Racing For Change

krizon said:
I've been taking tour groups around at Brighton, as an example of trying to give racegoers who buy the package deal a much better insight into what goes into making up a raceday. They get to meet and chat with the Clerk of the Scales, the Judge, the Clerk of the Course, and then are very kindly taken into the SIS film van for what's always a fascinating peek at how films are sent to the betting shops as well as home tv's. For an all-in price, they get the tour, race card, badge, Tote betting voucher, a drinks voucher, and welcome tea/coffee and nice bikkies. It's good value and it's one way in which courses, if they have the wit to do so, can involve the racing public in the overall experience far more. Plumpton's decided it's a nice idea, too, and I've got my second tour on Monday next week.
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Once more courses hear what you're doing, the idea will probably really catch on and you'll be in great demand. Sounds brilliant to me.
 
Kri, the tours sound like a great idea to me and exactly the kind of thing courses should be doing.

With regards to the free or cheap entry issue I think the course needs to make it a blanket decision. Towcester is free every meet except Easter and Boxing day and all the locals are aware of this. Therefore once you know it is free every time you are more likely to decide to go on the spur of the moment. £15 is usually a show stopped otherwise. Towcester's crowd is always around 2000-3000 and in the summer at the evening or weekend meetings I would guess this is more like 4000-5000. If they constantly changed their charging policy I would expect they would get half this amount. Consistently cheap prices will get return crowds. I have a lot of friends and acquaintances who are not interested in racing, or betting for that matter but regularly go to the Towcester evening and weekend summer meets because it is a good night out that costs no more than a night down the pub. It's that busy that getting a drink takes long enough to ensure you can't really drink that much!!!

The AW tracks are a different kettle of fish in that a lot of these meetings are put on to service the betting shops/levy/bookies whatever you like really. What I will say is though that Lingfield is a lovely track and having been there to watch Tajree (A horse I was involved with) I would recommend it to anyone. I have to admit I was surprised at how nice it was!
 
I agree that people attending courses should have an opportunity to do a 'tour'. British and Irish courses, apart from the two new courses, are steeped in history. This should be promoted and sold. Across the board. Football clubs do this so why not other sports (rugby does this as well, amongst others). Is it the so called 'British way' (not to exclude Irish courses - coining a phrase), that we 'hide a light under a bushel'? Seems that racing has allowed itself to rely on a few well known races to keep on selling itself. Well, that's all to the good, but there is equally good racing going on elsewhere. That's what should also be promoted. Otherwise, endless complaints about 'poor' AW racing will continue and RFC will flounder.
 
Stout brogues? It's at BRIGHTON, dearest, not a ramblers' hike across the Downs! You can toddle round the whole course in about 5 minutes!

Well, it's nice to see such a positive reaction to the tours - personally, I love doing them because Leigh O'Brien (Clerk of the Scales), Felix Wheeler (de judge), Richard Aldous (the outgoing Clerk of the Course) and Nick, the fantastic camera van man, are all so very enthusiastic about what they do. In fact, it's sometimes quite hard to stop them! Felix loves to show the groups photos of photo-finishes and describe how he peers at them with a huge magnifiying glass in an effort to separate one pixel from another, Leigh lets them pop onto the scales and handle a couple of different types of saddles, whack themselves with a jockey's whip, all that sort of stuff, and then Richard hauls them out onto the track itself and demonstrates both his trusty walking stick and the TurfTrax going stick. If they want to have a poke at the ground for themselves, they can. Everything is made easy to understand, with plenty of good humour, and all questions are taken and fielded without being the slightest bit patronising or evasive. Richard's favourite joke is to say how much Betfair forumites have sneered at him and his companion Clerks - it's their little bit o'sport, it seems, to see who's got the most brickbats! All good fun, which is what racing ought to be at heart.

