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I don’t subscribe to Racing Post+, but from the opening paragraph (free to view) of Chris Cook’s article today it appears he isn’t a fan of the new video…
I notice underneath the masthead of today’s “Daily Mirror” is the advice: “Free Summer Fun Horse Racing Tickets – Claim Today”.
That might do more to get a new audience interested, rather than a dreadful, cringe inducing advert.
Just watched the video for the first time. Unless I missed them there’s not a single hurdle or fence jumped, no sign of any artificial surface racing, and not the merest suggestion of rain.
It’s certainly selling a pretty narrow, and not especially representative, tranche of what a raceday experience might comprise.
Think I’ll stick to the £15 or under entry, access all areas, unvetted picnics and (usually) absence of cokeheads at the Yorkshire Area point-to-points, where the going is not just good, but reyt.
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.
Where abouts are these PtP’s Grayson? Always fancied going to one but never heard of where they are and wouldn’t know where to start looking either!
I’ll fetch a load of Charlie to the next one if you give me the heads up😄
The final point-to-point until the autumn takes place this Sunday at Bratton Down (EX31 4SG) up on Exmoor. There should have been another fixture the following Saturday at Umberleigh, but that’s already fallen foul of the ongoing very dry spell.
The 2025-26 fixture list won’t be published for another three months, I’d have thought, but recent precedent suggests it will all kick off again on the first or second week of November, most likely around the Knightwick circuit in the Malvern Hills. Two of the winners at last November’s Knightwick fixture, Barton Sun and Gracchus de Balme, have had a pretty good day of it again today.
The new season up here in Yorkshire will resume a couple of Sundays into January, at Mick Easterby’s own course at Sheriff Hutton.
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.
Checking out the cards today (35 flat races, of which 27 are handicaps), I noticed a race at Chester apparently sponsored by this campaign:
“The Going Is Good Handicap Stakes (Class 4) (GBBPLUS Race)”
So I pulled up the race card online to see what this was doing for the PR men. You can see it here:
On page 41 there is a silly advert, on pages 42-43, the race details.
Nothing to actually explain the significance of the race title. Nor indeed anything to tell the racegoer what a GBBPLUS race might be.
Now it maybe that Chester are happy to run this race with no financial input from the ‘sponsor’, but if part of the campaign money is being used this way, how exactly would that match their objectives.
Then I had a look at the Racing Calendar, the official record of race names and conditions, published about four to six weeks before the meeting. Each edition covers two weeks of meetings in detail.
And that tells me that the Edinburgh Gin company were down as sponsors of four races on this card, as they were last year. But there’s no sign of their presence on the card today. So it looks as if Chester have had to deal with a late withdrawal by their main sponsor and have had to find new names for the races at short notice.
Which probably explains the use of ‘Going Is Good’ – see also the last race which is just a plug for a subsequent meeting at Chester.
The last race at Chester yesterday had the same title. It rung some sort of bell in my head when the commentator mentioned it at the start of the race but was soon forgotten about.
5 quid for a racecard seems a bit steep to me, is that the norm these days? They were free at Ponty when I went in April. Are Chester still ripping customers off with that Chesterbet nonsense (licensed thievery)?At least Chester subsidise the cost of racecourse entry with their rip off with Chesterbet, only 50 quid into Tatts today.
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