Turf 585 Jumps - 583 All weather - 296 Meetings in 2014 No wonder prize money is so low when there are 296 more all weather meetings than we need taking prize money out of the areas of the sport that are popular. I don't understand why we need an average of 4 meetings a day across all codes. Someone please explain? Quality over quantity this man cries.
Bob, totally agree, far too many meetings. Giving people employment is the only justification I personally would offer.
I would like to know what the average pay out in terms of prize money is if you took away the top class races...? I would imagine it would shock us all as to how little it would be... I agree with you Bob but there must be a market somewhere which says its working, though to what effect i dont know. As you, i suspect its more to do with quantity than quality...
Agree it sounds too much and I would be fascinated to understand the decision process and what the key factors were in coming to the final fixture list. I expect that is all "hush hush" though.
My initial reaction is to agree with you totally Bostonbob. However I can see a reason for one aw meeting every day. It at least gives you an 80% chance of having some racing. What I do think is there is too much poor racing. 6 races a day is enough for a start unless 2yo/maiden races are divided.
I wish that we could stop calling non-Turf racing “All Weather”, since last winter proved conclusively that it is not infallible. This year started with two blank months at Southwell because the track was flooded. It will eventually happen that the track at one of the courses will be theoretically raceable but with all the roads around the course blocked by snow and ice nobody (horses, jockeys, trainers, bookmakers or punters) can get there. The number of meetings per day I think is largely driven by the fact that the bookmakers have to pay The Horseracing Levy on British horseracing. When the betting shops are showing feeds of racing from Kranji, Turffontein and Philadelphia or virtual racing (betting on video games), none of the take goes into British prize money. The only way to counter this dilution is to put on as many British fixtures as possible. The large number of evening meetings that happen on the tracks with artificial surfaces are surely scheduled in order to keep the betting shops open in the evenings so that the (predominately young) gaming machine players can keep throwing their money away on their chosen form of gambling, which is accounting for an increasing percentage of the bookmakers’ profits and contributes nothing towards horseracing’s finances. Unfortunately there are no readily available attendance figures for these evening meetings to illustrate that they are viable and a lot of them are bookmaker sponsored, presumably to disguise their loss-making nature. I do not believe that middle-of-nowhere Southwell attracts more than a couple of hundred or that bookie fodder at leafy suburbs Kempton and Lingfield pulls them in. How many tables are regularly booked at the trackside restaurant at Wolverhampton? If I recall from the piece in The Racing Post, the fixture list for 2014 has not actually increased in size from 2013, there have just been a few movements and changes such as Sandown having a totally National Hunt final day of the NH season. I do not recall any great emphasis on prize money levels being sustained or improved but everyone else is tightening their belts. I have no doubt that if somebody from the BHA were challenged to justify the structure of the fixture list, they would quickly resort to the same old political answers — providing employment; equitable distribution of the sport’s funds across the country; trying to maximize the best return from their commercial customers (i.e. bookmakers, media, breeders); there are more horses.
Was I correct in hearing on Channel 4 that next year’s “Future Champions Day” at Newmarket will be on the Friday immediately prior to “Champions Day” at Ascot the following day? Which cretin at the BHA or Racing For Change came up with that idea? If they were going to move the two fixtures together, why did they not have them on Saturday and Sunday? Having the Newmarket card on Friday will decimate the crowd figures and the betting turnover.
Get rid of jump meetings during the Flat season, we already have class 6 handicaps for horses who are not fast enough for the flat without having to put them on show in woeful jump races. You can count on one hand how many of the decent jumpers are out, the stuff they run all through the summer is a shocking advert for racing. I know its there so I can avoid seeing it and thankfully I dont need to look at the cards, but for anyone starting to watch racing they could fall onto that rubbish and get put off. Most likely reasons for the overload of crap racing is too many bad horses or bookies run the game.
It is so easy to say get rid of this get rid of that. Only have top quality racing etc. Well the facts are that there are more people employed and involved in the industry than there has ever been before. Getting rid of low grade racing would seriously impact on revenues across the whole industry, Many people would be unemployed. Oh and we aren't all Godolphin, Qatar or Ballydoyle but many ordinary people can now live the dream. That low grade handicapper is someones pride and joy!
Stick is perfectly correct that we cannot totally eliminate racing for horses that are not performers at the highest level. If the owners are prepared to pay for the horses that are only good enough to race at the lowest levels, who is to deny them that opportunity? The racing industry does provide a high level of employment in significant rural areas of the country, although one does have to accept that quite a number of the people that work in the industry as stable staff these days are immigrants. I think the major concern is that the proliferation of racing at the lower levels is leading to a situation where more and more horses of limited ability are being bred, sold and raced. There is very minimal prospect of the racing industry actually benefiting through improved living standards for the workforce and prize money covering ownership expenses; whilst the bookmakers are supplied with a product (admittedly one that is an increasingly small part of their service) on very generous terms. The racing industry is not making sufficient effort to address this iniquity.
Im not saying get rid of bad racing, thats impossible, im saying stop jump racing during the flat season, there is plenty of bad jump meetings through the winter for the low grade horses, just like there is plenty of bad flat meetings during the flat season. Will always be races for every level horse, we dont need flat and jump clashing to cater for them. We are talking about cutting down the number of meetings and that would help, its not going to happen though so not much point talking about it. If anything they will just keep increasing the number of meetings as long as the bookies have power in the sport. This new £1million AW thing is a joke as well, will never attract the top horses, that prize money could have been spread around lower level races to up the average. Those Listed/Group 3 horses that run on the AW already have the Winter Derby meeting and plenty of other decent prizes through the season, we should be investing in turf, not the crooked dog tracks.
I am probably not the only one that thinks that the £1m prize money gimmick will last exactly one year. I will be interested to see how many people actually show up at Lingfield and Musselburgh on 18th April 2014 and what spin the differing factions of horseracing put on it. What I can see happening with the Lingfield event is that one or two of the lesser lights (i.e. Group 3 or Listed standard horses) from the Godolphin and Ballydoyle operations will target the big pots, show up on the day and turn most of the races into processions and the public (if any show up) will vote with their feet. I am surprised that they have not signed up a Qatari sponsor for the whole venture who will reduce the admission prices to a fiver or make admission free.
