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Flat Fixture List /Programme- what changes would you make ?

Ardross

Senior Jockey
Joined
Aug 8, 2007
Messages
5,667
I would to start :

1 Improve the LIncoln meeting - more prize money - bring back the Doncaster Town Plate, Batthyany Handicap and the Doncaster Shield . Make the Doncaster Mile a Group race

2 Race on turf at Kempton when they are already watering it - in April and September - bring back the Jubilee Handicap

3 Scrap a meeting a day to reduce bloated list

4 Improve Bank Holiday Meetings - Sandown Brigadier Gerard card back to May Bank Holiday , move Goodwood Celenbration MIle to August Bank Holiday , Rosebery etc to Easter Monday

5 Scrap Good Friday cards and move them to Easter Monday

6 Scrap Stupid Saturday - the July Cup is probably now stuck there due to World Pool - move York to following weekend when the racing is generally crap

7 Move the Sun Chariot day back into the Cambridgeshire Meeting

8 Add the Hyperion and Blue Seal back to the October Ascot meeting - in fact review the car crash of the 2 year old season where good staying 2 year olds can no longer race round a bend in UK

9 Reinstate the Flat jockeys championship to March to November .

10 Improve the November Handicap meeting .
 
Both Ireland and France have successful and classy fixtures on Sundays,as do most other sports.
The BHA needs to wake up to the 21st century,embrace Sunday as more than the sabbath,put decent cards on and spare us from debacles such as Super Saturday.
 
I'd actually get rid of Sunday racing. Not because I want to go to Church, but a day of rest would be nice.
I miss the days when Sundays were calm, family time. Day trips to the countryside or the beach. Half day Wednesdays too and late night shopping Thursdays. It really broke the week up. Almost everyone I meet these days say how tired they are.
I ramble, but for me, Sunday racing has never really worked.

Also get back to the 'sport of kings', not the sport of 20 blokes from the Flymo factory chipping in for a 52 rated runner. I don't know how to undo the damage class 7 races have caused, but there's far too much low class stuff now. As someone said recently, the volume of racing has doubled over the last 25 years. Yes, I can ignore it, but if it weren't there, there'd be more money for better class races and enough to fund more of them.
 
I cannot see anything changing soon as the BHA see themselves as doing a mighty fine job.
And whilst races for pitiful prize money are attracting decent horses nothing will change.
For instance on Monday at Ayr the opening class 5 novice race on the card attracted the following five horses:
1 200000 gns 2yo
2 38000 gns yearling
3 42000 gns foal
4 55000 gns yearling
5 25000 gns yearling 170000 gns 2yo

And the prize money for the winning connections £3725

In the seventies I used to own greyhounds and one of the tracks we ran at offered poor prize money.
That is until all the trainers threatened to go on strike and withdraw their dogs - they soon increased the prize money!!!!
 
Move Champions day back to where is was ( last Saturday in September) ludicrous it's run in a quagbog nearly every year

Scrap the Shergar cup, or move it to a bank holiday Monday, Jockey contests are boring and not many have heard of most of the ones that come over for it anyway

The Irish Oaks 1 week before the King George is stupid as well, Enable did the double (only a 2 week gap that year), Taghrooda skipped the Irish oaks and won the King George, What price would Minnie Hauk be next week?
 
This Saturday is one of the worst days racing of the flat season.
Likewise,Sunday:
Mid-Summer fayre.
UK 1Flat - full card of apprentice races
Ireland 6 races.incl 2x group
France incl .3 x group &1 Lstd
The majority of UK punters won't even bother to bet.
How is this crud benefitting UK racing?
 
The CEO of the Curragh, Augustus Gloop, has a lot to answer for. They moved the Oaks from Sunday to Saturday and it got lost on one of the worst days of racing the UK has ever tried to present as 'Super Saturday'. The card today at the Curragh is appalling, and it wouldn’t surprise me if fewer than 200 people are in attendance.

Leopardstown used to go out of its way to avoid clashing with the All-Ireland Hurling Final in September. The Curragh seems to think it’s centre stage—either that, or it just wants the media rights money like every other tinpot track. What a shambles. You don’t come back from dropping your standards this low.
 