Aragorn, only prob with the blanket decision is that, as we know, courses are for the main owned by large corporations. Northern Racing, Arena Leisure, Jockey Club Estates, and then the indies, which range from the 'cheerful' end of the scale to the Duke's estate at Goodwood. It's the premier courses who are the most unlikely to ever countenance cheap, let alone free, admission, as well as the indies, who aren't (usually) backed up by the revenue from their sister courses and their total intake from non-racing events. For example, Brighton is Northern's most profitable course in terms of non-racing revenue, while Newcastle is usually the best money-spinner in raceday take. The two revenues, however, are kept as separate budgets - the Clerks of courses get a budget for course maintenance, renovation, and staffing, while the non-racing events manager gets another budget for his sales/marketing/wedding planner, etc. - and so on. If you ask for racing to be free, then the revenue from that side of the course's income is virtually zero. It becomes lopsided and all corporations will tell you they're not charidees - they're run on a strictly commercial basis, and there's no way that the separate non-racing events manager will 'lend' his income to bolster the racing side.

It seems strange, perverse, even that racecourses now function in the way their phones get answered: "Brighton Racecourse and Conference Centre", or "Lingfield Park Racecourse and Golf Club", etc. Most of them survive because they run loads of other forms of business which don't even complement racing: Brighton has a huge one-off income annually from the London-to-Brighton bike ride, by offering much-needed parking space for the bikers' support vehicles, plus safe overnighting of equipment, etc. I can't honestly recall the final tally, but I believe it's in the region of £100,000 for that single event - way more than they'll take from their gate money. But that money doesn't go towards their races' prize monies, and sponsors still have to be found for their races, hospitality uptake to fill their boxes, and even sponsors sought for the BTOs!

All the non-racing revenues get chucked into a big corporate pot, which will go towards future expansion such as the new stand and boxes at Fontwell, or an onsite hotel, and so on, on an as-needed basis. In fact, most courses run separate payrolls and bank accounts for their racing, and non-racing, revenue streams. So asking them to all go 'free' on the racing side is an ask a bit too far for most, shackled as they are to corporate policies.

However, I do think the 'no enclosures' idea's fine, with the obvious restrictions of Royal Ascot's royal enclosure (much degraded as that notion is now), and definitely a much cheaper gate fee. I agree that £10's more than enough, with concessions as usual for students, the disabled, and OAPs, with under-16s remaining free (with an adult to ensure they don't run amok). Chuck the race card in and definitely reduce the cost of the food and drink to no more than you'd pay in one of the course's local bistros. Lots of things to do for kids, monitored creches, proper baby lounges for mums to feed them quietly (not just a scuzzy mat in the ladies' bog), and so on. Plenty of comfortable seating - whoever thought that visiting OAPs wanted to perch on hard bar stools was in another universe, or damp benches outside. Cosy lounge bars, fires in the winter - more of a 'pub' feel to the NH courses, less of the glass-and-steel coldness where you more and more feel you've blundered into an Ikea showroom!
 
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"Stout brogues? It's at BRIGHTON, dearest, not a ramblers' hike across the Downs! You can toddle round the whole course in about 5 minutes!"

I thought you mentioned doing the same at Plumpton and if your doing the two on a regular basis those six-inched-heeled strappy sandals aren't going to be much use to you!;)
 
And look at all the wrinkled noses in the 'Comments' section! Ascot doesn't seem to fit the bill at all. There is the inverted snobbery to get over, it appears, of offering something that's supposed to be brilliant for no charge. It's like saying buy this pair of Jimmy Choo's for £400, get the other pair free - it's downgrading the sport in some people's eyes.
 
Desert Orchid said:
The racecard is for people who can't understand the RP.
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I was at Ellerslie races in Auckland last Saturday and the 3$ racecard (about 1.40 pounds sterling) contained all the form for a horse's last three runs/trials, plus a summary of wins/places/losses and on what going/distance. And not only for that meeting, but for another one as well, and the thing was scarcely bulkier than a standard UK racecard (which costs more, surprise surprise).

So, whether you're a Brian or a Ben, there's absolutely no need to cart a bloody great RP around with you all afternoon.
 
