- This topic has 78 replies, 25 voices, and was last updated 14 years, 10 months ago by
.
- Posts
Kingfisher,
Where were you two years ago?
The Eider Chase that has got you all fired up was run in 9m 30.9 secs.
The Eider Chase of 2009 (2010 abandoned) was also run on heavy ground, they jumped 24 fences, 5 of 13 starters completed the course and the winners time was 9m 27.3 secs.
Can’t find any record of complaints after that race, either on here or in the media generally.
AP
AP, i dont recall Merigo stopping after 4m 1f that day on heavy ground, he certainly didn"t jump the last as though he was stood still,had Companero and Giles Cross jumped the same amount of fences as Merigo,(3 more)then i doubt they would have completed and if they did it would have broken 10 minutes to finish the race which suggests even further the race should have been abandoned imo of course.By the way i cant remember where i was 2 yrs ago but i remember going to Newcastle 14yrs ago to back Scotton Banks!
or was it Seven Towers?? Seans worn me out! 
Just to get it into perspective, though, the winner grossed £19,530.00.
The average UK annual wage is currently estimated to be £23,450 (according to http://www.mysalary.co.uk/averagesalary.php) so for most people £19,530 is a very substantial amount of money indeed.
Not sure what relevance wages have to prize money but training fees for a year will be more than a years average salary. As the race was worth considerably more in recent seasons I would not call Saturdays race valuable.
Similarly if the Derby, Ebor or Grand National etc were reduced to 70 grand I would not call them valuable races, you and others may disagree and may still consider they are valuable as they are 3 times average earnings and there’s nothing wrong with that.Pinza wrote
"Where is your evidence to demonstrate that the spectacle of either the 2009 or this year’s renewal of a race which is always a gruelling test is contributing to this (debatable) "steady decline"?See REL-related extract below regarding the debatability of decline.
I have no evidence regarding the effect of Saturday’s spectacle. I have an opinion which I believe is quite widely shared (though , if you are still demanding figures for that, I cannot canvass every potential racegoer).
My opinion is that, assuming you are a normal human being with emotions, if you were considering going racing and decided to watch Saturday’s Eider to see what racing was like, you’d be somewhat discouraged and would probably reconsider and spend your leisure money elsewhere.
"Presumably you’d take out the Grand National for the same reasons?"
No I wouldn’t. Even in Red Marauder’s year, I don’t recall the finishers clambering through the last – a fence considerably more daunting than Newcastle’s.
What I would change in the GN are the frequent slowmo replays of horses taking falls – spectacular tumbles in many cases. That does racing’s image a serious disservice in my view.
"And how do you quantify this "market" in which racing has a "share"?"
The betting market which provides the Levy and the leisure market in which racecourses compete for customers.
"Unless you can put firm figures on all these things, you can only be said to be talking from your own feelings and perceptions. Until you share the figures with us, there’s not a shred of evidence to back your assertion."
I’d have thought that most human beings express themselves based on feelings and perceptions, especially in matters like this. If you are saying that without a ream of spreadsheets to back things up I should keep my thoughts to myself then you’d best ignore my posts in future.
……………………..REL-related extract
When British horse-racing started to lose market share, Racing Enterprises Ltd (REL), the commercial arm of British Horse Racing decided in June 2008, the business side of the sport was in dire need of reinvigoration.
The writing on the wall was unequivocal:
betting turnover on horse-racing declined as a percentage of total betting (25 years ago betting on horse-racing accounted for around 80% of bookmakers’ business; today it accounts for considerably less than 50%)
betting volume plateaued in the last two years
the value of picture rights purchased by terrestrial TV channels diminished
racing now had to pay Channel 4 for its Saturday afternoon broadcast slots
the BBC reduced its coverage of the sport and there was a general reduction of horse-racing coverage in other media.
Even though the overall sports-betting market had grown, with online betting, football and particularly online poker appearing to be the main beneficiaries, people appeared to be losing interest in betting on horses. But what could be done?Reviewing the situation
Firstly, Racing Enterprises Ltd commissioned a rigorous review of the situation in an attempt to identify how horse-racing was perceived amongst internal industry stakeholders (eg racecourses, owners, trainers, jockeys, bookmakers) and external markets (eg punters, regular race-goers, and ‘occasional’ race-goers). Consumer focus groups, stakeholder interviews and brand workshops were held up and down the country between October 2008 and April 2009.This investigation confirmed what insiders had suspected: horse-racing had lost relevance and no longer appealed to people in the way that it used to, other than hardcore punters. The market was not renewing itself, with successive generations taking little interest. It was in decline and the competition was growing from ‘sexier’ sports, such as football and online poker
- Total Posts 102
What do people on here think the time would have been in the race had the proper number of fences been negotiated??, or maybe none of them would have got round the course.
