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All owners received the horseman’s tariff last week with a letter ‘encouraging’ owners to use the tariff in deciding where to enter their horses. The implication was that owners should boycott courses where the prizemoney doesn’t meet the tariff level.
If owners follow the suggested course of action there will be almost no AW racing as the vast majority of AW races currently have prizemoney below the minimum tariff level.
Is it realistic to suppose we will see a boycott of AW fixtures in the weeks to come or will owners continue to run their horses no matter what?
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What would owners rather do, pay £20,000 a year and race for £2,000 or pay £20,000 a year and not race at all?
Paul Dixon needs to realise that banging and stamping and asking for more isn’t going to solve racing’s problems when racing has no more to give. Besides, are his tantrum-throwing and attempts at intimidation not undermined by him continuing to have runners on artificial surfaces?
To some extent a rejection of low prize money is already happening. The depressing card at Folkestone today only attracted 84 entries and has predictably small fields as a result.
The better money on offer at Taunton meant they got 195 entries and bigger fields.
Agree with AJ that the noises from Dixon and the Horsemens Group are futile. So long as they support the current bloated fixture list, their campaign is undermined. Nor have they put forward one single suggestion to improve matters – so here are two ideas I think worth considering:
One I’ve mentioned on here before is to try putting on a few races with significantly higher entry fees which would be added to the prize fund, rather than absorbed by the courses as at present. A ten runner handicap with a £500 entry fee would at least get us back to the level of five years ago – and act as a significant deterrent to non triers!
Another would be to suspend payment of prize money to placed horses in low grade races, with all the fund going to the winner. So the first at Folkestone today could pay £2800 to the winner instead of £1900 and change. At the very least we could limit payouts to horses that would qualify as placed under normal each way terms – i.e. no place prizes in races with four runners or less, second price money only in races with 5-7 runners etc. This would end the current practice of paying prize money to horses that finish last or tailed off in small fields.
AP
Both good ideas, Alan. Maybe the entry fees suggestion should be passed onto the integrity people.
A grand total of 58 horses contest Southwell’s 7-race card on Wednesday.
I think Southwell is the one course above all others that is at serious risk of an outright boycott at some point. The Owner & Breeder racecourse league table records the fact that the course contributed a grand total of £647 to prizemoney for the whole of last year. The levy board contributed £1,930,745. Only 6 courses received more in levy board contributions than Southwell. Those course were Ascot, Newmarket, Newbury, Lingfield, Kempton and Wolverhampton.
A clear picture emerges of AW racing being propped up by levy board contributions which is surely unsustainable in the current environment.
Either AW racing in this country needs to go or there needs to be some mechanism to increase the quality of racing on the AW.
A proper winter season leading to, dare I say, an AW Championship meeting just before the start of the flat season would make a lot of sense to me.
If owners follow the suggested course of action there will be almost no AW racing as the vast majority of AW races currently have prizemoney below the minimum tariff level.
Sounds like a good idea to me if they can’t even offer modest prize money, failing that I would encourage as many owners as possible to stop owning horses to race in Britain.
Don’t see much future in the 500 quid entry 10 runner races, why would you want to pay that much unless you had a good chance of winning, can’t see there being many outsiders in the races or them filling.- Total Posts 17716
One I’ve mentioned on here before is to try putting on a few races with significantly higher entry fees which would be added to the prize fund, rather than absorbed by the courses as at present.
Certainly the level of "absorption" of entry fees and most sponsorship direct into racecourses’s coffers instead of having them added to the prize fund seems increasingly inequitable, given the pressures on the ever-decreasing Levy. Some racecourses seem to have more of a conscience than others – Southwell, as has been pointed out, being absolute bottom of the pile though for obvious reasons.
Some serious thought needs to go into the continuing support of AW Racing, especially through the summer, if it is not to remain an embarrassment. The quality’s too low. The (perception of) corruption is too high. Markets are weak. Public attendance is tiny. It needs to be much better structured, and drastically pruned back – or sponsored to a much higher level by the bookmakers who demand it.
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Deleted: duplicate post
….The Owner & Breeder racecourse league table records the fact that the course (Southwell) contributed a grand total of £647 to prizemoney for the whole of last year. The levy board contributed £1,930,745….
That’s a staggering statistic.
What a way to run a business.
I only own an 1/8 of one horse currently, so perhaps I’m not the best qualified in this matter, and until the levy situation is sorted one way or another i don’t currently have any original suggestions myself.