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Alan Lee, Racing Correspondent



div#related-article-links p a, div#related-article-links p a:visited {color:#06c;} The man charged with delivering the most radical structural changes in recent racing history yesterday described the process as “like wading through very deep treacle”. Senior figures in the sport, however, insist that the promised transformation of the fixture list will be in place next year.
A sense of frustration infected the British Horseracing Conference, as a packed Westminster hall received only a vague outline of the premierisation scheme at the heart of the Racing For Change (RFC) initiative. Far more detail had been expected.
Rod Street, project director for RFC, admitted: “I am disappointed that we can't say more but this has been incredibly complex. I've been to meetings where people have thumped the table with anger over the Derby moving from Wednesday to Saturday - and that happened 15 years ago. Imagine the problems now we're really trying to shuffle the pack.”
Street invoked the treacle analogy during a 25-minute speech, delivered with such wit that Jeremy Kyle, another of the conference presenters, likened him to Ben Elton. Beneath the gags, though, Street was eloquent in his frustration that the key issue of the Flat season remains unresolved.


Whatever else RFC achieves - and this already includes free admission schemes, youth drives, website advances and the trialling of a team championship - can be considered cosmetic next to this fundamental target.
I understand that the RFC proposal is for a new “Premier” Flat season to start on Guineas weekend and end with a “European finale meeting”. This overdue climax was originally planned for September but now looks likely to replace Champions Day in mid-October, alternating between Ascot and Newmarket.
Dissenters remain, though, so this headline item could not be signed off before the conference. “We know when we want it to begin and end but agreements have yet to be finalised,” Street said. “People may say we've had a year and that should be long enough but significant discussions are ongoing and we don't want to go off half-cock.”
By contrast, Street was able to confirm a new “Premier Jumps Championship” bookended by Cheltenham's two keynote meetings, the Open and the Festival. It is a device designed to enhance the existing narrative to the Festival and excludes Aintree's Grand National meeting.
There is little opposition to plans for most group one races on the Flat to be moved to Saturdays, or for a “Premier” product that will comprise two Saturday meetings each week of the year, plus one each on Fridays and Sundays.
That apart, little was forthcoming about how the much discussed tiering of the fixture list will work in practice. Nic Coward, chief executive of the British Horseracing Authority, was unenlightening when I challenged him to provide more details.
“Changes need to take place across the board, and 2010 is all about getting the fixture list right for 2011,” Coward said. “These changes are going to be made for next year. They can't not be.” Racecourses and other stakeholders will rightly want to know more about which fixtures will be downgraded and how their funding may be affected.
The abiding impression was that reform remains a hazardous objective within a factionalised racing community too often complacent and reactionary. Though Paul Roy, the BHA chairman, rightly decried the negativity rife in racing and declared that dialogue between the many bodies is now more constructive, he admitted to the damaging perception of “our seeming inability to speak with one clear voice”.
Roy dismissed the theory that RFC is “dumbing down the sport”. He added: “There will be no attempt to fix something that is not broken”.
This plainly includes the traditional climax of the jumps season, enhanced by a third Gold Cup duel between Kauto Star and Denman. As Kyle interviewed the respective owners, Clive Smith and Paul Barber, the audience doubtless wished all of racing could be so straightforward.
 
It would be interesting to know if they have sounded this out with the likes of Coolmore and Godolphin. I really find it hard to believe they will by pass a shot at the Arc or Breeders Cup for this. Why the need for a Cheltenham like ending to the season? I love the order of the flat season as it is.

