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racegoers shouting their fancy home in the Grandstand. Then jumping up and down and hugging each other.
It is not how I celebrate, but if it brings people (particularly the young) through the gates, why not?
If you were in sight at Goodwood when
Toronado
won Ginge, I might of even gave you a kiss to go with the hugging.
If there was any possibility of that happening Nathan, I would’ve definitely been shouting for
Dawn Approach!
Value Is EverythingPeople who are interested in racing, but don’t bet on it are just WEIRD. It’s like going to a football match and cheering on The Draw or the referee.
I’ve known several racing pals over the years who were not interested in betting Ian. As Paul says, it is not necessary for some people to bet to enjoy racing. I myself as a child was interested in racing/horses before betting.
Though some people can not enjoy themselves without having a bet, just as some need a pint in their hand.
Value Is EverythingSadly the title of this thread sums it up.Horse Racing is either in the blood or merely a once/twice yearly social ocassion.Those of us with adrenalin coursing our veins dont require the need for Drugs to get us through the day as we get our fix from backing a winner and if there’s an ignition source to attracting new blood its that and there lies the problem as Horse racing has exactly the same stigma attached to it as Mental Illness,everyones labelled.If Horse racing is the syringe then the drug being injected from it is the Gambling and in a society that sees younger and younger addicts,Horse racing and the den of inequity that allows the vulnerables free access to FOBT’s is like a magnet. ‘Problem Gambling’ is far likelier to occur in the younger inexperiencd generation than those who have used lifes ups and downs to shape their thinking and how they conduct themselves.Alcohol and Friday night fighting sits comfortably with those whos confidence has been influenced by the Amber Nectar just like the Gambler who backed a Fav and Won,the false sense of ‘security’ comes from both.Because Horse racing has the ‘Addicted Gambler’ label attached to it like a Black Label stuck to a Whiskey bottle sporting Johnny Walkers Silks and the constant ‘Non Trier’ label thrown in for good measure its no surprise that the general public have reservations about getting seriously involved.Add the fact that to take this ‘Game’ seriously involves Calculators the size of a Laptop and the storage of a suitcase to file form/trends/stats and odds, its no wonder only the minority bother.I’m pleased to be in that minority but celebrate a well supported meeting and appreciate the sponsers who all contribute to this great sport of ours……….If only those that ruled this sport could referee it better than the poor sods that get ridiculed at Old Trafford each week and Trainers didn’t constantly use the Racecourse as a training ground for one big pay day then Joe Public wouldn’t seem so cynical about the Holy Mountain known as ‘Mount Athos!!
People who are interested in racing, but don’t bet on it are just WEIRD. It’s like going to a football match and cheering on The Draw or the referee.
I’ve known several racing pals over the years who were not interested in betting Ian.
Exactly, you just made his point for him.
Good post Gord.
…If only those that ruled this sport could referee it better than the poor sods that get ridiculed at Old Trafford each week and Trainers didn’t constantly use the Racecourse as a training ground for one big pay day then Joe Public wouldn’t seem so cynical about the Holy Mountain known as ‘Mount Athos!!
Although… Many punters love something to moan about/blame. Also loving the thought of spotting one that’s been "laid out" for a particular race, whether there is something in their cynicism or not.
Value Is EverythingPeople who are interested in racing, but don’t bet on it are just WEIRD. It’s like going to a football match and cheering on The Draw or the referee.
I’ve known several racing pals over the years who were not interested in betting Ian.
Exactly, you just made his point for him.
You calling me and my pals "Weird" Indocine?
Value Is EverythingI’ve known several racing pals over the years who were not interested in betting Ian.
Exactly, you just made his point for him.
You calling me and my pals "Weird" Indocine?
Nope, it was the fact you could only recall several.
The other thing that worried me at Newmarket was the average age of the crowd. I would say it was well above 50. So I think we DO need to keep trying to attract people to the sport whilst accepting that for most it will be just be a case of either taking to it or not.
Given that racing – uniquely – is staged seven days a week, nearly 365 days a year it is, evenings and weekends apart, little surprise the majority of attendees are of a certain or older age
Did these 50+ somethings only discover racing at that age or did they like this 50+ something find it during their youth but were only able to race regularly once wage slavery was out of the way, mortgages paid and family flown the nest?
