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You cant have a Tote monopoly, its not allowed any more.
Racing getting a larger share of the money bet on it through an ultra competitive Tote.
Nobody learned any lessons from nationalised industry? Seriously, a tote monopoly is a bad idea. Conceptually it’s great but the reality would be different. Competition is good for the soul as well as the markets. Exchange betting will takeover horse racing soon anyway and at that point BF will start to see some competition as the authorities would never allow a private monopoly.
My big idea for racing is quite simple, as it’s 2010, behave like a sport from 2010. Entertain people. The real lovers of the sport, like myself, will continue to follow it. If you have to lose a few to gain many is not the end of the world either.
Grasshopper has it!
Betfair has shown the way.
A NATIONAL BETTING EXCHANGE (run, if it’s up to it, by the racing industry) with outlets on high streets with internet terminals ~ the betting shops could be converted!
Colin
Hang on guys, surley it’s only the people already interested in racing that want the tote/bookmaker system changed. Racing needs new viewers, more people tuning in on a Saturday to follow the narative of the season. Televised racing is essential, and that will only be achieved by adding interest to the format (see darts and snooker). The image of smoky betting shops and insider knowledge still haunts the industry and as the old generation of punter dies out they need to be replaced. The scoop 6 can be marketed as a ‘fun to follow’ lottery ticket type bet with smaller dividends paying out at 4 and 5 winners. A trainer/jockey grand prix can be run with 16 jockeys rotating the ride on 16 horses trained by different trainers. To interest ppl you need them to feel involved so personalizing trainers and jockeys in a boxing style clash, advertised on the tv channel periodically should get sports fans to identify with the personalities and indeed the horses atop the sport. The funding required to launch the venture should come from a sponsored tote with the main target being to massively promote the Saturday scoop6 and placepot pools.
The Tote ditches its current operating model, and moves to an exchange model with an across the board 1% deduction/commission rate.
Long been an advocate of a Tote Exchange so in full agreement. Hardly given much thought to it but a flat 3% commish is the deduction that springs to mind – being both fair and undercutting that which the majority pay elsewhere
It’s been done to death on this forum by Glenn, Grasshopper, Robert99, myself and others but once again:
the weighing of horses on-course pre-race
Abandon the Levy as a means of funding.
There is no other way to escape the grip that the bookmakers currently have on the sport. In the short term, it would plainly cause a major funding problem, but racing managed perfectly well without any income from bookies for a couple of hundred years, and back then there was no sponsorship, no corporate entertaining and hardly any alternative uses for the land ocupied by the racecourses.
Funding options include some of the ideas already mentioned via the Tote, a return to entry fees being added to prize money, not absorbed by the tracks and a much greater income from sponsorship. Currently racing generates less sponsorship in total each year than the shirt deals for one Premiership club.
If Racing For Change had an objective (if it does, it’s passed me by), then doubling or tripling our sponsorship income should be top of the list.
Breaking the umbilical cord that ties us to the bookies is the only thing that would enable the sport to return to square one and start again. Anything else is moving the deckchairs ……..
AP
The Tote ditches its current operating model, and moves to an exchange model with an across the board 1% deduction/commission rate.
Long been an advocate of a Tote Exchange so in full agreement. Hardly given much thought to it but a flat 3% commish is the deduction that springs to mind – being both fair and undercutting that which the majority pay elsewhere
It’s been done to death on this forum by Glenn, Grasshopper, Robert99, myself and others but once again:
the weighing of horses on-course pre-race
So the weighing of horses pre race will have Joe Public watching in droves will it? Ive encountered a lot of this thinking and the key word here is CHANGE. Punters already indoctrinated in the sport will not be the ones to ask how to achieve this.
Perhaps this thread isnt focused on the attraction of new ‘consumers’ to the sport, I was thinking along those lines.
The image of smoky betting shops and insider knowledge still haunts the industry and as the old generation of punter dies out they need to be replaced.
Your words
the weighing of horses on-course pre-race
My words
Mutually inclusive words IMO
The sending of racehorses to the track in, shall we say, various states of fitness is one area where all but the most experienced horse-watchers – or those with "insider knowledge" – are denied the full facts and truth. And one that is easily rectified with either weighbridges at every course or by the use of portable weighbridges moved around the country a la starting stalls
Many (most?) trainers weigh their horses at home – why?
