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https://www.sportinglife.com/racing/news/racing-league-launched-in-london/177925
Gaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
I saw this yesterday and my initial reaction was a negative one. The whole “festival vibe”, music infield, get people with no interest in racing extremely drunk while watching “teams” nobody feels any affinity with seems like a ludicrous idea. I would not go if I was paid but this kind of thing is not marketed towards me in any case. I can not see it working but worst case scenario, the negatives will largely be quarantined away from the skinflint, anorak racegoer so it is a bet to nothing.
If it does by some miracle work then I have no cause for complaint. If it boosts prize money for the connections of middling horses, brings in long term followers who are not turned off by us cynics and creates a concept that works on its own accord (t20/Nations League/Rugby Sevens/Shergar Cup etc) then these are all good for the sport. It is a much better idea than that atrocious City Racing nonsense.
Not for me but best of luck. I hope it succeeds.
As a fellow skinflint anorak, this really isn’t doing me any harm.
There were 1491 racing fixtures scheduled for 2020 and four of these six Racing League meetings aren’t even going to fall within the 1400 odd I wasn’t going to attend in any case. On the 16th of July, there are meetings at Chepstow, Hamilton Park, Leicester, Epsom Downs and Worcester – none of which will be hosting this experiment. Indeed, only Doncaster and Newcastle had a Thursday meeting each scheduled over these six weeks so Racing League fixtures look supplementary.
This experiment isn’t going to interfere with anything the skinflint anorak already enjoys be that a quiet Autumnal midweek meeting at Ludlow or watching decent racing on the television. As with the Shergar Cup, I can very easily ignore this experiment with no cost to anybody. If it is a failure then it is a bet to nothing. If it is a success then hurray for the invested parties.
Won’t have any impact on me either as I rarely go racing now.
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I've walked and I crawled on six crooked highwaysI happen to have an 83 rated 7F/1M horse in training, so in theory these fifty grand races should attract me. But why would I want to give up control of my horse for six weeks and leave it to somebody else (team manager?) to decide when it runs?
Each team will have thirty horses and there are thirty six races, so odds on that my horse gets one chance in a six week period, whereas I might run him three times in that time. And I’d be choosing the races and the jockey, and he’d be running in my colours.
Also not clear what happens if his mark rises above 90 by winning one of these team races – does that automatically rule him out of the competition? Can I then run him elsewhere before the six week window ends?
I’d rather stay out of it and perhaps take advantage of weakened fields in 0-90 and 0-85 races run alongside this competition. But my guess is that as they need 360 horses to take part, they’ll end up with a lot of them rated 70-75, attracted solely by the prize money.
It’s getting less and less about racing and more more about getting students in to get pissed and watch the pussycats dolls shaking there arse …..racecourses put on more valuable stronger cards ….and as they said in waynes world 2 ….the people will come
Pick 3 on Saturday champion 2025/2026
Cannot see this working. The Shergar Cup does kind of work. It is a one-off event held on a quiet Saturday on a top racecourse and you get the chance to see a few jockeys who do not usually ride here.
This event stretched out over a few weeks with moderate horses does not fire up the imagination. It will not interest the enthusiasts and the once or twice a year racegoers just want to get dressed up, have a drink or two, a few small bets and watch a concert. A lot of them are probably only interested in the concert. A team competition will just pass them by.
Worth pointing out as well that this was originally publicised about 18 months ago, as a contest offering £4.8M in prize money (8 meetings, six races per meeting, £100k per race), with the meetings staged at tracks like Sandown, Newmarket and Goodwood and terrestrial TV coverage.
Now it’s declined to £1.8M, with half the races at AW tracks, shown on Sky.
Some good news then, can be safely ignored without the worry you are missing something significant.
....and you've got to look a long way back for anything else.
Indeed, ignore it if you don’t like it; it’s not as though there’s a shortage of regulation fare for we skinflint anoraks (nice one BH) to enjoy
I enjoy Test Match Cricket and the County Championship, but find the 20/20 version of the noblest game an abomination so it is ignored. The looming spectre of ‘The Hundred’ is even more abominable so it will be…ignored
Given this latest incarnation of the Black Death fans of such quick thrill bollox will probably all be sat at home playing tiddlywinks and solitaire come high summer anyway, whilst we above all such instant gratification will of course spend our enforced isolation trying to finish ‘The Remembrance of Things Past’
The reality that I had known no longer existed. … The places we have known do not belong only to the world of space on which we map them for our own convenience. They were only a thin slice, held between the contiguous impressions that composed our life at that time; the memory of an image is but regret for a particular moment; and houses, roads, avenues are as fugitive, alas, as the years
“The reality that I had known no longer existed. … The places we have known do not belong only to the world of space on which we map them for our own convenience. They were only a thin slice, held between the contiguous impressions that composed our life at that time; the memory of an image is but regret for a particular moment; and houses, roads, avenues are as fugitive, alas, as the years”
I see that you have received a sneak preview of Oli Bell’s script for Cheltenham on Tuesday.
