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You are Racing CEO for a Day.
What three things would you change for 2015?
Prize money? Admission Prices? Bookmaker’s Terms and Conditions for taking a Bet? Race Planning? Stewarding? The Gravy Train Love In?
Anything……?
I wouldn’t do anything about prize money until owners , trainers and this Horseman’s group commit to backing those courses which provide decent prize money.
Reduce the amount of AW racing and ban Lingfield from running their bumpers on the AW track.
Finally I would have a word with clerks of the courses about the farcical amount of races being run with half the jumps taken out.
I’ll go purely NH as we are in that season-
1) Cheltenham festival back to 3 days.
2) Cross country races abolished.
3) Grade 1 Cheltenham races only open to horses whom have either won at the previous festival or have been placed in a Grade 1 race within the current season. The other graded races of the season are being abused disgracefully as Cheltenham tune ups etc etc. I’m sick of it and I’m not alone, I don’t know if this would work but it would at least shake the current sorry situation up.Prize money?
Prize Money levels are fine – there are 14,000 horses in training, clearly the current prize money levels are not putting off owners. Remember it is a luxury item, owning a racehorse, owners are not entitled to expect to make a profit or recoup more than a fraction of their outlay on average.Admission Prices?
These are also fine.Bookmaker’s Terms and Conditions for taking a Bet?
Bookmakers can do as the please. Part of their profits go back to racing and forcing them to accept bets off professional punters they don’t want to accept reduces their profits and reduces racing’s cut. Net result – less money for racing, more profit for pro punters. It is time pro punters stopped endlessly whining (so boring to read) about failing to get on and made the best of it. Would YOU lay bets to someone you could identify as consistently winning off you, or whose loophole-exploiting pattern of activity told you by experience they will be winning off you in due course? Get real and grow up.Race Planning?
I think there is some lazy scheduling nowadays. All the races at once distance consecutively, then another. I remember a racecards having, say, a 1m event, then 5f, then 1m 2f, then 7f, then 2m and so on. Now it seems the schedule is there to benefit the working day of the people who move the stalls and not to create a varied, constantly changing, spectator event for racegoers. I would also like to see a return to mandatory three chase, three hurdles cards as most jump enthusiasts would rather see a three runner chase than a 20 runner hurdle.Stewarding?
They are no worse than they ever were. You can stab the opposing rider and horse and not get disqualified in this country whereas abroad if you so much as frown at either you are demoted – twas ever thus.The Gravy Train Love In?
Don’t know about it, don’t care about it. I just bet on horses and thankfully enough seem to win to give me an annual profit – not really interested in the humans (trainers, jockeys, owners, bookmakers etc) associated with this industry. I feel the same way about Tesco – love shopping there but really don’t care what is happening in their staff canteen, still less their boardroom.I think racing is in quite good nick actually – enjoyed 2014 and looking forward to 2015.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"1. As from Jan 1st, 2016, no afternoon race meetings on Mondays or Tuesdays. Only exceptions to be Bank Holidays and those existing festivals that start on Tuesday – Cheltenham, Ascot, Goodwood.
2. A commitment to reduce the number of handicaps to a maximum of 50% of the program, combined with a thorough review of handicapping practice which should produce clear guidelines to be followed by the handicappers.
3. A statement by the BHA of exactly what owners can and should expect from the race program, in terms of the number of opportunities to be provided for each class of horse and how those will be spread across the age and distance spectrum.
You are Racing CEO for a Day.
What three things would you change for 2015?
Prize money? Admission Prices? Bookmaker’s Terms and Conditions for taking a Bet? Race Planning? Stewarding? The Gravy Train Love In?
Anything……?
Racing CEO is powerless to change some of those.
Racing and betting is/can be attractive to a wide range of individuals. However, while some individuals have been well catered for in recent years (think boozed-up Saturdays and music nights), others have been neglected. One of the ways in which racing and betting can appeal is by presenting itself as an intriguing problem to crack (while those who wish to stick a pin in can still do that and enjoy the fun). In order to achieve that, it needs to take data issues far more seriously. That’s stuff like accurate going reports, accurate race distances, accurate times, robust SPs, and potentially new data sets, like sectional times, detailed on-the-spot weather reports and horse weights. If you read any books about sports analysis, or attend any conferences about sports analysis, racing simply does not get a look in. Where once it was the sport of choice in Britain for those intrigued by numbers (along with cricket, perhaps), it is now all but anonymous. The outsiders I speak to are baffled by the amateurish way in which data in horseracing is treated in what is the era of Big Data.
Greater efficiencies in the running of the sport. Time-saving automations and technologies, used elsewhere, still seem not to have made it to Head Office. Centralised stewarding, with a smaller representation on course largely concerned with communicating with the participants, would not only result in greater consistency and a higher level of expertise, it would save money. We have video-conferencing facilities, smart phones and instant messaging, yet some of what the sport does is reminiscent of the 1980s.
Racing needs to disentangle itself from the Faustian pact with bookmakers that is the current funding framework. I don’t know how that can be achieved, but if anyone wants to pay me a CEO’s salary I would give it a good shot. In the meantime, anyone in charge of racing should be distancing themselves from some of the special-pleading that keeps coming its way, from bookmakers and others, while tapping into the knowledge and expertise that is out there and does not have a voice. Small efforts were made in this area in 2014. More could be done. Special pleading has resulted in the absurd situation whereby some of the same people who seemingly failed to appreciate the consequences of a worldwide recession on horse populations are now complaining about small field sizes.
