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Haven’t read all the posts but agree entirely with Lydia on this. Whether or not the opinions are new doesn’t matter. They need to be expressed over and over again until everyone understands and she’s done exceptionally well.
Great stuff as usual from David.
I really believe the Post needs to defy its advertisers and take a stand on this. It will be in racing’s and therefore the paper’s long term interests to do so.No doubt the new owners will realise this.and with ireland moving into the 21st century with it’s first awt, things are even looking up across the water
Great stuff as usual from David.
I really believe the Post needs to defy its advertisers and take a stand on this. It will be in racing’s and therefore the paper’s long term interests to do so.No doubt the new owners will realise this.What stand exactly would you like them to take?
SwallowCottage – why should racing rely on young people betting or anyone betting? Does football need to rely on gambling?
I assume that you know how horse racing is presently funded so I do not really understand the question. Have you any alternative ideas regarding how it should be funded without detriment ? It would survive without betting imo but on a much smaller scale. I think that the lack of young people taking a genuine interest in the sport ( including betting ) is a worry in the long term. Obviously football does not rely on betting but I do not understand the comparision.
With balloting as big a problem as ever in 0-60 handicaps at Wolverhampton et al that attract 40+ entries per race and only 13 can take part, is it really a case that the prize money is insufficient? If you can attract full fields for less than 5 grand, where is the economic sense in giving out further?
Absolutely. Further, all talk of reducing the fixture list again seems to assume that such low-grade contests will and should be the first on the chopping-block, when the ready supply of eligible and intended runners for them is more guaranteed than in any other race outside of, say, certain of the Festival races and perhaps about 50 really classy handicap races under each code.
I find lobbing £20,000 at the winner of a classy, but pitifully-supported, three-runner graduation chase far more depressing than the awarding of a tenth of that to the winner of a maximum-field, salt of the Earth selling hurdle.
I guess the courses that went the extra yard to stump up the bigger prizemoney for no better numerical reward than that might well agree. E.g. For all that Carlisle’s well-adorned graduation chase last autumn included Exotic Dancer and Turpins Green among its trio of protagonists, I’d be astounded if it proved to be anything other than the least appealing or voluminous betting medium on the card that day.
Jeremy
(graysonscolumn)Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
Two points – why is it necessary for every single race every day to provide an ‘attractive betting medium’. Trying to meet that criterion is how we’ve got into the current mess whereby programs are designed to suit bookmakers rather than any other group within racing.
Second, what evidence is there that small fields and/or short priced favourites don’t attract betting action. On the exchanges, punters clearly demonstrate a preference for taking sides on short priced favourites. A maiden with an even money chance certainly produces more trade than a 4/1 the field, 0-70 handicap.
I agree about the excessive prize money for those graduation chases though – the same horses would have turned up for ten grand, because it was the opportunity the trainers wanted, not a big prize fund.
AP
I’d like to see the paper express contempt for FOBTs and everyone who has anything to do with them for a start. Then start a campaign for their abolition. This is not company policy at the moment. Or at least it wasn’t/isn’t Trinity Mirror policy.
Not sure what the party line is on the bloated fixture list, but it seems to be OK to say you think it stinks.Zorro, do you think a blanket ban on FOBT’s will make a difference?
Sh*ite racing is still sh*ite racing after all, and it doesn’t necessarily follow that the cash will flow back to racing, if FOBT’s are banned.
Isn’t this like trying to shoot the fox, when your coop was in fact turned over by chicken-rustlers??
Zorro, protesting about FOBT’s is a bit like the Vietnamese complaining to the manufacturers of Napalm, rather than to the country dropping the substance on their villages.
Time for you – and Lydia (Hi
) – to take on the Generals, methinks. 
On what basis are you objecting to FOBTs though Zorro?
Is it because (like it or not) many shop punters are preferring them to betting on racing or is this some moral standpoint?
Alan Ridley: Straight Answer.
Lydia, in your under noted article FOBTs are painted as bad boys. Yes, but this takes the eye of racing’s woes. FOBTs are only one-armed bandits’ owned by real corporate bandits and therein doth sit the monster’s real roots, it’s all about scurrilous profit taking, and, as Maxilon 5 rightly pleads “We need solutions and a major article suggesting solutions. Fast.â€Â
SwallowCottage – I think I know roughly how horseracing is funded by the bookmakers but every year there seems to be an argument; Data, Levy….
If you read BF Skinner’s research (1953) on the gambling habits of rats, it is so relevant to today and might explain why some families worry about their youngsters and view racing as sleazy. They should also worry about machines and casinos which will fleece the pockets far quicker.
Racing has pandered to the bookmaker instead of promoting the sport in other ways. As revenues begin to fall, even though we have more racing, who will be there to support it? The bookmakers?
And could you please explain why football does not rely on betting?The main problem with FOBTs is that their sole purpose appears to be to enable bookies to rent-seek from pathological gamblers. Are private companies allowed to extract addicts’ money to the same extent in other circumstances? Similar activities are either illegal or taxed so that the state gets the lion’s share (eg ciggies). It’s ludicrous that bookies should be in a position whereby they get to keep more of their profits extracted from helpless addicts than recreational horse punters, where levy has to be paid.
If an outright ban can’t be achieved then surely the Racing Post etc should campaign for profits from these machines to be taxed more heavily than horse racing profits.
) – to take on the Generals, methinks. 
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