmas as heavy rains have washed away meeting after meeting.
Could they be a “summer” jumping venue? Two observations on that – first, the clay soil would need a lot of work and second the flat course and the hurdles course are the same so something would have to give – replace the Derby/Oaks Trial meeting with a jumps card – who would notice?
They would like, I think, to move Lingfield away from midwinter fixtures which were regularly lost to an autumn programme and some meetings later in the winter. One year, I recall, they did a Saturday evening jumps card in late April and that went very well but it was never repeated.
The other observation is the southeast isn’t replete with jumps tracks – Windsor and Folkestone are both gone so that leaves Lingfield, Ascot, Kempton, Sandown, Plumpton and Fontwell. The London-based jumping fan could get to Huntingdon and Warwick I suppose but the southern circuit isn’t strong outside of big weekends.
Good post stodge although you’ve rather overlooked Newbury which is very reachable from London
Lingfield jumps must lose more meetings to weather than any other course but as you say, there is room to develop there. It’s a good viewing track for jumps too
I thought losing Windsor was a great pity but the jumps crowds there was very small
I liked the jumps at Windsor as well. The problem was it was on the same track as the Flat and I expect the committee did not like the ground being churned up in front of small crowds in the winter, when the Monday evenings in June and July made so much more money.
Having said that, the crowds did go to the jumps if there was good racing. When Ascot was shut for two jumps seasons, Windsor took on the November and December meetings. I remember watching Baracuda win the Long Walk at Windsor and I am sure there was a large crowd there that day.
That’s a superb point and well worth emphasising.
I’ve no problem with Group or Grade 1 cards charging top dollar for their meetings – I’m not convinced a “Music Evening” with modest racing and a concert should be worth more in terms of admission.
The question for me is whether the media rights agreements mean courses are staging racing more for the benefit of the off-course industry than their on-course patrons.
I realise racecourses incur costs whenever they stage racing and even if there were no spectators (as in the immediate post-Covid) there were industry personnel (vets, starters, commentators etc) who had to be catered for in all senses.
I don’t know enough about racecourse economics to know if midweek meetings are “loss leaders” or whether with the media rights income, they make money.
Either way, £23 for what was dished up on Sunday (and presumably next Tuesday) is absurd – £10 would be much better and encourage more through the door.
I think Kempton offered admission for £5 for their floodlight evening meetings when they started – I don’t know what the likes of Chelmsford, Newcastle and Wolverhampton charge for people to turn up on a cold winter’s evening to watch Class 5 and 6 races but it’s too much.
As an aside, the only bigger rip-off than racecourse admission prices is racecourse catering prices.
“As an aside, the only bigger rip-off than racecourse admission prices is racecourse catering prices.”
Agree – and the food on offer is usually rubbish. To be fair, the food choices at Aintree when I was there two weeks ago were OK but Wolverhampton, Haydock and Ludlow were all terrible for catering when I visited recently.
Most Irish racecourses offer a far better choice of food.
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The Hog Roast that they used to do at Newton Abbot was lush.
When I go to a restaurant I obviously don’t expect there to be any decent horse racing on offer there.
And by the same token when I go racing I don’t expect there to be any decent food on offer.
You can invariably find infinitely better value and quality food options within five miles of the confines of any racecourse.
Eat elsewhere before you go racing, eat elsewhere after you went racing.
It’s the way forward.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"“And by the same token when I go racing I don’t expect there to be any decent food on offer.”
Sorry, don’t agree with that. If even small Irish tracks like Ballinrobe and Tramore have restaurants offering a good choice of hot food that you can sit down and eat off a plate with proper cutlery, why can’t British tracks do the same?
For Group 1 tracks, I thought Haydock and Doncaster offered a poor choice of food. Although neither were as bad as Wolverhampton, where if you did not like overpriced pies or pasties then it was tough luck!
I can’t speak for the sit down options as I’ve never done that at a racecourse but there are a lot of people now who can whip up some bloody good stuff out of a small trailer or a van. I went to a non racing event, at Wolverhampton as it happens, and there was a group of about five food vans outside serving up some superb stuff and not a limp, substandard pasty in sight.
I believe the event organisers were responsible for finding them rather than the course but I see no reason why they couldn’t get something similar back for the races.
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