There are two different tendencies showing on this thread. One is to keep the plebs away from racecourses, the other is to make racing more user friendly.
The plebs used to congregate in betting shops, feed their money into the sport (or at least whatever was left of it after the bookies took their cut) and curse their luck when Frankie/Fallon/Lester got it wrong again, which they somehow seemed to do all the time apart from when they won. Although betting on horses every day, the idea of actually going to a meeting would never have occurred to the vast majority of betting shop punters, which suited the toffs in charge of racing just fine.
Recently, however, the punting plebs have not been so obliging, allowing themselves to be distracted by other sports and flashing lights. What to do, as levy returns start to stagnate or even decline? Some would force them to bet on racing, like it or not, by establishing a tote monopoly, some would try to entice the betting shop punters and wider public onto the racecourses, and some would appear to want to do nothing. I think myself that the only realistic option is to try harder to bring racing to a wider public.
But British (flat) racing has another problem to face. It has always been dependent on a mix of domestic and foreign owners and breeders to maintain its quality. Many of them have been squeezed, however, by the competition between Coolmore and Godolphin. Where have all the American owners gone? Godolphin has faltered, however, and in any case it has diversified into chasing gold in other places, especially the USA and Australia, not to mention the Gulf states and Dubai itself. Coolmore could not survive without British racing, but it is not part of it. In short, the long term trend is that the quality of bloodstock going into training in Britain is in decline.
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It's a good point though, if essentially admitting defeat for the sport ever attracting truly mainstream interest.