Its been a rank running surface for ages, either a Golden Highway near the stand rail unless he does a bit of selective watering each side which then he tries to eradicate by putting the stalls all over the place which in turn sees then forming a arrowhead up the centre of the course
Dig it up
2 finishers? I could have greatly enjoyed the race with more comp-
But Heck I see the BHA trying over the Amerikans Etc–
Racing counters its own claims about decline/popularity almost on a monthly basis. It was not long ago the RCA were boasting about wonderful attendance figures…… they weren’t wonderful, but that’s not the point.
As REL have been mentioned, I don’t want it to be ignored that they were behind the McCoy Sports Personality Of The Year campaign, which was based around him winning the most extreme race in Britain. If any race can do damage to this sport that is the one, and that is what was sold to the public by REL. It is a fact the biggest race in this country is also the one with the most questionable public image.
With the Eider Chase, the only thing I can think the BHA can do is put a message out (either officially or unofficially) about what is an acceptable going-stick reading for such races. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of room for manoeuvre unless they’re willing to go near the Grand National as well.
The BHA
is
looking into events at Newcastle and announced its intention to do so within hours. Racing has an excellent track record of addressing such issues if the need arises.
The point is that it will be looked at (one would hope) calmly and coolly and there will be no kneejerk reaction. If the sport wants to issue clearer guidelines to clerks regarding minimum stick readings per mile run etc that would be fine as far as I’m concerned (although I would have thought impossible to do given the very wide divergence of going stick readings on different soil types). At the moment that judgement is left to the clerks and the jockeys’ safety reps and the trainers and owners on the ground. That’s also fine with me as I consider that group of people well qualified to make such a call.
What we have to be very careful about is opinion dressing itself up as fact. We have to be even more careful of acting on ‘appearances’ and ‘perceptions’ that we have no evidence of. Jose questions the public appetite for the National. Curious given it’s audience is greater than any other race by a factor of several and that McCoy’s victory in it did not prevent him winning SPOTY with one of the biggest votes ever seen.
We need to stop jumping at shadows and half guessing what people with no interest in the sport might or might not make of events. We need to be calm and rigorous in analysis of such events, acting if necessary but having the courage to stand our ground when it is not necessary. Too many people are scared to stand up for what the sport is genuinely about for fear of being cast as callous or unfeeling. That is, in my very humble opinion, dangerous nonsense and such moral spinelessness will prove costly in the long run.
The fact that it ‘looked’ like Saddam had WMD and that most peoples ‘perception’ was that he did didn’t make it true.Hardly an apt comparison, Sean.
We could not ‘see’ whether Saddam had WMD, our opinion was formed by spin.
What happens in the Grand National and what happened at Newcastle on Saturday was there for everyone to see.
Colin
Having been on the receiving end of Seans Wrath on both here and ATR yesterday,i have to take my hat off to him for his passionate defence of the events surrounding Saturdays Eider Chase,a defence Lawyer in the making for sure.Acting on behalf of the prosecution,so to speak, my opinion is quite simply the end of that particular race and the fact that it was over 4m 1f in bottomless ground did not look good to the eye,that is not how i beleive horses should finish races,there is also the fact that punters who backed those 10 that were pulled up could ask did they actually get a fair return for their money on this occassion of unusual circumstances? Its good to see the BHA are looking into things here as i still firmly believe the meeting should never have taken place and all because 4 mile races are so few and far between that the powers that be failed to recognise the extra demands those Eider contenders were dealt.Comply and Die has won this race in the past aswell as the toughest race in the world and he stopped like a shot horse on Saturday that in itself is visual evidence to support why i believe it was wrong to run it.I rest my case m"lud!
Sean, a fair point that we cannot guess at the reaction of the general public – perhaps some of RFC’s money would be better spent researching views of new and potential racegoers into horse welfare?
My suspicion is that if such a substantial number of diehard fans are up-in-arms over the Eider, the public are unlikely to feel sanguine if shown the footage.
Jose questions the public appetite for the National. Curious given it’s audience is greater than any other race by a factor of several and that McCoy’s victory in it did not prevent him winning SPOTY with one of the biggest votes ever seen.
I didn’t question the public appetite for the race, as such.
The last sentence about it having the most questionable public image is fair, if only for the fact it generates more animal rights articles in a week than racing gets in a year.
I did question how anyone can think the Eider Chase has the potential to damage the sport when the biggest race in Britain is about making Horse Racing as extreme as possible – bigger fences, longest race. I also pointed out NH racing’s champion jockey had a campaign for an award that was based around winning that race. And, without wishing to go into perceptions again, some of those ‘extremes’ must make the race attractive to the casual viewer.
