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Epsom should be the one and only meeting in GB on Derby Day for maximum effect in the media. All the rest of Saturday’s cards could and should have been moved to Sunday. Then Joe Public can enjoy Derby Day so much they’d go racing the very next day…
Well that’s the theory anyway.
Value Is EverythingI noticed a few weeks back there was no flat racing the day after the Derby and no surprise a thread has been created on the subject.
It’s madness that British Racing doesn’t have the foresight to back up one of its biggest day’s of the year with a couple of decent flat cards the following day.
I’ve made the point before that I expected Racing for Change (Great British Racing) to pick up the baton and provide incentives for the likes of Musselburgh to move their excellent card back a day.
The problem as I see it is that Saturday is the premium day for Corporate Guests / Alcohol sales / Paying Customers and this is a fair chunk of revenue to lose. Moving a fixture such as Musselburgh’s to the Sunday means a reduction in revenue with no alternative source out there.
Racecourse argues that Saturday is best day for maximising revenue and providing the highest level of prize money. Other days are a pale shadow of what is on offer on Saturdays. The vicious circle continues and hard to see an end to it.
The landscape may change when international commingling of tote pools takes off.
That will offer new and highly cashed-up opportunities for GB punters ready to look beyond their local scene on Sunday.
Just as it may impact scheduling by those GB racecourses with races attractive to international pools.
The ‘not so much betting, more a day out at the races’ market will then adjust around that development to the extent it becomes concerned at loss of betting interest in it (and thus of levy support).
The landscape may change when international commingling of tote pools takes off.
Commingling will excite coders scouring for underbet combinations in exotic pools but few else methinks. Do pool operators even make the ‘will-pays’ for trifecta and superfecta pools available to Joe Public? (Or just to the computer gangs,
)Commingling will excite coders scouring for underbet combinations in exotic pools but few else methinks
Indeed.
The Arc excepted, bookmakers & exchanges are still waiting for the day any major overseas race turns over as much as a Tuesday-afternoon mid-winter selling hurdle.
And pool betting is nowhere near as popular as bookmakers and exchanges.
Mike
When it comes to international commingling you need to think in terms of HK or Japan totes.
Sunday’s very ordinary Sha Tin card of 10 races produced its usual turnover in excess of HKD 1 billion – ie per race over HKD 100 million (GBP 8 million).
Don’t have the figures for HK’s Saturday simulcast of the Derby, but for the Singapore Airlines Cup and the Krisflyer the HK simulcast turnover was HKD 140 million (GBP 11.2 million). (That was two and a half times more turnover than in Singapore itself).
On Sunday Tokyo’s 12 race card had local tote turnover of JPY 26 billion (GBP 170m).
(When the Japanese skewed the odds in the Arc it wasn’t through any international commingling of pools – that was just cash that the travelling contingent carried to, and bet direct in, Paris.)
International commingling will bring opportunities for non-parochial punters.
Bookies and exchanges can continue to serve the others on the selling hurdles.
@ indocine:
HK doesn’t do superfecta (first six in correct finishing order in the race) but does give ‘will pays’ during the meeting for trifecta (called tierce in HK) and the other exotics it offers, per this page:
to give a further idea of where things stand internationally, the IFHA compilation of 2010 betting turnover figures country-by-country (for some reason there are no GB figures in the 2011 table):
http://www.horseracingintfed.com/wageri … 0&report=D
In Euros:
Japan – 25 bn
Australia – 11 bn
France – 9 bn
USA – 8 bn
GB – 7 bn
HK – 7 bn (but from only 83 meetings)also an interesting report by Michael Cox in the SCMP on being at Tokyo Racecourse last Sunday:
wit, what is the greyhound situation in HK, Macau, Japan etc? Are they into dog racing?
When it comes to international commingling you need to think in terms of HK or Japan totes.
No, for the UK you need to think in terms of the UK Tote.
The Totalisator turnovers for some other countries are hugely impressive (or quite the reverse, depending on one’s view of gambling) but that is down to a well-entrenched Tote-based betting culture.
This simply doesn’t exist in the UK, where The Tote is basically a dead duck, fit only for on-course grannies, Placepotters and occasional distorted-pool players. The UK bets overwhelmingly with bookmakers and, latterly, on betting exchanges.
We are also massively parochial.
The turnover on the two Singapore races you mention would have been nil in this country. Despite being told that The Breeders Cup is the greatest racing on Earth (it isn’t) and having it massively covered by the media, naughty British punters refuse to play along and pretty much ignore it.
You say that commingling overseas Tote pools "will offer new and highly cashed-up opportunities for GB punters ready to look beyond their local scene on Sunday". The only problem being that we don’t bet on Totes and we don’t bet on overseas racing.
Honestly, it’s a non-starter.
Mike
@ indocine
if there is any greyhound racing in HK or Japan, it is totally under my radar. i’ve never seen any reference to it in the local media; never heard of a venue in either place.
Macau on the other hand has 18 greyhound races five nights a week (not Wed or Fri) from 19:30 to 23:55 at its Canidrome.
Macau June schedule for dogs here:
http://www.macauyydog.com/schedule/calendar.php
tomorrow night’s card here:
http://www.macauyydog.com/schedule/race … -08&r=a&v=
(they’re not big on translating the dogs into English)
Macau June schedule for horses here – you’ll see regular simulcasts with HK, Singapore, Malaysia and South Africa:
.. The only problem being that we don’t bet on Totes and we don’t bet on overseas racing.
not today perhaps.
but that may change if and when a professional and manageable package like HK racing and its huge pools becomes available in GB every Wed and Sun.
Graysonscolumn (where are you Jeb?)
‘Arfternoon, sweet Drone. Variety of reasons for an even lower profile than usual so far in 2013 – including, but not limited to, changing Day Job, moving in with Mrs Column, fighting a black dog, and doing Pointing work.
Y’know, just stuff.
How goes it with thee, stout yeoman?gc
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.
Most of that kind of stuff has long gone though I too still get nipped by a familiar smallish grey dog from time to time. Hope all is generally well with you saccharine wordsmith and stick around, do
Do you still live in Ubiquitous or have you settled in Sheffield with the new Mrs C?
For reasons unknown I’m still – depending on the balance of neurotransmitters at the time of writing – entertaining/amusing/bemusing/mystifying/annoying/boring the good burghers of TRF town
You may like to know that Maxilon5 is alive, well and living in the populous city of Twitter Facebook: not a place I’m keen to visit
Other than that, when gardening, existential musings and staring wistfully through windows permit I’m still betting a bit, particularly during the glorious gaff-laden winter, but rarely go racing any more
Thanks for reminding me of Tom Halliday on t’other thread; remiss of me to forget that poor lad particularly as he was attached to the near-local Smith yard
)
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