Good article Tam and very good comments too. A credit to the forum. Speedy recovery mate. Article is up there now.
I will never forget a music night I attended about 3 years ago though. It was a "Girls Aloud" night at Sandown Park. I know dont ask! anyway it came to the last race of the night, by this time about 90% of those in attendance had given up on the racing and were positioned in front of the stage awaiting the music. I had a bet on the favourite and couldnt believe it when the horse bolted up by about 10 lengths for its first win, one of the fastest finishing performances by a horse I have ever seen. The name of the horse - Presvis, now one of the world's leading horses and multiple group 1 winner. I have followed the horse ever since, and when he times his run right as he did in Meydan on Dubai World Cup night there is no better finisher in racing!
Agree with you about the drunks Nass. I had to laugh at a comment in one of the papers at the weekend when they said that, unless you were in the Royal Enclosure at Royal Ascot, you could not move for tattoos and orange cleavage!
I want to point you all to the Coral-Eclipse day at Sandown, when we could feasibly see So You Think, Workforce and Canford Cliffs. How are they selling it? http://twitter.com/#!/Sandownpark http://www.sandown.co.uk/pages/the-face-of-ladies-day/ "Coral-Eclipse Day at Sandown Park is the highlight of the social calendar, a day that epitomizes glamour on and off the track; a great excuse to get dressed up and enjoy a drink or two while watching some of the country’s best Group 1 flat racing. An absolute summer must!" In plain English, you can get dressed up in short skirts, get drunk and bet, you may even see a horse (more likely to see Liz Mcatomickitten) GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
Surely you mean the Cliff Richard attending Wimbledon, with Ladies final on too day? Is that not how we sell our sport?
Racing is the second biggest sport in the UK in regards people through the turnstile, so I don't think its main problem is getting people to go racing. It never has had that problem.
True, but the question is Should Sandown be selling its big Group 1 raceday as a day to mingle with Liz from Atomic Kitten, or should they be blasting it as the clash of the titans, The Derby and Arc winning Workforce versus the Aussie superstar So You Think. I know which one sounds much more exciting.
Yeah, because you're a racing fan, you're not the average member of the public. How many of them will know who Workforce and So You Think are? Mind you surely they could do a little better than someone who was in Atomic Kitten!
Do you ever get the feeling that we're flogging a long dead horse here? The general public cares little for horse racing. I often wonder about the attendance figures proffered by the BHA and other pro racing groups. With so many race meetings spread over the country side each year, (most of which seem to be hosting no more that a few thousand patrons) maybe the figures a a bit misleading. If I attend the local track, about twenty minutes from here, a fair percentage of those who pass through the gate, are the same people who went last week. They'll be the same folk who'll be there next week. It's kind of like the hits on an online site. Only 20 people might actually take a look, but half of them may return a bit later for one reason or another. So you end up with what looks like 30 hits, when in fact there have only been just the 20. Are we just recounting the same old heads over and over again? If so, then maybe the promotion of a race meeting through the use of a celebrity is a good thing.