I don’t deny I have concerns about why that is the race we sell to the public and why the public responds so well to the race compared to every other race, but that would be perception based.
I also find it hard to believe the BHA can do much going forwards with the Eider Chase because they’re not going to come to the conclusion 4m chases need ‘banning.’
- Total Posts 17716
Going by some peoples comments in this thread then by all accounts this is what we need to see in order to uncover the depths of a horses stamina reserves.
If Campenero can run 3miles+ safely on that ground then what’s to say he can’t run 6miles on perfect ground, why do we have to stop at 4 and a half miles? plenty of National winners have run on strongly towards the finish, if we want to find a true stamina test then I can’t see why those who enjoyed last weeks Edier chase wont support races up to 6 miles and racecourses to water heavily to get bottomless ground.
Thought not……….
- Total Posts 17716
Steeplechasing
: thank you for your reasoned reply.
Decline.
The REL is talking about "decline" from its own narrow perspective. We know that the betting market is diversified, and that the total "pie" is now much bigger. We also know that worldwide more people are betting on British horseracing than ever before – the problem is that British horseracing is not able to cash in on this through its Levy.
That is the frustration – we are not looking at an industry in decline (other indicators such as racecourse revenues tell another story), but we are looking at a decline in the Sport’s revenue from the Levy, which is not quite the same thing.
Red Marauder.
Your memories of that particular gladiatorial slog are far more rosy than my own. I recall rather a lot of clambering, and the feeling that nothing might get round at all! It’s subjective, and you’ve not offered evidence that the Eider has suddenly become different in kind to the National, thus meriting reduction in distance.
Feelings and Perception.
Of course you are right. But to describe Saturday’s race as
"exhaustion pornography"
(as you did) is to propagandise emotion in a way which is not justified unless you can back it up objectively. The Eider was not
pornographic
in any acceptable sense of the word. Your metaphor was emotive, intended to shock and nudge the reader. It nudged me in the opposite direction, so do not be surprised if I’ve queried the quasi-objective tone of the remainder of your original post!
- Total Posts 17716
Sean, a fair point that we cannot guess at the reaction of the general public – perhaps some of RFC’s money would be better spent researching views of new and potential racegoers into horse welfare?
Quite right. One thing which did emerge from the recent
"horseracingdeservesbetter"
campaign was that much of the claimed "research" and "canvassing" on which RFC had based their arguments for shifting the Champion Stakes never happened at all.
But it won’t happen, because professional polling (as with the BHA’s own Deloitte Report on their case for increasing the Levy) would probably reveal now much unsubstantiated surmise the BHA and RFC had been spouting.
The General Public adores the Grand National, judging from the hard viewer figures world wide. Most racing fans prefer long races to short ones, and would not like the distance of the Eider reduced.
That’s why policy changes dictated by tiny but vociferous and committed pressure groups are as fatal to the interest of a sport as they are to the country as a whole.
I’ve felt like walking away from NH racing several times this season because I’ve lost horses that were very dear to me, and I’d all but come to the end of my tether. For some reason, the Eider was not another nail in the coffin, for me, at least. But, what I have realised, is that people within the sport are now saying and thinking what they should say, not neccessarily what they really think and feel. I think the sport is imploding from within, and I shall have to endeavour to wean myself away from it. Or, maybe it has always been a horribly cruel sport and I hadn’t realised it..Red Rum beating the exhausted, weight carrying Crisp [who should have been pulled up on the run in] was not one of the greatest races of all time, but something of callous cruelty? Maybe we’re never going to look at racing in the same way again.
I have a serious concern that the animal rights people won’t need to campaign for the National to be abolished, won’t need to even suggest that races shouldn’t take place over marathon distances or over heavy ground… people in racing and fans of racing are going to talk themselves into it.
Nine times out of ten, that meeting would’ve been called off. Concentrate on the idea that the BHA need to follow a consistent procedure, if for no other reason than for the purposes of not messing people around.
Don’t talk yourselves into the sport’s demise.
Come to think of it, there seems to be alot of people talking themselves into the idea that racing is doomed. And it needs to stop.
Come to think of it, there seems to be alot of people talking themselves into the idea that racing is doomed. And it needs to stop.
Agreed, Anthony. There are four or five posters on here who really should pack it in. Tonight. They’ve not necessarily posted on this thread either. They have an agenda and they are here for a reason.
For some reason, the Eider was not another nail in the coffin, for me, at least.
Moe, pull yourself together. The horses were tired. They ate up the next day and they are fine now. Don’t let the neggoes get to you.
or was it Seven Towers?? Seans worn me out! 
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.