The truth is that there are few silver bullets, but many smaller initiatives could collectively make quite a big difference for the better.
I’ll go purely NH as we are in that season-
1) Cheltenham festival back to 3 days.
2) Cross country races abolished.
3) Grade 1 Cheltenham races only open to horses whom have either won at the previous festival or have been placed in a Grade 1 race within the current season. The other graded races of the season are being abused disgracefully as Cheltenham tune ups etc etc. I’m sick of it and I’m not alone, I don’t know if this would work but it would at least shake the current sorry situation up.Agree with all these PC. The festival used to be white-hot top-quality from start to finish, now it seems like a marathon.
I’d also reduce the number of Grade 1s, but greatly increase the prize money, to encourage the top horses to meet during the year and not just at Cheltenham; TNO and Faugheen could have already met twice this season!Ever since I started following the sport in the 60’s there have been complaints about how the sport was funded / governed. The moans today are not too dissimilar from those of yesteryear. Does anyone recall the Jack Logan column from the
Sporting Life
?
There are too many separate/discrete interested parties to ever be able to satisfy them all.
Owners, breeders, racegoers,trainers, stable-staff, punters, racecourses, bookmakers – trying to find a formula for racing that would satisfy all those makes solving the Middle East conflict seem like a doddle.
A quick rule-of-thumb as to the health of the sport is the number of horses in training. As that seems to be healthy then perhaps things can’t be too dire.
That said, what changes would I advocate? Well, to encourage future generations to actually GO to the racecourse to watch the sport, I’d redistribute many of the G1 flat races to courses outside the "golden triangle" of S.E. England and back that up with a big advertising campaign in the regions where the moved G1 races were now being run to stimulate interest in the events.
Also, there should be a Staying Handicapper’s "triple crown" with say a prize of £1million+ for any horse that could win the Chester Cup, Northumberland Plate and Cesarewitch within a twelvemonth. Should a horse ever be likely to win the first two, then the publicity that could be generated prior to the third leg might be enormous. It might also encourage the breeding of horses likely to stay a reasonable trip. I don’t think this treble has ever been acheived before (although I’ve not researched it) and the likelihhod of the pot having to be paid out could be covered by the 3 raccourses involved insuring/betting against it happening.racing needs to disentangle itself from the Faustian pact with bookmakers that is the current funding framework. I don’t know how that can be achieved, but if anyone wants to pay me a CEO’s salary I would give it a good shot. In the meantime, anyone in charge of racing should be distancing themselves from some of the special-pleading that keeps coming its way, from bookmakers and others, while tapping into the knowledge and expertise that is out there and does not have a voice. Small efforts were made in this area in 2014. More could be done. Special pleading has resulted in the absurd situation whereby some of the same people who seemingly failed to appreciate the consequences of a worldwide recession on horse populations are now complaining about small field sizes.
I agree with this entirely ….but can someone explain why we have a bookie’s rep starting as head of the BHA on Jan 19
C
ould you possibly make it up
1) Create a BHA managed Database / Website containing all racing data (form, results, going reports, sectional times , videos etc). Simon goes into more detail in his earlier post. Charge a nominal monthly fee of £3-£5 for access.
There’s actually loads of data on the BHA website that isn’t advertised enough IMO…and it’s hard to find. For example:
http://www.britishhorseracing.com/wp-co … _Stats.pdf
You have to wonder why the 2013 stats aren’t available yet on the website?
2) Redistribution of the prize money pot. Every race to be run for minimum £20,000 (£10,000 win / £10,000 places). Place money down to 5th place. Minimum 10 runners at decs time.
To apply to all races apart from Class 1 / Novice Chases.
3) Bookmakers to lay advertised price to any individual to a minimum stake of £20.
The CEO could be the most talented businessman that ever lived, but unless he/she could get back the ownership of all fixtures, there’s little that could be done to make the sport what we all want it to be.
Depending on which of the following camps, you are in…. ‘racing could not function without us, therefore we want a larger slice of the bookmaker’s money’
Stable lads
Breeders
Trainers
Jockeys
Owners
Racecourse owners(doubtless there are a few sub-categories here too if you want to get creative)
How can a ruling body function in the promotion of its sport if it does not own the key asset?
As to those having a go at bookmakers – take a look at their accounts and see how much money they make from racing. For quite a few still, it is nothing, or it’s a loss. And, it isn’t they who are paying anyway, it’s the punters. Bookies are racing’s sales channel to these punters. That channel offers many other things to bet on. Racing has made itself the most expensive of the betting products on offer because the multiple fingers mentioned above are clawing the pie. with zero regard for the fact they are destroying it.
1 Get the fixtures back
2 sell the media rights to bookies at a price that turns racing from their dearest product to their cheapest
3 Agree with those bookies that in return for cheap media rights they will increase substantially their overall contribution to racing.
Happy new year
No pacemakers
What are the runners supposed to do, run line abreast? (takes coat and exits…)
No pacemakers
Is it all right with you if
Gerry
still turns up though?
(Also gets coat and exits…)
Thanks for the good crack. Time for me to move on. Be lucky.
"Does anyone recall the Jack Logan column from the Sporting Life?"
I do. He struck me, even then, as a dreadful reactionary.
"Get the fixtures back"
Is there a snowball’s chance in Hell of achieving this, Joe? Surely, if the BHA dared say "you can’t race without our permission, and you won’t get that permission unless we take back ownership of the fixtures", the racecourses would laugh their way to the High Court, ECJ, or whatever?
Still, the BHA has a Race Planning Department, so they can
pretend
they own the fixtures.
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