Given that 50 is the new 30 (sorry about that
) and that those into and past their sixth decade will for sometime to come be the generations with the most disposable cash it seems eminently sensible to cater for their interests; which in our little world is theRACING
and the
BETTING
without the superficial and largely annoying frills that our glorious sport’s marketeers have seen fit to infect it with, as apparently youth is the first, last and everything
The drip, drip of youngsters smitten by racing at an early age and following it lifelong will continue though the drip may become less frequent as the age-old relationship between man and horse becomes an increasingly distant memory and the very acquired taste of racing horses becomes ever stranger
You mention the resurgence of cycling and the popularity of darts and golf: due in no small part to the fact that everyone can relate to these and pretend to be Wiggo, The Power and Rory when on a bike, chucking a dart or swinging a golf club. Who can get aboard horses at a weekend and pretend to be Frankie other than those who’ve purposely decided to have lessons at an (expensive) riding school?
Lastly, racing will never shake off its shady image due to its intricate and intertwined relationship with betting; and will therefore never be a sport that will be encouraged: ‘Do you follow football/cricket/cycling/golf/darts’ young man ‘no I follow horse racing’…silence with a vague sneer
You either love the dissolute, closeted-from-the-real world atmosphere generated by racing and it’s siamese twin betting, or you don’t: few ‘quite like’ or ‘can take or leave’ them, I reckon
As regards Betlarge’s original point, bringing in new punting blood, you could pokerise The Game. Put gamblers & bookies centre stage and make them the stars of the show. Having Racing/Horsemen reduced to a fringe sideshow has a certain appeal. Might even resurrect The Ring too, lol. (I should add this is not a serious suggestion.)
Is the problem attracting new punters or new racegoers?
If the latter, then perhaps there isn’t a problem. The 3 tracks I frequented most in my youth all get much higher attendances nowadays. That’s good for the courses, but the increase is probably down to more boozy / stag & hen party / corporate-bash types going, rather than the dyed-in-the-wool racegoer of yore, who liked a bet and read theSporting Chronicle or Life
. Today, most of the crowd are as likely to buy
Nuts
or
Loaded
as a racing paper.
I seldom go racing nowadays.
Racing for me has lost its’ – for want of a better word – "charm". I used to love studying the runners in the pre-parade ring and doing battle in the ring to get the optimum price. Now though, the discomfort of the boozy, chavvy crowd is too much of a turn-off.
However, as todays’ youngsters have never experienced that charm, they won’t miss it. A fraction of those on a boozy trip will get hooked on the racing/form/betting side of things. Perhaps they will be enough to keep the show going.
Advertising top class races on TV might help to stimulate interest in the sport. Similarly, making sure that those top-class events are spread around the country might help too. The S-E "golden-triangle" of UK flat racing is an historical anomlay that needs redressing. I’ll believe the powers that be are serious about boosting the sports popularity when they have the nuts to shift some Group 1s away from the South East. I won’t hold my breath.Of course there are places where boozy crowds put you off going racing Insomniac. But in my experience there are quiet spots at every racecourse. It’s still possible to go from pre-parade ring to parade ring to betting ring to Grandstand to pre-parade ring – without being over-run by the boozy youf… even on major race days.
Unless of course it’s the drunken Northerner that’s causing the problem in your area Insomniac.
Value Is EverythingSimilarly, making sure that those top-class events are spread around the country might help too. The S-E "golden-triangle" of UK flat racing is an historical anomlay that needs redressing. I’ll believe the powers that be are serious about boosting the sports popularity when they have the nuts to shift some Group 1s away from the South East. I won’t hold my breath.
That’s a bit "down-trodden Northerner" for you Insomniac.
What about jump racing?
Cheltenham and Aintree the best two festivals, neither is in the "South-East".
May be the Grand National should be moved around the country, just to be fair on the population?Value Is EverythingGiven that racing – uniquely – is staged seven days a week, nearly 365 days a year it is, evenings and weekends apart, little surprise the majority of attendees are of a certain or older age
Did these 50+ somethings only discover racing at that age or did they like this 50+ something find it during their youth but were only able to race regularly once wage slavery was out of the way, mortgages paid and family flown the nest?