Likewise,Sunday:
Mid-Summer fayre.
UK 1Flat - full card of apprentice races
Ireland 6 races.incl 2x group
France incl .3 x group &1 Lstd
The majority of UK punters won't even bother to bet.
How is this crud benefitting UK racing?
Bang on Reet
If most serious punters are like myself they will take a look at the racecards for the coming week and wait for Sandown Thursday/Friday and Ascot Friday/Saturday.
The powers that be think there is nothing wrong with the racing calendar but UK racing is in serious decline.
Most people I know that were once serious gamblers have turned away from the sport completely.
 
Though I don't necessarily disagree, a lot of the material on this thread, it seems to me, can be summarised by: "Revert to how racing was when I first got interested in it."

But of course 50 years before that racing was different again - racing, like life, is evolving, ephemeral, in a constant state of flux, changing (tautology much there).

Not all change is progress, but not all change isn't progress either.

I kinda miss the straight 1m2f "Across The Flat" unique quality of the Champion Stakes at Newmarket, but I actually think Ascot is the better racecourse and "Champions' Day," (even though it isn't) is a day's racing that's grown on me.

But there is much I agree with here.

The Futurity and Royal Lodge (even the Horris Hill over a then extended seven) used to be round a bend for a reason, middle-distance bred Derby types might run in them.

One thing I don't like is what they've done to Cup races.

There was a time when each represented a different test.

I was raised in the era of Le Moss v Ardross so this subject is close to my heart.

The 2m4f Gold Cup winner at Ascot would then have stay even further (2m5f) at Goodwood.

Then the test went the other way - 2m2f at Doncaster.

By cutting the Goodwood race to 2m, they've rendered the Doncaster Cup redundant as an added test.

Another thing I deplore is the modern structure of racecards.

Back in the day, a Jumps card might be: 2m Hurdle, 3m Chase, 2m4f Hurdle, 2m Chase, 2m4f Chase, 3m Hurdle.

No two races seemed the same and the eye was drawn to a different part of the track all day.

Ditto the Flat - eg 1m, then 5f, then 1m2f, then 5f, then 1m4f, then 2m.

Nowadays it's all done to minimise work for the track - all the Chases run consecutively sometimes, then Hurdles the rest of the card, all the Flat races at one distance then gradually move up in trip to minimise stalls movement.

The net result is cards that seem more and more like greyhound racing - every race seems the same to its predecessor.

The notion of entertaining the public with a varied card has gone.

By and large racing is run by people who don't understand it as well as many who follow it, so don't hold your breath on getting change.
 
Last edited:
Though I don't necessarily disagree, a lot of the material on this thread, it seems to me, can be summarised by: "Revert to how racing was when I first got interested in it."

But of course 50 years before that racing was different again - racing, like life, is evolving, ephemeral, in a constant state of flux, changing (tautology much there).

Not all change is progress, but not all change isn't progress either.

I kinda miss the straight 1m2f "Across The Flat" unique quality of the Champion Stakes at Newmarket, but I actually think Ascot is the better racecourse and "Champions' Day," (even though it isn't) is a day's racing that's grown on me.

But there is much I agree with here.

The Futurity and Royal Lodge (even the Horris Hill over a then extended seven) used to be round a bend for a reason, middle-distance bred Derby types might run in them.

One thing I don't like is what they've done to Cup races.

There was a time when each represented a different test.

I was raised in the era of Le Moss v Ardross so this subject is close to my heart.

The 2m4f Gold Cup winner at Ascot would then have stay even further (2m5f) at Goodwood.

Then the test went the other way - 2m2f at Doncaster.

By cutting the Goodwood race to 2m, they've rendered the Doncaster Cup redundant as an added test.

Another thing I deplore is the modern structure of racecards.

Back in the day, a Jumps card might be: 2m Hurdle, 3m Chase, 2m4f Hurdle, 2m Chase, 2m4f Chase, 3m Hurdle.

No two races seemed the same and the eye was drawn to a different part of the track all day.

Ditto the Flat - eg 1m, then 5f, then 1m2f, then 5f, then 1m4f, then 2m.

Nowadays it's all done to minimise work for the track - all the Chases run consecutively sometimes, then Hurdles the rest of the card, all the Flat races at one distance then gradually move up in trip to minimise stalls movement.

The net result is cards that seem more and more like greyhound racing - every race seems the same to its predecessor.

The notion of entertaining the public with a varied card has gone.

By and large racing is run by people who don't understand it as well as many who follow it, so don't hold your breath on getting change.

Mixed cards suffered a similar fate.
 
Though I don't necessarily disagree, a lot of the material on this thread, it seems to me, can be summarised by: "Revert to how racing was when I first got interested in it."

