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How about a live streaming webcam covering say each course’s parade ring? This would give you scope for reaching a vast worldwide audience.
If you want to reach out to the young and more women, you need to move away from the racing and betting angle and focus on the animal-loving instincts of the british population.
Provide opportunities for ‘adopt a horse’ schemes with personal newsletters from the horses.
You need to play down the gambling aspect because that’s a big turn-off for lots of people.
KGelding procedures.
Wind Operations.
Worldwide Average Winning Distance (I mean furlongs that the race was run over) of Sires’ progeny aged 3yo+ on Turf, together with the Standard Deviation.
Worldwide Average Winning Distance of Sires’ progeny aged 3yo+ on Dirt, together with the Standard Deviation.
Worldwide Average Winning Distance of Sires’ progeny aged 3yo+ on Synthetic, together with the Standard Deviation.
If you want to reach out to the young and more women, you need to move away from the racing and betting angle and focus on the animal-loving instincts of the british population.
Provide opportunities for ‘adopt a horse’ schemes with personal newsletters from the horses.
You need to play down the gambling aspect because that’s a big turn-off for lots of people.
KWhat a great idea. Something that gives the impression that racing people actually care about the horses as opposed to seeing them as a money making machine. I’m sure people would have a lot more time for racing if they saw the good work done by organisations such as Greatwood (for example). Also springing to mind, Brave Inca winning a ‘racehorse to riding horse’ competition back in August. That would be the kind of thing getting people looking at racing in a different light to how they do now.
‘Adopt a racehorse’ would work. I’d sign up!
I’m repeating what many others have said but for punters:
1) A Live info page including jockey changes, overweights, going information, course adjustments, non runners, first time geldings etc
2) An archive of past data including all complete photo finish strips you have rights to, all past course adjustments, tote pool info (if you can get it)etc
Never assume that old data is of no use. Take photo finish strips for example: they can be used for gallery purposes – an archive of piccies of each horse, to check the confirmation of horses, to find out what unreported equipment the horse had (bandages, nosebands etc), to verify time differences (would we know Kauto Star had won by 36 lengths if the race was a midweek handicap?). A lot of the extra info that people are asking for would be gleanable from these prints.
Here’s one of the few photos you have put up so far. The second horse is hidden behind the arena logo and only two horses are shown. Try to show the long strip with all finishers and have any logos out of the way.
Agree totally with what Ken has said. I got interested in racing in the first place because I was the typical horse mad girl; the only horses I ever came across were the milkman’s horse and the rag and bone man’s horse [yes; it was that long ago]…and the racehorses on Saturday afternoon telly. The only day that the whole country becomes racing mad is on Grand National day, and that is down to the ‘public interest’ stories and racing personalities. OK; Ginger McCain might not be my cup of tea [to put it mildly] but the non racing public have heard of him and Red Rum. If I attempt to talk to non racing people about the sport [which I do a lot] I try to talk about the horses and any interesting stories about their connections. Dream Alliance is a perfect example. If horses were just given numbers the sport would never have taken off in the way it has. It’s the names and personalities that grab the attention. And it’s important that non racing people realise how much we care about the way the horses are treated and the respect we give them.
Adrian– very much agree, I am hoping to get as much of this info as possible signed off to be in the public domain and not password protected on the new site as I can see that for the real afficionados this info could be very useful.
Aragorn– absolutely, we are already up on facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/British-H … 5128932431) and twitter (http://twitter.com/BritishRacing)
Ken– Absolutely superb idea about the webcam on the parade ring, absolutely brilliant, I love it. This is something that is slightly out of my powers to actually implement but I have already sent that on to racing for change in the context of being something we could include on a new website and will follow up. There may be rights/broadcasting issues to overcome (a real issue for racing at the moment) which are out of our power but I love the idea. Brilliant!
Ken/anthonycutt/Moehat– Great to see that we’re on the same page as you on this one in terms of steering away from the hardcore gambling aspects in some areas and more invoking the love of the horse and all the other elements that make racing such a wonderful day out. We do want to cater for the real racing fan, which is why I have come on here to get your views and requests, but have no fear the site is also going to cater very much for potential new audiences. I can’t give too much away now as the project is very much just getting started, but I am very happy we are singing off the same hymn sheet.
Gerald/Glenn– thanks for those suggestions also. Keep the suggestions coming this has been very useful and thanks everyone for all your input!
Hi Rob
Live updates should be a main feature of any new website.