I did think that higher entry fees might be a good idea, but I was thinking £100 instead of £10/£20, not £500 which I think is excessive. However instead of horses getting multiple entries at £20 a go, I guess they would be more likely to just be entered in fewer races, and hence not really producing much, if any more revenue from entry fees. What it boils down to is owners coughing the prize money and racing for it.
Personally speaking I don’t like the idea of "winner takes all races" either. I think that could result in smaller fields, given that at the moment you might look and think you could pick up some money but not beat the likely favourite etc. If you see a horse entered and you don’t think you can beat it, why would you enter your horse to finish second, possibly go up in the handicap and get no prize money for it. Although it shouldn’t happen it might also see a few not riding out for third/fourth if only for betting place purposes
That all sounds rather negative, I’ll try and come up with a suggestion or two myself and let you find holes in those!
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The problem with increasing entry fees significantly is you run the risk of turning every race in to a poker game, with each owner competing to take the other owners’ money. In my eyes, that’s not the way it should be.
Racing – including Paul Dixon and his band of merry men – needs to realise that there is simply too much for people to bet on and that such a saturated schedule can’t be maintained with a decreasing amount of prize money.
For me:
(1) The racing calendar needs to be trimmed to boost prize money and encourage more competitive fields.
(2) Handicap changes need to be implemented daily, with existing entries updated automatically.
(3) Prize money should be decreased if fields fall below a minimum number of runners, with any excess returned to the prize money pool.
(4) Entry fees should be increased to make running a horse more of a commitment.
(5) Stewards should be compelled to use profiling to highlight non-triers.
(6) Racing on artificial surfaces should be banned during the summer.
(7) Prize money for horses winning consecutive races should be boosted by a set percentage.
(8) Handicap changes should only be considered for horses who run within 15% of their current mark.
The racecourses have been getting away with it for years – however the various bodies chose to beat up on the bookies and ignore the take out merchants where the horses run as every now and then they get a free cup of tea and a biscuit.
It’s hard to have sympathy with an organisation run by someone like Paul Roy – where was the talk of a strike and a boycott, minimal prize funds etc. when Evens Stevens and co were running well at Southwell in December?
(1) The racing calendar needs to be trimmed to boost prize money and encourage more competitive fields.
Quite correctly you put this top of your list. In my opinion all the other ideas voiced on this thread – good though they may be – cannot and should not be implemented or even considered until some serious pruning of the fixture list is carried out. On the assumption that funding for races will be obtained from the same sources as they are now: in the main via a ‘betting industry’ levy of some description – and there is not a cat in hell’s chance of that increasing in the foreseeable future – then the only way to increase prize money across the board is to reduce the number of races receiving that levy. Simple and obvious, surely?
And the sooner Dixon et al realise this the better
IMVHO
6) Racing on artificial surfaces should be banned during the summer.
I think APRacing mentioned this before, but if we are to continue suffering a fixture list of the current grotesque proportions then summer AW becomes a necessity because the already over-used ‘green’ courses could not withstand any more hammering of the noble turf. Other than that I wholly agree that summer AW is unnecessary and just ‘gets in the way’. A clearly-defined winter AW season during the turf Flat close season would focus attention on the discipline, allow it notoriety and whet the appetite of the afficionado
Drone
I think the general argument is that if you reduce the amount of racing, certainly using the current system you will reduce the amount of money received, less races for punters to bet on, less bookmaker turnover/profit, less levy, and that does seem to make sense, so I’m not sure reducing the amount of racing will make things any better in that sense. Even if you cut the fixture list by say 20% and somehow the levy didn’t decrease, your still racing for the same amount of money aren’t you, just in more competitive races.
From a personal/selfish point of view, I’m one of the few that actually prefers a day out at Plumpton to Cheltenham, and I find it much easier to find "value" in a 0-90 than I do a grade 1 where there is a lot more interest and less hidden "clues". Not only that less racing could mean the closing of some of the smaller tracks, a thought that horrifies me.
Drone
I think the general argument is that if you reduce the amount of racing, certainly using the current system you will reduce the amount of money received, less races for punters to bet on, less bookmaker turnover/profit, less levy, and that does seem to make sense, so I’m not sure reducing the amount of racing will make things any better in that sense. Even if you cut the fixture list by say 20% and somehow the levy didn’t decrease, your still racing for the same amount of money aren’t you, just in more competitive races.