But of course 50 years before that racing was different again - racing, like life, is evolving, ephemeral, in a constant state of flux, changing (tautology much there).

Not all change is progress, but not all change isn't progress either.

I kinda miss the straight 1m2f "Across The Flat" unique quality of the Champion Stakes at Newmarket, but I actually think Ascot is the better racecourse and "Champions' Day," (even though it isn't) is a day's racing that's grown on me.

But there is much I agree with here.

The Futurity and Royal Lodge (even the Horris Hill over a then extended seven) used to be round a bend for a reason, middle-distance bred Derby types might run in them.

One thing I don't like is what they've done to Cup races.

There was a time when each represented a different test.

I was raised in the era of Le Moss v Ardross so this subject is close to my heart.

The 2m4f Gold Cup winner at Ascot would then have stay even further (2m5f) at Goodwood.

Then the test went the other way - 2m2f at Doncaster.

By cutting the Goodwood race to 2m, they've rendered the Doncaster Cup redundant as an added test.

Another thing I deplore is the modern structure of racecards.

Back in the day, a Jumps card might be: 2m Hurdle, 3m Chase, 2m4f Hurdle, 2m Chase, 2m4f Chase, 3m Hurdle.

No two races seemed the same and the eye was drawn to a different part of the track all day.

Ditto the Flat - eg 1m, then 5f, then 1m2f, then 5f, then 1m4f, then 2m.

Nowadays it's all done to minimise work for the track - all the Chases run consecutively sometimes, then Hurdles the rest of the card, all the Flat races at one distance then gradually move up in trip to minimise stalls movement.

The net result is cards that seem more and more like greyhound racing - every race seems the same to its predecessor.

The notion of entertaining the public with a varied card has gone.

By and large racing is run by people who don't understand it as well as many who follow it, so don't hold your breath on getting change.

There is of course an element of revert to how it was in my suggestions but I do not think that makes them any less valid.

What we have now is far too much very poor quality racing with the good stuff heavily over concentrated at weekends and often obscuring each other . That's madness and only racecourses benefit with their greed. The Redcar card today was a disgrace for a Sunday regardless of the apprentice race gimmick . Channel 4's pushing all those Tues-Thurs meetings to Wed to Fri and then indeed with the July Meeting Thurs - Sat shows how so many of racing's constituent parties only ever act in their own , rather than the sport's , interests.
 
Though I don't necessarily disagree, a lot of the material on this thread, it seems to me, can be summarised by: "Revert to how racing was when I first got interested in it."

But of course 50 years before that racing was different again - racing, like life, is evolving, ephemeral, in a constant state of flux, changing (tautology much there).

Not all change is progress, but not all change isn't progress either.

I kinda miss the straight 1m2f "Across The Flat" unique quality of the Champion Stakes at Newmarket, but I actually think Ascot is the better racecourse and "Champions' Day," (even though it isn't) is a day's racing that's grown on me.

But there is much I agree with here.

The Futurity and Royal Lodge (even the Horris Hill over a then extended seven) used to be round a bend for a reason, middle-distance bred Derby types might run in them.

One thing I don't like is what they've done to Cup races.

There was a time when each represented a different test.

I was raised in the era of Le Moss v Ardross so this subject is close to my heart.

The 2m4f Gold Cup winner at Ascot would then have stay even further (2m5f) at Goodwood.

Then the test went the other way - 2m2f at Doncaster.

By cutting the Goodwood race to 2m, they've rendered the Doncaster Cup redundant as an added test.

Another thing I deplore is the modern structure of racecards.

Back in the day, a Jumps card might be: 2m Hurdle, 3m Chase, 2m4f Hurdle, 2m Chase, 2m4f Chase, 3m Hurdle.

No two races seemed the same and the eye was drawn to a different part of the track all day.

Ditto the Flat - eg 1m, then 5f, then 1m2f, then 5f, then 1m4f, then 2m.

Nowadays it's all done to minimise work for the track - all the Chases run consecutively sometimes, then Hurdles the rest of the card, all the Flat races at one distance then gradually move up in trip to minimise stalls movement.

The net result is cards that seem more and more like greyhound racing - every race seems the same to its predecessor.

The notion of entertaining the public with a varied card has gone.

By and large racing is run by people who don't understand it as well as many who follow it, so don't hold your breath on getting change.

I suspect Arc's poor prize money also contributes to how the Doncaster Cup has been left behind by the other two .
 


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