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Having the big races on Saturdays will mean more people watch which can only be good for growing the sport
Why is the Ascot Gold Cup not on a Saturday?
because the general public can only hold their attention for 6 furlongsGaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
If the race is run like last years debacle, resembling Dot Love’s retirement bumper, then three am on mars on a Tuesday would be a good time for it.
I’d like it from a selfish point of view on the Wednesday
same as the Champions League final which switched from midweek to a Saturday
I like something decent on midweek as to split the week up from workGaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
Plenty of the big races have been moved to the non stop conveyor belt of a Saturday, all to the detriment of the sport, for me. It was much better before.
Where is the evidence the sport has grown since this happened?Only The Grand National can old it’s own against other sports on a Saturday and even that race doesn’t seem so popular with the general public judging by viewing figures.
Even though The Cheltenham Gold Cup is bigger than The Derby these days, it would still struggle on a Saturday.Wednesday, but I’m retired now so probably biased and would like a break from the tendency to migrate races to Saturdays.
Not that you’ll ever prise it away from Saturday but I think they should run it as the last race of a Wednesday (or other weekday) meeting at about 6pm (so what if Bargain Hunt and Tipping Point miss out for a day). Even if you do have to work, you can still see the big race and a lot of people have flexible working these days or are at home so can watch the whole day anyway.
Boxing always has the main event at the end of the card so why not racing? I assume racing puts them in the middle so that you’re less likely to do your brains beforehand perhaps? Although I’m sure other some other countries put the big race on last.
Too young to remember the Wednesday Derbies but I agree with Nathan in preferring the Champions League final being midweek like the rest of the competition.
Wednesday 100%. However Sporting Sams suggestion also carried plenty of weight.
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The Derby going back to Wednesday is about as likely as the Cheltenham Festival going back to three days. Not going to happen.
The reason the main race is not the last on the card is so all the crowd do not leave at the same time. If the Derby was the last race on the card, the pressure on Epsom station would be unbearable.
Wednesday definitely moving big races to weekends has not improved anything for racing, just made it a venue for drunken stag parties.
I was always a regular at Newmarket July Cup meeting when it was Tuesday Wednesday Thursday, don’t bother going now.I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I've walked and I crawled on six crooked highwaysIt barely registers as a major sporting event on a Saturday. Remember Sue Ellen (not the Southfork one) being cowed enough to have the Derby as 2nd race on the card to avoid a clash with England football in Euro 96. Only the second year after it had been moved from Wednesday.
Racing is a quaint premium recreational pursuit product – with a bit of good old Runyonesque ducking and diving thrown in – and should be marketed as such.
Picking up on Ian Davies’s word ‘quaint’ which has stayed with me as a clever descriptive of the sport of horseracing – So yes, the first Wednesday in June may well have been likened by Wordsworth to the first blush of precocious three year old youth – but also fits in snugly, and without the force of a shoehorn, into the hush puppy of quaintness.
I no longer think it makes a difference which day this race is run, the reality is that the Derby no longer matters much, outside of the small number of people that now dominate the race.
When was the last time the race produced a feelgood story – probably when Sir Percy won in 2005. When did it last produce a genuinely top class sire of future champions – Sea The Stars in 2009. When was the last time the winner went on to win against older horses – Golden Horn in 2016.
A PR man given the job of promoting the race would give up in the face of the Coolmore crew, who generally look about as excited as men obliged to attend the funeral of a distant relative they never liked anyway.
Wednesday, Saturday – who cares.
Sir Percy didn’t make me feel particularly good, I was on Hala Bek for good numbers. Yet another one that got away. Coolmore are are in danger of damaging the race if we have many more Serpentines.
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Yes it’ll become as boring as Formula 1.
Seems that every sport is undergoing changes, whether for good or bad. The world is quite a different place to thirty/forty years ago.
It seems before covid however attending racing was as popular as it’s ever been. People have adapted just as humans have had to adapt to survive through their lives. We get used to it.
At present as above I think the biggest danger is one set of runners winning everything, not good for the sport just as it’s made F1 hard to watch.
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