Given that 50 is the new 30 (sorry about that
) and that those into and past their sixth decade will for sometime to come be the generations with the most disposable cash it seems eminently sensible to cater for their interests; which in our little world is theRACING
and the
BETTING
without the superficial and largely annoying frills that our glorious sport’s marketeers have seen fit to infect it with, as apparently youth is the first, last and everything
The drip, drip of youngsters smitten by racing at an early age and following it lifelong will continue though the drip may become less frequent as the age-old relationship between man and horse becomes an increasingly distant memory and the very acquired taste of racing horses becomes ever stranger
You mention the resurgence of cycling and the popularity of darts and golf: due in no small part to the fact that everyone can relate to these and pretend to be Wiggo, The Power and Rory when on a bike, chucking a dart or swinging a golf club. Who can get aboard horses at a weekend and pretend to be Frankie other than those who’ve purposely decided to have lessons at an (expensive) riding school?
Lastly, racing will never shake off its shady image due to its intricate and intertwined relationship with betting; and will therefore never be a sport that will be encouraged: ‘Do you follow football/cricket/cycling/golf/darts’ young man ‘no I follow horse racing’…silence with a vague sneer
You either love the dissolute, closeted-from-the-real world atmosphere generated by racing and it’s siamese twin betting, or you don’t: few ‘quite like’ or ‘can take or leave’ them, I reckon
I wasn’t knocking the older generation Drone but just disappointed how few youngsters were around considering we are in the school holidays. I didn’t think Newmarket did much to cater for anyone other than their normal midweek clientèle. As I said there was nothing laid on for kids. If you take your kids to the cricket these days they can have their faces painted, play with the teams mascots, jump on bouncy castles etc. When I visited my parents in France this summer we went to Pompador races. There the children could dress like a jockey and ride a donkey, take a trip on a horse drawn cart, have a turn on a merry-go-round. The kids had a ball and mixed with the animals. Perhaps Newmarket would have been different if it had been the weekend or an evening meeting but I did think it was a shame.
I’m also not sure it is just a matter of being able to do the sport yourself. We have always been able to cycle but cycling as a sport hasn’t always been popular. The same with darts. Golf is hardly a working class sport. Something has happened to make these sports more popular. On the other end of the scale look at the decline in snooker and boxing over the years. Good marketing surely plays a part.
It might just be me but nobody has ever sneered at me for liking racing – not to my face anyway – so I didn’t quite get your last point about the shady image. It doesn’t really go with your other point about people not liking it because it is too expensive to ride a horse. It is a sport often attended by lords and ladies, princes and princesses, kings and queens. That’s what I love about it – when you go racing you meet all sorts.
"this perfect mix of poetry and destruction, this glory of rhythm, power and majesty: the undisputed champion of the world!!!"
Historically, the people who put most money into racing – everyday betting shop punters – were highly unlikely to visit a racecourse. I worked in betting shops right through the seventies, into mid eighties and I’d be fairly confident that 80% of punters had never been racing and had no inclination to go.
For the diehard shop punter, without an online account, I doubt that figure has changed much.
During that same fifteen-year period, 90% of tracks depended on the Levy for survival (I’d guess that’s closer to 50% today).
So 90% of businesses at racing’s core depended on funding from a group of people, the vast majority of whom had no interest in patronising that business. I don’t know if there is an appropriate analogy for other business models…I cannot think of one.
The problem racing has, imo, is that it does not know what it is selling. Other than operating as a device for betting, what is racing’s product? I worked in it for quite a long time – in marketing, and I couldn’t give you an answer (that might say more about me, than about the sport!)
Does anyone know what racing’s product is? If you don’t know what you’re selling, how do you market it?
Mike is spot-on; what’s needed to keep racing alive is betting turnover, not bums on seats. But the scrabble over the past few years among tracks for media rights cash, the introduction of the Gambling Commission (fees), this government declaration of point-of-consumption tax, the ongoing Levy, all are putting massive, possibly unsustainable pressure on horseracing betting margins for bookies.
Is it any wonder the big bookmakers are trying to shift customers to Football, Virtual racing, FOBTs where margins are much better? For all racing’s boasts of packed tracks, and big investment in facilities, they don’t seem to realise that they are committing a long slow suicide because they’re making their real product – betting – too expensive for their distributors.
