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Too late to move a meeting now.
Maybe a race or two from Naas, or maybe nothing.
....and you've got to look a long way back for anything else.
Not ideal for Racing TV. It lost Newbury to SSR at the start of the year, so Warwick’s abandonment means it has no British racing to show on a Saturday afternoon.
At least it presumably means we will be spared from McNae with his Race IQ data and finishing speed percentages. Every cloud has a silver lining.
At least RTV has Naas.
For the current year (scheduled fixtures), as far as British racing is concerned:
Sky Sports Racing: 21 Blank Days
Racing TV: 26 Blank DaysWith Irish racing included:
Racing TV: Only 2 Blank Days – 4th Jan & 2 Dec.
....and you've got to look a long way back for anything else.
There seems to be zero mention of this at the moment aside from banners in the RP.
The more I know the less I understand.
If there is supposed to be Premier Racing, why are there four meetings this afternoon? These include a distinctly ordinary card at Bath.
Throw in Downpatrick as well and there are five meetings this afternoon.
I’m not sure what criteria they put in for a meeting to be classed as premier. Obviously its close to Royal Ascot so the racing isn’t amazing but Sandown have a premier meeting today and the best race on the card in terms of the class of the horses is a Listed Sprint for 3yos and they’ve only got one Class 2 handicap on the card. York again a premier meeting with a small field listed race for plodders with the lure of a spot in the Ebor at stake and then one class 2 handicap. These meetings aren’t premier at all.
Pretty sure the main stipulation to be able to carry the weapon premier racing banner is around prize money. Either the card as a whole has to be worth x amount or each race has to be worth x amount.
Isn’t there something around field sizes and dropping a division of a handicap if not enough runners?
Regardless though. Some of the premier meetings have been awful. Assigning them the tag of premier was totally unnecessary. Moving the dross cards to give them room between races to showcase the best of the sport properly was a good idea. Labelling the better meetings as premier was a total waste of time.
I remember a long time ago when we used to buy a daily newspaper with every racecard printed in full, one fixture was always designated as the “Principal Meeting”.
This latest attempt at differentiating the slightly better than ordinary from the plain old ordinary was doomed to failure from the start and will go the same way as other gimmicks, such as “Showcase Handicaps”.
We already have the pattern race designation – Group 1, 2, 3, Listed and each race has a “Class” (although I much preferred the old A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H nomenclature). Anything more is unnecessary.
....and you've got to look a long way back for anything else.
“If there is supposed to be Premier Racing, why are there four meetings this afternoon? These include a distinctly ordinary card at Bath.
Throw in Downpatrick as well and there are five meetings this afternoon.”Same again next Saturday, 4 meetings including 2 “Premier” meetings. The other two meetings are mediocre at Newcastle (full of class 6’s) and Chester, plus Gowran in Ireland.
Does anyone know how this actually works, including those organizing it?
I think the general idea is to give as many racecourses as possible “Premier Raceday” status so they don’t throw their toys out of the pram and take the BHA to court. Thus completely ruining the original concept, as put forward by Mr Savill.
....and you've got to look a long way back for anything else.
Another example today. The final day of Glorious Goodwood but there are also afternoon meetings at Newmarket, Thirsk and Doncaster, with Galway for good measure.
With the exception of Doncaster, all the meetings are on RTV, which means it will be wall to wall racing on the channel.
Wasn’t Premier Racing meant to avoid that kind of thing?
First race at Goodwood: 1.50pm.
First race at Galway: 1.55pm.
Plenty of time for RTV to analyse and reflect on the Goodwood Premier Meeting opener.
We all know the biggest underlying problem is too much racing and yet the so called powers that be have neither the stones nor the authority to actually cull the fixtures list.
Instead they came up with this ‘idea’ of juggling/moving the races/meetings around to provide more time to view certain races, which by and large were still not of a high enough quality to warrant being given a ‘Premier’ tag to them.
Whilst doing all this, they have managed to p*ss off a number of the courses that had to accomodate these moves and in the process they got royally shafted by the move having the impact of their meeting having lower attendances (when compared to the original timeslot they had the previous year).
So in order to attract more people to come/watch racing they in fact actually managed to drive people away from going racing……….pure genius
And today’s racing: a choice of either Chester or Haydock Park.
Good for those of us who live in the North West of England. Not so much for anyone else.
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