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This is a quote from today’s Racing Post and Flutter
“Yet there’s a bigger, more fundamental issue here. We, as Flutter, simply cannot afford to keep investing in horseracing as an unprofitable product with a shrinking audience, where media costs are escalating at significant rates, and the underlying quality of the product is declining.”How true that is. The racing is becoming poorer and poorer where myself a hardened racing fan of over 50 years no longer find it compelling.
The amount of poor horses running is quite unbelievable. There is far to much racing. If this continues much longer the good class racing I have always enjoyed will be gone.
Why not go back to 2 meetings a day all week and then maybe 4 or 5 on a Saturday and Sunday off.
Tomorrow for example there are 2 all weather meetings in the middle of summer for goodness sake. The top rated horse at Lingfield is 77 and the lowest is 41. That is poor fare. Wolverhampton it is top rated 76 lowest 43. No wonder people are not going and betting on it. Musselborough slightly better top rated 81 lowest 45.
Racing really is on its knees.
The Coliseum in Rome and the games there stopped not because it became unpalatable but because the sport/games became of such poor quality that people stopped going and sadly racing is going the same way.Should start by selling off Chelmsford and Wolverhampton for housing, that would be 120+ meetings less each year.
Obviously that isn’t going to happen, but I can dream.
Why are we creating more races by dividing when they just go over the safety limit? There must be alternatives for the odd horses who would be balloted out.
....and you've got to look a long way back for anything else.
Agree with all that apart from Sundays. If it’s to be a day off, better Mondays (apart from bank holidays).
22 quid to get into Lingfield today , seems a wee bit excessive . Must put people off .
So Mr Flutter, it’s got nothing to do with this, taken from the Skybet (which you own) website:
“As part of our licencing requirement we must pro-actively engage in initial and ongoing due diligence. You may be asked for additional information about Yourself or the source of Your account funding from our Safer Gambling Team. This process assists us to ensure that we can get to know You and provide You with a great customer experience, as well as helping us fulfil our licencing requirement. We may also ask for supporting evidence where a request is made to challenge Spend Limits, Global Deposit Limits (limits placed by us to cap the maximum amount that can be spent on all customer accounts) and as part of our standard Customer Due Diligence processes. Documents that may be requested include, but are not limited to; proof of identity, proof of earnings, bank statements and evidence of business ownership. If You are unable to provide any of these documents then we may suspend or restrict Your Account until You provide the requested information.”
I think you’ll find that driving away customers is always likely to reduce the profitability of a company. I had a Skybet account, I don’t have it any more.
The bookmakers were not wailing about racing being “unprofitable” when they were raking in the money from the FOBTs every day.
I can’t remember being so un-interested in the sport since I was a schoolboy getting into it in the late 80s.
For a sport that likes to trade on its heritage, it bins a lot of it all for ‘progress’, which nearly always backfires.
Too much low quality racing in the week, and often an over saturation of a weekend with maybe 3 televised meetings on ITV, which means some races don’t get the proper coverage.
All Weather should be 3 times a week from November to end of February; end of, no more. I might be persuaded to keep AW Champions Day.
Sadly, any solution isn’t workable, because of vested interests. Fixtures should be allocated by one body, not the racecourses……Look at motorsport and its various World Championships – a Promoter organises, sells rights, and sorts the calendar; not the circuits/ governing body.
I rarely check out the early midweek cards mind you the Racing League returns this week
with the prize money attracting decent field sizes, the Class 4 races tip £18k.The more I know the less I understand.
Musselburgh was mentioned in the original post and it’s worth following up on that. The meeting a ‘Family Day’ with a crowd over 4000+ being significantly bigger than any other midweek attendance at the course bar Ladies Day (even at £60 a head that sells out). I was row 4 in car park 2 instead of front row of car park 1. Yes, there was the ‘family stuff’ going on down the enclosure but there were retired racehorses on show championing Retraining of Racehorses and at paddock side it was 2 or more deep throughout the afternoon with more than enough interest in the sport.
Yes the racing was of lower grade, but it was competitive and field sizes big enough to give decent betting heats. To cap things off our favourite ‘old rogue’ Rory cracked the Class 5 and 7 furlong barrier in one hit (Class 4 next, onwards and upwards).
As members we ‘endure’ Family/Ladies/Student days as subsidising our annual payment, but they are very well attended at Scottish courses and the impression is that some visitors will come back.
I missed the “early bird” discount for Goodwood this year but they reopened it for 24 hours yesterday. Obviously ticket sales weren’t going so well. I daresay the lousy weather is partly to blame (especially as it was pretty wretched for much of the Festival last year) but there certainly doesn’t seem as much interest as usual.
This article on the RP website is quite depressing, but nothing that any of us didn’t know already.
How does the story go about the goose and the golden egg?
While everybody seems to be doing their best to strip every penny from the sport……….without owners investing in the sport, there is no sport!!
“I had a horse win both of his races in June, which was a great feeling and everybody loves that feeling of winning,” he says. “But even after that, after everything that is taken away in fees, it doesn’t cover my training bill for the month.”
I read that article , wins two races in month and gets a bill !!! , prizemoney truely is peanuts day to day . In OZ dirt track outback races in dusty one pub towns in middle of dustville are running for more than midweek UK , something must be wrong . The UK has some most interesting tracks anywhere in world , the variation is not touched anywhere . The carnivals are great , but week to week its unsustainable long term , no one in right mind has horse running for 2k , unless you got plenty to burn , and if you havd plenty to burn find one to run on decent days .
“….something must be wrong.”
Not enough money goes back into racing Helcat.
At Woodbine on Thursday, the lowest value race on an eight race card is a lowly 5f F&M £4,000 Claimer, with the winner getting around £9,715.
Of course the difference is…………there are no bookmakers in Canada. Nobody has their bets cut back, nobody has affordability checks, in fact there is a lot of promotion for people to go and have a bet and have fun doing it.
Apart from the Kings Plate day on August 17th, there is free tarmac parking, free admission, free wi-fi and free seating in the stands, even for Group 1 meetings.
On September 14th there will be 4 G1’s and 2 G2’s, including the E.P Taylor Stakes and the Woodbine Mile, won in the last two seasons by Godolphin/Appleby with Master Of The Seas and Modern Games. Totally free to park, walk in, sit down and watch all the days racing.
There are multiple restaurants to choose from. The Champions Bar etc prices are around regular town bar prices and the Club restaurant where most of the owners go is more expensive, has a dress code, but not overly priced for what it is.
There are no chip trucks set up around the venue, but there is a decent sized food court on the main concourse if fast food is your choice.The UK can offer some of the best racing in the world in many ways, with horses and variety of tracks, but it’s slowly slipping away and nothing constructive is being done to stop it………although I’m sure new heads of both Environmental Sustainability and Social Impact will go a long way to address it.
I’ve been racing 12 times this year where I am and in Japan , total cost inc racebooks 200 yen spent to get into Fuchu in Tokyo . Cards between 7 to 10 races , most 8. Runners plus .
Bar entry in Japan which was coins , cost zero .Tracks really are special in UK , but seems like death by thousand cuts .
22 quid a Monday at Lingfield , ive seen Winx race for a tenner in a Group 1 !!!
All of these other countries mentioned with great prize money and cheap entry are (I think) tote monopolies. Same applies to others such as Hong Kong.
Try starting a thread advocating for it to happen here and see what happens. We like to moan about the problems but nobody wants to even entertain one of the obvious solutions.
with the prize money attracting decent field sizes, the Class 4 races tip £18k.
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