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I know it is often said there is too much racing but it seems bizarre there are only two meetings in the UK today.
The height of the summer when a lot of people may be off work and the children are on school holidays and the only meetings are Newton Abbot in the afternoon and Worcester in the evening.
Nice to see two meetings over jumps and nothing on the Flat!
I welcomed the brief hiatus of the once-regulation ‘two meeting Tuesdays’ but at least they were both in the afternoon
Indeed, today used to be the first day of York with one away somewhere dahn sarf, Folkestone or Brighton if memory serves
Strange. Has there ever been another day on which just a solitary afternoon card has been programmed?
Or has there been a cancellation elsewhere?
I wondered if something had been cancelled but I checked the BHA fixture list I downloaded at the start of the year and it only shows Newton Abbot and Worcester.
I cannot recall any other afternoon with just one fixture, even in winter.
As Drone says, it used to be a tradition, back in the day, that, even in the height of summer, there would be only two meetings on a Tuesday, but they were both afternoon fixtures and today’s program looks very odd.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Same day last year (Aug 23rd) had three meetings, all NH – Bangor, Fontwell (Eve) and Worcester.
Bangor moved to yesterday to take a slot vacated by Stratford. Fontwell last year had 32 runners and a ‘crowd’ of 918, so presumably they’ve decided it isn’t worth staging the meeting again. It probably cost them money in 2022.
So Worcester move to the evening slot and Newton Abbot replaces Bangor. The BHA can only make courses aware of the available slots and the funding that goes with them, they can’t force courses to race. And the official HBLB attendance figures for August rather undermine the idea that staging midweek afternoon meetings during the school holidays is a guarantee of a big crowd. Weekends, bank holidays and music nights produce far more income.
I don’t imagine the betting shops are very pleased with just one British meeting this afternoon. I assume extra “races” have been put on at Portman Park and Steepledowns.
Take out the occasional Boxing Day/New Years Day that falls on a Tuesday, and I can only come up with three genuinely top class meetings on that day of the week – Cheltenham, Royal Ascot and Glorious Goodwood. I think Yarmouth also still start their three day September meeting on Tuesday.
At a lower level, there are a few two day meetings that are staged on BH Monday and then Tuesday.
But would racing really be damaged if every one day meeting on a Tuesday was scrapped or moved to a different day?
These were the only meetings scheduled for today in the 2023 fixture list, maybe there were no takers for the vacant afternoon slot (if there was one). Would probably have made sense to have moved one of the meetings scheduled for tomorrow or Thursday – four meetings on a Wednesday or Thursday is more than enough, with the odd Irish fixture thrown in as well.
I was fearing a last minute additional AW flat card would be scheduled by the BHA, but thankfully that didn’t materialise.
I’m also against replacement fixtures for those lost during the now infrequent abandonments. Hopefully the return of standard 6 race cards over the last 2 months will also be repeated in July/August 2024.
....and you've got to look a long way back for anything else.
“Take out the occasional Boxing Day/New Years Day that falls on a Tuesday, and I can only come up with three genuinely top class meetings on that day of the week – Cheltenham, Royal Ascot and Glorious Goodwood.”
The May meetings at both Chester and York, as well as the Ebor meeting, all used to start on a Tuesday.
I would suggest that, in terms of maximising Levy revenue to racing, there needs to be at least two (race every 15 minutes) and preferably three (race every ten minutes) meetings per afternoon seven days a week, the whole year round and, where possible (floodlights needed in winter), at least two evening cards (race every 15 minutes) and preferably three (race every ten minutes).
That’s a lot of racing, a great many fixtures would be there simply to service off-course betting and it might even make sense for many of those fixtures, especially winter AW floodlit ones, to be behind closed doors.
Racing is facing a funding crisis and I’m not sure any vacant evenings, afternoons, or even days, are tenable in the scenario racing now finds itself.
I’m happy to have it explained to me how racing can fund itself going forwards without having the heavy 24/7/365 coverage outlined above as its default position.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"The Craven Meeting and Goodwood Predominate/Lupe Meeting were also Tue-Thu
And the Sandown Temple/Brigadier Meeting was Bank Holiday Monday and Tuesday evening
May was a wonderful month for the course-hopping turfiste who relished fine racing in civilised circumstances: it was racing’s USP before it took the dubious decision to try and compete with other sports by orienting with them towards weekends
APRacing was of course referring to that good ol’ tradition’s skeletal remains today
Racing’s loss and it lost me too
I think I heard on Nick Luck’s podcast that this seems to be related to an agreement to have some blank days to support jockey welfare. Mid-August would seem a strange time to have one.
After only 2 meetings not so long ago, there are 5 meetings in Britain tomorrow and a further 2 in Ireland.
Does a Wednesday in September really require 7 meetings? And does there need to be 3 meetings on artificial surfaces?
Three meetings tomorrow afternoon:
Brighton
Newton Abbot
PerthVery helpful for anyone in the midlands or north of England!
A meeting in Scotland/The North, a meeting in the Midlands and a meeting in the South – all broadly speaking – is that so hard to achieve on a daily basis?
And a couple of cards an afternoon minimum.
Instances of bizarre race planning seem on the rise, that’s my perception, anyway.
My personal 2023 favourite remains the Goodwood/Fontwell Park evening clash.
But the Holy Grail would be simultaneous fixtures on the Newmarket Rowley Mile and July Courses, possibly with races off the same time over what always looked to me like the shared terrain at longer distances.
Never say never with the BHA!
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"
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