“The reality that I had known no longer existed. … The places we have known do not belong only to the world of space on which we map them for our own convenience. They were only a thin slice, held between the contiguous impressions that composed our life at that time; the memory of an image is but regret for a particular moment; and houses, roads, avenues are as fugitive, alas, as the years”
I see that you have received a sneak preview of Oli Bell’s script for Cheltenham on Tuesday.
Alastair Down surely?
Done to soaring background music; Dorothy Paget, rationing, Night Nurse and Monksfield, jumpers for goalposts…
Mike
“Alastair Down surely?”
Nah; I was implying that such eloquence and depth of thought would be beyond the vacuous microphone jockeys who currently front our racing programmes.
I could equally have used Chapman, Persad, Harvey… or that terrible Irish fella they wheel out for Cheltenham every year.
You’d wonder given the legitimate and thus far seemingly unanswered concerns of owners, if the ROA were ever consulted on this, considering their members buy-in to the project is essential for its success?
Can see them struggling for decent horses given the time of year. Lots of big festivals and meetings in that six week period, and I’m fairly certain the sense of occasion and prestige associated with Goodwood, Ascot and York, not to mention the July Meeting which precedes it by a week, will always trump a Thursday on the infield at Newcastle for most owners regardless of prizemoney.
So you could indeed be left with a load of seventies rated horses running for 50 grand a race, no bad thing imo. Can see the likes of Mick Appleby licking his lips at the prospect. But are these the type of horses we connect with, narrative horses, “fan horses”…almost certainly not.
As for the team element…its a load of bollox. We form a connection and bond with a team because we feel part of it somehow. Racing’s “teams” frequently remind us “fans”, that they own the horse, that they pay the bills, that they ride for the owners, that they decide where it runs. Its theirs not ours. And that’s the way it is, same as it ever was. And I’d say that most interested followers of racing generally understand and accept that too. Personally I get my team kicks from Liverpool on a Saturday.
Pretty non-plussed by the whole thing, but good luck to them anyway.
Done to soaring background music; Dorothy Paget, rationing, Night Nurse and Monksfield, jumpers for goalposts…
enduring image isn’t it, marvellous
“Manchester United, Blackburn Rovers, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Sheffield Wednesday, The Arsenal, isn’t it? Tottenham Hotspur, Preston North End, Charlton Athletic, Crystal Palace, West Ham United, mm?
Reassuring names aren’t they, when you’re listening in some far flung corner of the globe to the World Service of a Saturday afternoon, crackly reception, interference, cosy, marvellous. Ooh, results! Four forty-five, Grandstand, isn’t it. Highlights on Match of the Day, da da da da da da da da. Somehow comforting, isn’t it you know. Legendary names… Tony Gubba!
Fathers and sons, on the terraces, cheesy peas at half-time, pint for Dad, Mum’s at home making the tea. Aaah, everything’s all right with the world, isn’t it… Saturday afternoon is football, mm?”
Proust eat yer heart oot
Marcel Proust and Albert Einstein will be linked forever as the understanders of place and time and the notion that each can be manipulated, by memory or movement, to diminish one and thence to enhance the other, or vice versa, but only if there is an observer/experiencer. In theory, it is just as easy to move to a past time by moving through space/time quickly enough, as it is to visit the Proustian past by accessing the memories of it. The practice of it is a tad difficult at present, but it will happen. All in good time.
The venture under discussion here has the opposite plan of recent alternatives to “popularize” long-established sports. The newer alternatives usually either have clusters of higher skilled participants of international renown in each team, or change the rules to make the game quicker. I would love to read the Appendix in this proposal which lists the reasons why people would be interested in it, and the market research data that backs up such a conclusion. If I were asked the question: “Are you interested in following this competition?”, my answer would be: “Don’t be silly. Tell me again, where does the excitement come in?”
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