That may be the general argument – perhaps received wisdom is nearer the mark – but I for one remain to be convinced it’s true. Does yer average Joe Punter bet more, the more racing there is? Or does he perhaps bet in more races but with a smaller stake per race? Resulting in the same net contribution to levy. The losing punter can only recycle his money over a finite number of cycles (races)
I may be being dim and missing something obvious here
but surely racing in fewer races means each race is better endowed as the jam doesn’t have to be spread so thinlyI don’t pretend my own rather esoteric and sporadic betting habits are typical, but for what it’s worth I certainly haven’t bet in more races despite the opportunities ostensibly increasing. IMO they don’t increase anyway; more a case of the races interesting me forming an ever-smaller percentage of the whole, though that small percentage is quite adequate and number-wise comprises pretty much the same as it did last year, the year before that, the year before…etc etc. Same number of nuggets mined but a bigger spoil heap
From a personal/selfish point of view, I’m one of the few that actually prefers a day out at Plumpton to Cheltenham, and I find it much easier to find "value" in a 0-90 than I do a grade 1 where there is a lot more interest and less hidden "clues". Not only that less racing could mean the closing of some of the smaller tracks, a thought that horrifies me.
Well I too prefer gaff betting and would be sorry if some closed if the fixture list were to be culled; but would they? The Plumpton’s and Catterick’s seemed to struggle on okay when we had a manageable calendar didn’t they?
As mentioned, it may be the case that many turf tracks are over-used anyway if quality of racing surface is considered important, which it should be
Drone
I think the general argument is that if you reduce the amount of racing, certainly using the current system you will reduce the amount of money received, less races for punters to bet on, less bookmaker turnover/profit, less levy, and that does seem to make sense, so I’m not sure reducing the amount of racing will make things any better in that sense. Even if you cut the fixture list by say 20% and somehow the levy didn’t decrease, your still racing for the same amount of money aren’t you, just in more competitive races.
From a personal/selfish point of view, I’m one of the few that actually prefers a day out at Plumpton to Cheltenham, and I find it much easier to find "value" in a 0-90 than I do a grade 1 where there is a lot more interest and less hidden "clues". Not only that less racing could mean the closing of some of the smaller tracks, a thought that horrifies me.
That’s a very valid point. Less racing means less levy payments which mean less racing and so on in a vicious circle. That may be counteracted, though, by TV rights payments that are linked to the number of runners so that reducing the fixture list to produce maximum fields more often may keep the TV rights up although the levy will go down.
All in all a difficult balancing act and one which gives another incentive to move away from the current levy-based system.
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There is no evidence whatsoever to support such a claim, Robert. In fact, the opposite may be true.
Consider the National Lottery. When confined to a solitary Saturday draw, the Lotto (as it is now) jackpot was regularly in excess of £10m. With the emergence of a second, midweek draw, the combined jackpot is generally significantly less (£7.6m last week).
I tend to bet in much lower amounts the more racing there is for the simple reason that I don’t have the time to work my way through so many cards; bank holidays are a nightmare and I’ve taken to ignoring races at smaller tracks completely. But even if I do manage to disect 3, 4, 5 or even 6 cards in one night, I’m ultimately less inclined to bet because I inevitably make more selections. And I can’t cover them all.
Hi Drone/Armchair
I can’t claim to have all the facts and figures in front of me, but I did listen to a discussion on ATR the other day, when someone did mention that the fixture list should be culled and Sean Boyce did read out some statistics that seemed to show that the Levy did indeed go up several years ago when a lot more meetings were introduced (sundays/twilight etc)and has only fallen away in the last couple of years. Now obviously that could be for various reasons.
I completely understand the point(s) you both make, and I don’t suggest that there is a correct answer. You may well be right that whether there are 2 meetings a day or 3, the average punter will spend the same on the racing product. I would argue that if there were only 2, his choice is more limited and as a lot of punters aren’t just interested in racing, a more limited choice could mean he/she spends less on racing and more on football or whatever else.
As I said previously even if you cut the number of races by say 20% and had the same amount of levy contributions coming in, all your doing in theory is having less races worth a bit more, but the overall amount for the year is still the same, I’m not sure cutting the fixture list is worth it for that reason alone.
Unfortunately I’ve yet to come up with a solution to increasing prize money and retaining the current fixture list. I wonder if the Mp’s will……………………….hmmm
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