The CEOs of Hills and Ladbrokes et al, would, of course, mourn in public should racing eventually strangle itself. And, from a personal viewpoint, there would be genuine sorrow in most of these guys – Ralph Topping (Hills boss) for one – a real racing lover. But as businessmen, they’d be high-fiving for a week in the boardrooms.
The RCA these days is useless. The BHA is really nothing but a regulator, and every track is out for its piece of the pie. Short termism from pretty much every facet of a sport which is now divided to the point of fragmentation.
If a strong trade body could pull all the tracks back together to act as one force, racing might still have a chance. The core objective should be to make racing’s betting product the most profitable item for bookmakers, rather than the least. The real money lies in a long term healthy betting product – as it has always done. Without adequate levy, what use will pop concerts be? Madness, right enough.
Is the problem attracting new punters or new racegoers?
If the latter, then perhaps there isn’t a problem. The 3 tracks I frequented most in my youth all get much higher attendances nowadays. That’s good for the courses, but the increase is probably down to more boozy / stag & hen party / corporate-bash types going, rather than the dyed-in-the-wool racegoer of yore, who liked a bet and read theSporting Chronicle or Life
. Today, most of the crowd are as likely to buy
Nuts
or
Loaded
as a racing paper.
I seldom go racing nowadays.
Racing for me has lost its’ – for want of a better word – "charm". I used to love studying the runners in the pre-parade ring and doing battle in the ring to get the optimum price. Now though, the discomfort of the boozy, chavvy crowd is too much of a turn-off.
However, as todays’ youngsters have never experienced that charm, they won’t miss it. A fraction of those on a boozy trip will get hooked on the racing/form/betting side of things. Perhaps they will be enough to keep the show going.
Advertising top class races on TV might help to stimulate interest in the sport. Similarly, making sure that those top-class events are spread around the country might help too. The S-E "golden-triangle" of UK flat racing is an historical anomlay that needs redressing. I’ll believe the powers that be are serious about boosting the sports popularity when they have the nuts to shift some Group 1s away from the South East. I won’t hold my breath.Is the problem attracting new punters or new racegoers?
Thats a valid question insomniac,in my experience the majority of ‘Punters’ are the stay at home sort who frequent their local 2 or 3 Bookmakers in their locality,all within walking distance of each other,they will then make the same small talk they do everyday,mostly cynical!’Racegoers’ are a different breed there’s no doubt that Racing is a cultural sport and depending on where you live in the country dictates the type of person that the local Racecourse attracts.I have been to the majority of courses in my time and being a lover of the sport like I am Golf have always maintained you dont get a bad course.The ‘snottiest’ course in the Country is not Ascot like some would think but Newbury,a jumps meeting at Newbury attracts serious money folk who are all Tweed and Barbour and are proper knowledgable breeding and selling folk,the girls are all supported by Daddys who have let them out with his Credit card,the guys are all wannabe ‘Magniers’.Pontefract on the other hand is more ‘Magners’ than ‘Magniers’,the girls dress like they’ve been to ‘Top Shop’ and forgot to buy the bottom half of their oufit,their Fathers are all ex-Miners who are as down to earth as their Southern counterparts are highflyers.Travel further North to Kelso and you’ll stand out like a Black Pudding at a Eunochs convention,this is the Cliqueist course in the country where the Borders folk are regulars and dont like
strangers
.More than one course in this country is quite happy not to attract new custom as they are so set in their ways as those are that frequent such places that they survive quite happily on ‘Members’ only.Without harping on about it,Racing
is a very cultural Sport and the UK is a very mixed cultural country not just ethnics but the class system plays a prevalent role in its infrastructure as the Pattern of races and the level of
quality is shared amongst the hierachy of the sport and always has been.To summarise ‘Racegoers’ are bred/born/educated/encouraged to go Racing through generations before them,they are the Cream on the top of the soup,Punters on the other hand are the Sh*t that sinks to the bottom but ocassionally the odd floater does appear
and is also spotted usually in groups on their local racetracks and thats how its always been!The Class divide in life but meet up at the races and even there the division of Members/Tatts/Family enclosures still try to seperate the Money folk with the working class and that doesn’t encourage new faces who feel they dont fit!
Such is life!
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