Specifically I’d like to see
– A live weather and going update from the clerk 30 mins before racing
– A live precipitation and wind update from every racecourse every 10 mins during racing
– 3 jockeys required to give a going opinion after the first race on the hurdles/chase/striaght/round course’s. No "good racing ground", "its fast", "bit of give". Just their opinion described in official terms, disseminated live on the website.Given that all of the above will probably be beyond your or anyone eles’s remit at the BHA might I suggest a simple request that should be do-able.
Could the website provide a live,reliable,chronographical update of non runners as they come in. The BHA website does a decent job but non runners are listed in course and racecard order and its needs to be continually scanned through to check for updates.
For example
10:26 Changing Sky
10:09 Headache
09:03 Greystoke Prince
07:24 MuktasbGiven that all of this is probably being funded by the levy, maybe the BHA will break the mould on this one and listen to us for a change.
Your work on the current BHA website is highly commendable so a well done to you on that one.
Cavelino– thanks for your comments, my thoughts on a few of them:
A live weather and going update from the clerk 30 mins before racing
Off the top of my head there is no reason why this isn’t feasible, have added it to the list, logistically should be pretty simple, great stuff!
A live precipitation and wind update from every racecourse every 10 mins during racing
Not so straightforward…this would mean installing advanced weather reading equipment at every racecourse. This could be a bit more of a long term goal if racing can find a suitable weather partner (which I am looking into as racing is a sport which is so closely related to the weather).
3 jockeys required to give a going opinion after the first race on the hurdles/chase/striaght/round courses
Love this idea, think this could be really useful and another one that could feasibly be executed. Top stuff.
Could the website provide a live, reliable, chronographical update of non runners as they come in. The BHA website does a decent job but non runners are listed in course and racecard order and its needs to be continually scanned through to check for updates.
I am going to look into the way non runners are presented for the new site, absolutely.
Great stuff again, many thanks!
Rob
Thanks Rob
Take a look at this weather station at Ascot. A solution that costs a couple of hundred quid, it doesn’t need to be aviation standard. Billion pound industry and all that…
Turftrax already have/had weather stations at many courses.
Just connect station up to an RSS feed.Couple of technical points:
1. A confirmation section from clerk of the actual distance each race was run over. We get bends moved out information – pre-race, but what people want is the correct race distance.
2. Confirmation of what going the judge used in each race to determine/ measure lengths from the photostrip.
3. Sponsorships for sectional timing and horse body weight measurements.
4. All weather track maintenance and preparation report as per USA.
5. Turf watering by amount, date and specific areas watered.
That seems a trifle unfair Gerald. Give the guy a chance. I was quite surprised to sense that the BHA have someone bubbling with enthusiasm to make this project a success. More power to his elbow, I say. I’m sure many of the suggestions are very worthy but we have to consider things in terms of restricted time/manpower issues in collating information and putting it out on the web. I would imagine it to be a logistical nightmare. If people want precise up to the last minute info. then they’d be best placed actually being at the course. There must be several things which are humanly impossible to relay over the internet to armchair punters within the time frames.
KHaha, I have just read back the post and, in fairness, I can see where Gerald is coming from, my comment did look a little dismissive in hindsight! I can assure you it wasn’t intentional though.
Many thanks indeed for your comments though Ken- very much appreciated. You are correct about the logistics being difficult, the industry is so convoluted and politics do play a part, but this website is a chance at a fresh start and I do want to do all I can to make sure we get it right and provide a good service.
Gerald– in regards to your comments, Gelding and wind operations are elements that I would hope we can include on the site. To be honest I don’t know enough about these areas myself at the moment as to the availability of the data, but I will certainly look into them. The same applies to the average winning distances- I will need to investigate these areas before I can say for certain whether we can or can’t include these elements, but I will certainly look into it.
As for Glenn‘s comments, I think, as he acknowledged himself he was very much reiterating many others comments…just to let you know I am already setting the wheels in motion as to how a live updates box would work in terms of all the various data it would need to incorporate, hopeful it is something we will be able to feature on the new site, but it is just very very early stages yet so don’t hold me to anything, I’ll do my best!!
Cheers
Rob
tell you what i would like to see .a simple race card with no frills,no adverts in between the races and easy to print on a couple of pages .oh i’m dreaming again.any way good luck BHA
doublethetrouble– very interesting comments, would there be a consensus among forum users that there is a need for a new racecard/form outlet online? If yes, what would you like to see done differently?
robert99– don’t worry, we are of course looking at our peer’s websites and learning from all the best bits!
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