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It’s absolutely ludicrous and beyond belief that the fixture planning supremos could even consider scheduling Stratford and Worcester on the same day.
It’s completely crazy and defies all logic. It’s like the occasions when Nottingham and Southwell, also drawing from the same catchment area, have been scheduled on the same day.
Nothing to do with "fixture planners", surely – the courses themselves, or the groups to which they belong, would have bid for those dates. Ideally there’d be some dialogue between the courses / courses’s reps themselves (outwith BHA, etc.) to limit or avoid such clashes, but that doesn’t seem to be happening.
Remember that the post the BHA advertised the other year was a Raceday Planner, rather than a Racing Planner. Failing to avoid races running on top of each other, rather failing to stop concurrent meetings being programmed at geographically neighbouring tracks, is the sort of thing the postholder really needs to be held most to task over.
gc
Adoptive father of two. The patron saint of lower-grade fare. A gently critical friend of point-to-pointing. Kindness is a political act.
You would think it would be absolutely basic for fixtures to be allocated on days when neighbouring courses aren’t racing so far as is possible, unless there is a very good reason.
This ought to apply whether it’s the courses bidding with no actual guidance or supervision or whether a higher authority makes the final decision.
You would think that common sense would dictate that, perhaps if Stratford is racing, then perhaps Worcester might be well advised to go for another day and vice versa.
Many of the paying customers on the day will be regulars at both courses, no doubt, and you would think that, even if they found themselves unwittingly and unknowingly bidding for a slot on the same day, some overseeing sage might, before the final list was published, have a quiet word with them both and point out that clash.
Obviously not. If they’re really not bothered about clashing with another local course and are quite happy to take whatever grant payments are available with alacrity, then I suppose it is up to them.
We are often told that courses are having to face financial realities. But deliberately or uncaringly racing the same day as a neighbouring course, both over the jumps, in the middle of a double-dip recession when potential racegoers might be tightening their belts and cutting down on racecourse visits, doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense to me.
It also deprives local racegoers, trainers and jockeys of another day’s sport.
You would think it would be absolutely basic for fixtures to be allocated on days when neighbouring courses aren’t racing so far as is possible, unless there is a very good reason.
This ought to apply whether it’s the courses bidding with no actual guidance or supervision or whether a higher authority makes the final decision.
You would think that common sense would dictate that, perhaps if Stratford is racing, then perhaps Worcester might be well advised to go for another day and vice versa.
Many of the paying customers on the day will be regulars at both courses, no doubt, and you would think that, even if they found themselves unwittingly and unknowingly bidding for a slot on the same day, some overseeing sage might, before the final list was published, have a quiet word with them both and point out that clash.
Obviously not. If they’re really not bothered about clashing with another local course and are quite happy to take whatever grant payments are available with alacrity, then I suppose it is up to them.
We are often told that courses are having to face financial realities. But deliberately or uncaringly racing the same day as a neighbouring course, both over the jumps, in the middle of a double-dip recession when potential racegoers might be tightening their belts and cutting down on racecourse visits, doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense to me.
It also deprives local racegoers, trainers and jockeys of another day’s sport.
It used to be the case with the old 50 mile rule – which was considered to be an illegal and uncompetitive practice by the OFT.
So now the "free market" reigns – a principle and ethos I support 100%.
What these "clashes" do underline is just how incompetently a large number of racecourses are managed. Just because adjacent courses
can
race on the same day does not mean it is a good idea from a business perspective and it only goes to show the short sighted, blinkered, incompetence of the racecourse managers who allow such clashes or potential clashes to occur.
Because of the OFT ruling the BHA officially cannot do much to prevent such clashes but I do wonder if they need to do more arm twisting behind the scenes, although that would be easier if the BHA actually had some teeth and wasn’t impotent.
You would think it would be absolutely basic for fixtures to be allocated on days when neighbouring courses aren’t racing so far as is possible, unless there is a very good reason.
You would think that common sense would dictate that, perhaps if Stratford is racing, then perhaps Worcester might be well advised to go for another day and vice versa.What these "clashes" do underline is just how incompetently a large number of racecourses are managed. Just because adjacent courses
can
race on the same day does not mean it is a good idea from a business perspective and it only goes to show the short sighted, blinkered, incompetence of the racecourse managers who allow such clashes or potential clashes to occur.
Because of the OFT ruling the BHA officially cannot do much to prevent such clashes but I do wonder if they need to do more arm twisting behind the scenes, although that would be easier if the BHA actually had some teeth and wasn’t impotent.I couldn’t agree more, Paul. Very well said.
It just defies common sense and, you would think, business acumen to choose voluntarily to race on the same day as another local course, even though one of them may be a matinee meeting.If one meeting was Flat and the other jumps, as sometimes happens when other courses clash, you could make some sort of case that you are catering for the tastes of different racing fans.
But, to me, there is only a finite number of potential racegoers in a given small area of about 50 miles and some of them are, by definition, going to opt for one meeting and others for the second course, depending on which they prefer.
On a different day, those same racegoers might all choose to go to the same course, thereby providing a reasonable attendance at one meeting, rather than two much smaller, split crowds.
Even if both courses don’t lose out on their payments from the racing industry, you would think they would want to maximise the actual attendance on the day. It just doesn’t make sense to me.
It doesn’t seem that a lot’s been learned over nearby racecourses staging meetings on the same day, looking at the 2013 fixture list.
Just a cursory glance reveals a whole host of examples where there seems to be have been a decided lack of common sense or consultation with neighbouring courses.
It’s ludicrous that two north-eastern courses, Redcar and Sedgefield, are racing on the same afternoon on Thursday, May 2. Nothing in the Midlands.
Other examples of clashes or where one region has several meetings on the same day are:
Kempton and Lingfield regularly clashing, including on January 9 and 12.
Kempton, Lingfield and Newbury on Wed, January 16. Nothing in the Midlands.
Three Midlands courses, Ludlow, Market Rasen and Wolverhampton on Thur, January 17. Nothing in the North.
Leicester and Southwell on January 22. Nothing in the South.
Fakenham, Southwell and Warwick on January on January 24. Nothing in the North.
Southwell, Towcester and Wolverhampton on January 31. Nothing in the North.
Market Rasen and Southwell on February 5. They draw from the same Lincoln-area customer base. Nothing in the South.
Uttoxeter, Warwick and Wolverhampton (eve) on February 9. Nothing in the North, despite it being a Saturday.
Sandown, Kempton, Lingfield and Chepstow on February 23. Nothing in the Midlands, despite it being a Saturday.
Newcastle and Redcar on March 15. Nothing in the Midlands.
Nottingham and Stratford on August 1. Nothing in the North.Doncaster and Ripon on August 17.
Huntingdon and Leicester on October 15.Fontwell, Kempton and Lingfield on November 27. Nothing in the Midlands.
Bangor, Southwell, Cheltenham and Wolverhampton on Friday, December 13. Nothing in the North or South.
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