Anyone going? Work takes me down south the day before so I'm seriously thinking of staying over and going to Ascot.
I’d actually share similar sentiments and to me this event is very much the ‘New Labour’ of race meetings. On this day they are very keen to promote and highlight everything good about British racing whilst at the same time wishing to brush everything else under the carpet (such as the terrible prizemoney for almost all of the rest of the campaign, hundreds of dull cards packed full of class 5 and 6 dross, steep admission prices, etc.). My regular readers will know that another critique of mine re this day is the appalling rebranding of what was the ‘Pride Stakes’ – a lovely name for a race for fillies and mares and named after one of the best racemares of my lifetime. It’s now titled the ‘QIPCO British Champions Fillies and Mares Stakes’ which just takes the biscuit for turning something inspiring and delightful into something bland, boring and dull. But anyway how long will it remain named ‘Champions Day’?!? Haven’t Ireland rather usurped the event by recently unveiling ‘Champions WEEKEND’ which will take place annually commencing mid September 2014.
Sir Barney, I was no fan of Champions’ Day right from its inception. From a purely selfish point of view it destroyed one of my favourite days at Newmarket with the Champion Stakes being moved to Ascot. I have been to the ‘new’ Ascot a few times now and I still do not like it. The architects and designers should be strung up as they have created a carbuncle purely for the elite Pimms and Champagne swillers in their boxes rather than the normal racegoer. Now that there is no Frankel, they will be keeping quiet about the attendance figures for a few years because they will be down, just like Juddmonte International day at York will fall by fifty per cent this year. The fact that racing in this country has quite happily sold itself to every Qatari investor that waves a fistful of readies is no different to the French, with their Qatari sponsors for Arc weekend. When the prima donnas at FIFA sold the World Cup to Qatar in 2022 they only looked at the colour of the money and totally ignored the fact that it will be fifty degrees there in summer, making the whole thing a non-starter. I might actually go to Ireland for one of the days of their Champions Weekend as I have never been racing in Ireland; whereas I am no fan of the rebuilt Doncaster and can quite easily resist the forty mile trip to the St Leger.
