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With the National due to take place on 10th April this year and betting shops potentially opening on the 12th, would it not make sense, considering current finances, to stage the race a week later?
Offers a decent recovery period from Cheltenham, too.
Mike
It would make sense to move it. Although if it goes to the following week it would clash with the Scottish National. And if the Scottish National goes back a week it would clash with whatever the Whitbread is called now.
Are Betting Shops classed as ‘non-essential retail’ akin to department stores or are they ‘indoor venues’ akin to pubs and cinemas?
If the former, then your idea is excellent; but if the latter then they’ll have to wait until at least 17th May
Non-essential (!) retail according to the Post.
If it clashes with the Scottish National, I don’t think that really matters in a one-off situation. In fact, a bit of decent marketing could hype such a day up well!
Mind, it’s an extra 7 days of Michael O’Leary whining about Tiger Roll off 11-09…
Mike
You’d have to move the whole meeting, which would screw things up for any horses wanting to do Aintree and Punchestown or Sandown.
You’d have to move the Scottish National. It would make no sense to have two of the top ten betting races of the year on the same day.
I’m very miffed that the betting shops won’t be open for Cheltenham! You see, I’m old-fashioned when it comes to betting … that I use the betting shops only. I’ve never placed bets using online apps (not my thing at all). So I’m just gonna have to sit ‘n’ suffer throughout the racing…
Rob- maybe you could just enjoy the racing as a sport?
As for moving the National, it would make sense but for the ramifications on the other fixtures already mentioned in this thread.
Those talking about fixtures and Punchestown are missing the point. This is about the levy.
The Grand National is the biggest cash cow of the year for bookmakers. It’s a race where they either win a lot or a ******* lot. You get a lovely all green book no matter what. Even very strong favourite and public horse Tiger Roll two years ago would have been a seven figure winner for the biggest firms.
With the shops closed during the Grand National, the levy will miss out on at least £1m. It will, literally, pay for them to be flexible here.
Why not run it at 7pm on the Wednesday evening, a guarantee of a huge TV audience, a whole day for the shops to take bets and no counter attractions. Any football that evening would be 7:45 or 8pm kick off.
And I mean, run just the National, leaving the rest of the three day meeting as currently scheduled. The loss of the National on the Saturday isn’t going to reduce the crowd, as there won’t be one. There is a precedent and it was very successful.
There is a Cheltenham meeting scheduled that week on Weds/Thur, so perhaps to free up the jockeys, that could be moved to Tues and Thurs. Again, there’s no crowd or hospitality implications for Cheltenham.
Wednesday rather than Monday to give the shops time to get organised. And Wednesday would still leave open the opportunity for first fence fallers to be declared for the Scottish National on Thursday morning.
I certainly think there’s room to be creative, not least because no crowd means vastly fewer concerns over policing, hospitality, amenities etc
The idea that we should be concerned if it clashes with other races is not one I’d remotely agree with. Other races are virtually irrelevant (betting-wise) compared to The National – it’s the biggest betting race by a vast distance. It’s also the the race that gets the most future punters interested in the sport in the first place.
Mike
Wednesday evening seems a good plan and certainly would give racing a rare chance to be centre stage, and I’m sure Hat Mancock and Dodo Harding, being racing types, would support it; but I wonder if the rest of the government would be keen on an all-singing all-dancing resumption of betting shop trade, as it might not square with their wish for a ‘cautious’ unshackling of the long-chained public
Might they take the view, with a degree of justification, that a mass piling into stuffy LBOs would constitute a potential ‘super spreading event’ notwithstanding the fact that the large majority of the betting shop demographic will have been offered and most accepted vaccination by then
Maintaining a ‘social distance’ in a bookies on Grand National day strikes me as tricky, though it could perhaps be satisfied by having the shops open during the day, permitting a steady hygienic trickle to place their bets but closing an hour or so before the race itself thus forcing folk to watch the race at home
Unduly negative maybe but racing is still getting it in the neck, rightly or wrongly, for holding Cheltenham last year and could do without yet more bad publicity
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