The more withheld quantifiable information that is divulged to the public the better: one day the old shady lady may be wholly stripped of her fustian burqa…one day
Make pony racing compulsory at all schools and have outside school youth pony racing clubs which race against each other.
Like football and cricket young kids will be more interested in the sport if they can have a go at it themselves.
Blackbeard to conquer the World
The image of smoky betting shops and insider knowledge still haunts the industry and as the old generation of punter dies out they need to be replaced.
Your words
the weighing of horses on-course pre-race
My words
Mutually inclusive words IMO
The sending of racehorses to the track in, shall we say, various states of fitness is one area where all but the most experienced horse-watchers – or those with "insider knowledge" – are denied the full facts and truth. And one that is easily rectified with either weighbridges at every course or by the use of portable weighbridges moved around the country a la starting stalls
Many (most?) trainers weigh their horses at home – why?
The more withheld quantifiable information that is divulged to the public the better: one day the old shady lady may be wholly stripped of her fustian burqa…one day
I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment but isnt it just low grade races where the bulk of the plotting and shady activitites manifest? Surely as a punter you have the choice to avoid punting a monday AW meet or the 2:15 at Kelso? Indeed as a punter able to recognise the possibilities hitherto described cant you build the likelyhood into your tissue even?
The level of diligence to transparency within the sport will increase in line with the level of scrutiny that goes hand in hand with increased popularity and commercial interest. In other words chicken and egg. My belief is the sport needs to start by broadening its appeal in bite sized consumer sized nuggets of competition. The plethera of shite racing day in and day out is a struggle for the most passionate fan to wade through so using saturdays as a ‘premier league’ racing day will give us a start. Let the trainers keep the midweek racing to training programmes within the bigger narrative, avid punters can take them or leave them.
I agree with your suggestion Drone I just believe there’s a bigger picture to address first.If Paul Nicholls post-Aon comments along the lines of "He really needed it" or "You don’t care if they win their trials (sic)" are anything to go by, questionable race fitness is by no means restricted to the lower echelons of racing.
Weighing of horses will improve integrity. Improved integrity will reduce the perception of the game being moody, shady or bent. That might incline more punters to bet on it, thereby incerasing revenue, thereby incerasing the fiscal health of the sport.
The technology exists to weigh horses at the track, and the technology exists to communicate the weights – both at the track, and via bookmakers screens throughout the country.
It is an absolute no-brainer.
Dont you agree that to the uninterested public horse racing is, in the first instance, just boring?
All they see is a bunch of horses running around in a circle. These same people see gambling on horses a one way street to the poorhouse, to alcoholic fathers and shuffling old men. When racing used to be on terrestrial TV more do you think its poor viewing figures were because it was shady and underhand, or just boring?
In the words of the great Billy Flynn, "Give ’em the old razzle dazzle, razzle dazzle ’em……"
It’s a transition many parlour sports are coming to terms with and they don’t like it much either. But its necessary. Racing only exists now because the bookmakers enable it. Put the power back into the hands of the governing body by creating DEMAND for the sport.
Reform the sport, then the transparancy must follow.
It’s been done to death on this forum by Glenn, Grasshopper, Robert99, myself and others but once again:
the weighing of horses on-course pre-race
Totally impractical and not a hope in hell of getting streams and streams of horses weights throughout the afternoon from anywhere, you’re lucky if you get jockey changes and overweights as it is.
How long does it take to weigh one horse on a weighbridge? About one minute tops, I’d suggest. In what way, therefore, is it impractical?
It is effortlessly easy to find a minute in the day. Ringing the "Jockeys to mount" bell one minute later, or extending the time between races by 60 seconds, would make sufficient time to accomodate weighing of horses.
If it is impractical, how do they manage it in the Far East? Wizardry?
Grasshopper,
Why would any bookmakers want their screens cluttered up with such information? So punter Joe can say to punter Tom "I see number 3 in The Eider is 5 kilos lighter than his last run and number 18 is 10 kilos heavier"
Tom replies "What does it mean Joe"?
"I don’t know" says Joe.Do they have as many meetings, runners, big fields of novice hurdlers etc in the far east?
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