so it has been announced that the Grand National will take place at 5.15pm - an hour later than normal I think this is a positive move but would not really like to see these later times creep into other meetings. I think that the Grand National is the only race of the year that can compete with Premier League football and so I could never understand why it took place during the second half of matches.
Not sure what they are hoping to achieve. Saturday afternoon Premiership football is not televised and those at the game won't have time to get home or to the track
first of all more people watch/listen to the football results than watch racing secondly anyone at a football game now has the chance to go and watch the National in a betting shop/pub/or even get home for me personally though I prefer the other races of the National meeting nowadays more than the lottery of the National anyway
Stupid, getting out of Aintree will be impossible. People will drink more and it's going to be a right mess. Farce.
This is as dappy a move as playing The Cup Final at 5 o’clock! As the Board boy says can see most of the clientele being, to use a Chav expression, ‘legless’ by ‘tapes up’. I’ve never been to Aintree (OMG heaven forbid) but I would imagine it’s similar to ‘Cheltenham Gold Cup’ day and full of people who have no interest whatsoever in racing but are there solely to get, to use that word again, ‘legless’. Just asking for trouble as come 5 o'clock they will be Inebriated with a capital 'I'.
I'm all for it. Adapt or die as they say. It suits my little friends/family national get together being later. Must be the case for loads of other people too. Not everyone has Saturdays off. If racecourses want to let people drink until they are legless that's their problem. And also it is quite legal now for bars/pubs to have live Premier League football at 3pm on Saturdays. I know many that do.
I cannot imagine that the decision to move the Grand National is anything to do with Saturday football fixtures. For my entire lifetime to date the Grand National has always been around 4pm on a Saturday and most football has been 3pm on a Saturday for much longer. The numbers at Aintree do not appear to be dwindling but I expect that it attracts social racegoers in the same way that Royal Ascot does – there to see and be seen in their gladrags. If they are moving it for that reason, they have obviously decided that the crowd at the 5:30pm game on Sky that Saturday will be able to watch the race on a big screen before kick-off. Moving the Irish Derby to an evening start has had mixed results in the last couple of years but that was done entirely to try and attract a new audience because the sport is in decline. A later Grand National will be good news for the audience on the other side of the World.
It may be a case of trying to stage a meeting as in the states where the best is saved until last. In my view it is a poor decision for the reasons that have already been put forward in that many punters will be smashed with alcohol by 5pm and it will create a mad rush for the exit immediately afterwards. One of the good things about race day is that people leave in dribs and drabs after the main event on any big day, making a natural flow through the bottle neck.
That is also why I like those concert nights as it makes everyone else hang around whilst you leave in an orderly way without sitting in a jam to leave the car park for half an hour, and if people want to sit around watching Bucks Fizz who am I to judge?
I always remembered it going off at 3.20 QM until quite recently. I'd like to see the old fences reinstated,increased field size to 45,Phil Hughes' handicap model scrapped (the race has lost its uniqueness currently and shouldn't be treated differently) and the traditional distance restored. This race is a shadow of its former self...no manner of time changing will alter that...so very,very sad.
Seems sensible to me to move it back an hour. If your part of the world is anything like mine, there will always be something hanging over your on a Saturday arvo. I reserve the right to down tools or quit being the family wheel man, by 5pm. For the sake of my own mental well being, I must be firmly parked in my "do **** all' chair, at least an hour before dinner. And if I can squeeze in an hour of sport in the process, then the world is mine. Then if I'm cruisin', the wife has a much better chance of a right ol' rogerin' later in the evening. Now, where did I put that ****in' Viagra?
Sneaked a peak at the ‘Racing Post’ at the station this morn (railway not Police) and there is a very telling comment in it re this announcement. It was ‘the Grand National used to set the agenda. Now it merely chases it’. Certainly highlights how far the sport and this race have fallen in recent times.
yes a sadly very telling comment that . I think though racing is just trying what other sports have done in recent times, and move events back to 5pm on Saturdays - for example the FA Cup final, rugby internationals, even the boat race. For some reason there is this perception that in the modern world it is no longer possible to watch sport on a Saturday afternoon and that a 5pm slot gains greater TV viewers. I think that there is a little more to it than that. TV companies prefer a 5pm start as it provides them with hopefully a big TV audience that they can keep into Saturday night and the rest of their schedules.
They apparently are trying to increase TV viewing figures. Course attendance doesn't come into it. Who is the current broadcaster? Channel Four? Maybe this is the prelude to a sell off to someone else?
What they need to do is install fences and floodlights at Chester and have them run the Grand National around 6 circuits with the start time at Midnight. To avoid the usual "false start" nonsense we would have starting stalls. This would have the added benefit of allowing the cognoscenti to discuss at length about the draw bias.
In yesterday’s paper (the ‘Guardian’ I think) a bookie chappie said he was delighted with the new start time as (i) it would give the once a year punters additional time to place their bets (cor blimey how long do they need!) and (ii) there was now the opportunity for those who had enjoyed a winning bet on the football, that afternoon, the chance to reinvest their winnings on the GN. Is that what the GN has now become?!? A ‘bonus’ event for winning football punters!
