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Since the Gold Cup has already moved from Thursday to Friday the trasition is already gone… A Saturday Gold Cup would mean you have the greatest race on a day when the masses can actually watch it. Makes a lot of sense.
BTW Melbourne Cup day is a publlic holiday in Melbourne only, it’s just that the rest of the country down tools to watch it. It brings a tear to the eye just thinking about it.
Last year the stat in Melbourne was 40% of the workforce took the Monday as a/l or just took a sickie making it an unofficial 4 day weekend.
Personally i am not one of the anti-five day festival brigade, though i would have some reservations, the World Hurdle is struggling to wet the appetite as the star attraction for the Thursday as it is, and i guess if you had to miss one day of the festival you would probably nominate this day.
Having said that racing needs to appeal to the masses and should be marketed that way, the Kauto v Denman showdown should be on billboards across the country imo, if five days simply wont work then you could move the festival forward e.g. Wednesday – Saturday or Thursday – Sunday? (I can see the traditionalists choking on their cornflakes
.The biggest problem with adding another day though is what do you add?
Pretty much all the bases are covered, plus it would add to the trainer dithering ‘what race to run in’ which has made the whole ante-post market an even bigger minefield already.
Highflyer
I’ve just consulted Tim Fitzgeorge-Parker’s meticulous history of the Festival. According to him, the 1964 meeting started on Thursday and finished on Saturday, and given the depth of research elsewhere in the book, I’m not about to argue. .
No. Keep the Gold Cup midweek; forever.
In my opinion, the most damaging recent horse racing decision was the one to move the Derby from the first Wednesday in June to the Saturday. Gerald Ratner could not have made a more basic schoolboy error. (In partially using the Kentucky Derby as a model for the decision, the Jockey Club/BHB uberbrains failed to remember that most competing US sporting attractions take place on a Sunday)
A national event which transcended sporting interests – like the Melbourne Cup in Oz – was transformed overnight into a local event of interest only to racing enthusiasts. You couldn’t make it up.
If things do go belly up in the next few years, you can trace the beginning of the end to this decision. So no…keep the Gold Cup midweek. If people want to watch the race, they will find a way to watch the race – as Yeats and Jodami allude to.
I agree with you 100% Max to move the Gold Cup to Saturday wouldn’t really achieve much anyway. The place is aways stacked to capacity and there are many other races people want to see. Sure this Gold Cup is different there hasn’t been as much hype since Arkle V Millhouse.
In a few years time the CG may not be the race everyone wants to see. It could be similar siuation that we have now but in the QMCC or the Champion Hurdle.
If it had to be changed I so people could watch on a Saurday or even a Sunday I would have the Gold Cup, Champion Hurdle QMCC and The Arkle all in one day, but that is probaly an even more stupid idea.
Thousand upon thousands of Isihmen come over year after year. They save like mad just to be here and if they can go to all that trouble to get here then we can to.
I worked like everyone else but I never missed Chetenham once. I either went or made sure I could watch it on TV.
as you say leave it as it is.
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