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Ian<br>You are constantly villifying contributors to this forum for for being stuck in a rut, for not wanting change.<br>I would suggest that it is you who stuck in a rut through your obsession that the one and only purpose of horseracing is to maximise profits for betting operators such as yourself.<br>Racing is changing, faster perhaps than you realise, and one of the ways it is beginning to change is the way racecourses are improving their facilities and marketing themselves (in a way they have not done before) to people who have not been racing before or go infrequently.<br>You call people" pathetic" for holding the view that a reduction in admission prices is a "no brain idea"<br>Really?, ever heard of wet and windy Towcester which can attract a crowd of 11, 000 by providing free admission? <br>I’m sure with your superior knowledge of racing that it may have momentarilly escaped your memory that on average the admission cost is only about 20% of what visitors to racetracks spend, the rest being food, drink, betting etc, So it is perfectly possible for a racetrack to increase turnover and profit by offering free admission because the loss of gate income can be more than made up through increased turnover and profit on other expenditure. It wouldn’t do at big meetings which attract large crowds anyway, but it is a very sensible marketing tactic in the appropriate circumstances.<br>Yorkshire racetracks for example have seen a big increase in attendance since introducing the equivalent of a discounted "season ticket", and tracks like Newmarket have been clever in offering discount admission packages for minimum numbers, through Greene King pubs for example.<br>The basic economics are this. To cover the cost of a meeting, a certain number of people need to attend. Once that number is exceeded, every person walking through the gate represents pure profit.<br> Your airy and arrogant dismissal of racecourse attendances – "so what’s this obsession with crowds anyway" – does show a mis-understanding of basic racing economics.<br>Yes, there are racetracks who have not yet woken up to the profit opportunities open to them, but many are beginning to realise the opportunity. Attendances at tracks is on the increase and with better marketing than has been the case traditionally, attendances can be increased even more, which means more profit for racing.<br>So get out of your rut Ian, think outside the box a bit , it may help you to take rather a broader view of the world of racing than you do at the moment.<br>Oh and by the way, as someone who makes money out of betting on racing through spending hours studying form (though puts a decent amount back through ownership interests) I would have been a touch insulted by your description of people such as me ( and probably many other members of this forum) as parasites for having the temerity to take money from bookmakers. As you have taken the same appellation upon yourself, I confess to being in a quandary, am I – and others like me- being doubly insulted?<br>richard
FYI, the whole exercise did not cost Towcester a fortune. Under the headline "track recoups cash as free entry policy sees thousands flock in", racecourse manager Paul Robinson is quoted as:<br>"….it’s still cost effective for us. We make money on the retail outlets, betting turnover and we hope our gesture will encourage people to come racing and stay loyal to Towcester" (RP 27/12/03)<br>Racing’s income is not "tied to the gross profits of betting operators minus the costs of staging the meeting". For example in the year to October 2003 racecourses contributed – from their profits- 39% of total prize money compared to 47% from the Levy. Certainly Levy income is very important to racing’s funding, but it is not the only source.<br>The more people there are who attend race meetings, the more profit racecourses will make. In theory at least ,some of that increased profit should find it’s way into prize money and all of racing benefits.<br>Seems to me racecourses should be applauded for promotional initiatives that increase profits through increased attendance. If they find that discounting admission prices in particular circumstances does the job, then good for them. It surely is not a "pathetic" or "boneheaded idea". <br>And what’s all this stuff about winning betters deluding themselves they are contributing to the industry by making a profit from betting about?<br>Never even occurred to me that I should place bets to loose to make a contribution to the industry, and I’d guess it wouldn’t occur to the great majority of punters who on average loose 20% of their stakes to betting operators. I confess, that line of arguement has passed way over my head.<br>richard
Paul Robinson is hardly going to say "yes, free racing has been an unmitigated disaster – the revenue we lost on Boxing Day could have gone some way to paying for our new state-of-the-art stable facilities" is he?
Sorry to resurrect this one…<br>I’ve just been wondering what the term ‘Regional Racing’ refers to? When I first read the phrase I thought maybe it related to racing restricted to horses trained in specific (geographical) regions. But no, from what I can gather the only thing that distinguishes it from other all-weather racing is that it is restricted to lower-rated horses. Surely the term doesn’t derive from the fact that these horses are in the ‘lower regions’ of the handicap?!
It might not be everyones cup of tea ,but i would bet the owners of the winning horses are more than happy to see there horse actually win a race..it is ok for the Ian Semples of this world to say that he tells owners to get shot of there 38 rated horse..trainers have to start somewhere and most have low graded horses in there yard..funny when they get a better class of animal in there yard how they soon start telling everyone that these horses shouldn’t be running.
From the 2004 flat season racing is being classified into "Premier", "National" and "Regional", for higher, middling and lowly rated horses respectively. The objective as far as I understand it is to create a more defined image for racing with "Premier" races being heavilly marketed to the general public. The analogy given by the Racing Review Committee is that these grades would equate – in marketing image terms- to soccer’s Premier, National and Conference League divisions. <br> I’d just be guessing, but perhaps the "regional" description is a marketing euphemism. It’s quite a friendly sounding description without actually saying it’s for low capability horses and at the same denotes a lower class of racing than "national"<br>richard
Seeing as i go mostly to gaff tracks,the heavy advertising of big races wouldn’t affect me..i remember a few years ago my wife went with me to Doncaster for the Lincoln meeting..she isn’t a big horseracing fan..but she said she wasn’t that keen to return to the so called bigger meetings and that she preferred when went to Hamilton and Kelso and the like ..what i was thinking was that just because they advertise the bigger meetings more heavily doesn’t mean you are going to have a better day at the races. :)
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