Alan Lee, Commentary
It may be difficult to grasp, with Cheltenham still not fully digested, but the Flat turf season starts on Saturday. Punters relish the age-old puzzle of the Lincoln but, to the wider world, it is hardly a resonant launch. Indeed, with Frankie Dettori, Ryan Moore and Kieren Fallon in Dubai for World Cup night, it makes about as much sense as the next jumps season starting the day after the present one ends.
Superficially, none of this will change next year. Most fixtures belong to racecourses, rather than to the sport itself, and territory is jealously protected. But all is not lost. Against considerable odds, the Racing For Change (RFC) project is about to bear notable fruit in the shape of a new Premier season for Flat racing in 2011.
Formal announcements are some weeks away, as issues of funding and branding remain outstanding. However, I understand that the causes of frustration expressed by RFC directors at the British Racing Conference last month have largely been overcome, producing a very different mood of positivity.
There was a sense, familiar to all with experience of racing politics, that factional obstacles were being erected to every proposed reform. Such intransigence was not only slowing the process but dismaying those working to develop it. Much more obstinacy and the entire RFC initiative could have been dead in the water.
Gradually, however, resistance has faded. Perhaps the most significant breakthrough occurred on the eve of Cheltenham, when RFC briefed 70 Jockey Club members and received widespread support for its plans. The Jockey Club may not officially run racing any more but it wields enormous influence. If its members are now convinced, the barriers to change will quickly come down.
The priorities are that a core Flat season should open with the Guineas at the start of May and have the sort of all-star finale it has lacked. Between times, the biggest midweek races should move to Saturdays to maximise attendance and TV audience.
Broad agreement seems imminent. I understand that the finale meeting, originally planned for late September, is now likely to be in mid-October. It will be branded as a European championships and initially staged by Ascot, for its huge spectator capacity and its stature as a destination.
This will win no favour with the French authorities, who promote their Arc meeting in early October as the climax of the European season. Gratifyingly, though, there seems to be a robust determination that British racing must finally do what is required for its own health.
Support is evidently coming from the leading racecourses, too, with agreement on the movement of some landmark races to weekends. York's Juddmonte International Stakes is likely to be one of the most notable, as the Ebor Festival shifts forward to encompass a Saturday.
The need to restructure the Flat calendar, so that peripheral sports watchers no longer regard it as virtually finished after Royal Ascot, has long been clear. If RFC achieves its targets, much humble pie should be eaten by those who derided it.
Until recently, tampering with the gem that is Cheltenham had not been considered by RFC. However, the racecourse itself offered up the possibility of a Festival Saturday and RFC will support it if - or maybe that should be when - the idea takes wing.
Suddenly, there is an appetite in the sport to modernise and adapt, to play the big events to their maximum audience and allow the rest to find their level like lower league football games. These are delicate days but there should be no turning back.
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One of the best things about the flat season is good racing midweek - stops the louts attending, and makes for a much better experience - all weekend racing will mean is more stag parties - what has this got to do with improving racing? I have no problem with taking a day off to go to a great day of racing - I will be doing this for Goodwood, and hope to get to York for the first time.
 
What are racing for change ultimately trying to achieve anyway?

Is it more people in the gates at weekends? I stand to be corrected, but I don't see any issues with Saturday attendances. Is it more money for racecourses?

I don't see any evidence they are actually trying to improve the sport.
 
They're trying to justify the frankly obscene amount of money spent on them so far as I can see.

I agree that there isn't an issue with weekend attendances - not numerically at least. the major issue I have with weekend crowds is what you mentioned; the interminable stag and hen parties and booze fests which [especially in the flat season] invariably end up resulting in some sort of violence. I'm sick to the back teeth of it. If I have to call security in once more at Ascot whilst fighting my way through drunken arseholes socking seven bells out of each other, I'm going to lose it in a big way.
 
I really hope this does not lead to horses that usually turn up in the Arc missing out and avoiding top class clashes. Two weeks before the Arc?!


Telegraph
Officials charged with bringing the so-called Sport Of Kings into the 21st Century have five weeks to finalise the detail on a spectacular raceday at Ascot that will surely challenge Longchamp's Arc weekend.
Before the 2011 Fixture List is signed off at the end of June, those driving RFC must put in place a financial package that will guarantee a mile-and-a-quarter race, worth more than £2 million each year, for the next five years.
The race, as yet unnamed, will effectively replace the Champion Stakes at Newmarket and be the grand highlight of Ascot's card. The new meeting will take the place of Newmarket's Champions Day, which means a new date will have to be found for the Dewhurst Stakes and Cesarewitch.
An enormous amount will be riding on how quickly the BHA and the racecourses can thrash out the detail for a high class card that is expected to also include a sprint, probably over six furlongs, a mile race and a race for stayers. All will be big-money events and, despite the assurances of British officials, must impact on races at Longchamp on the first weekend in October.
While most would have interpreted the move of such an important fixture to Ascot being because of sponsorship, it appears the money will come from various sources, with the Levy Board and racing's commercial arm REL being top of the list.
Nick Smith, Ascot's tireless head of communications and international recruitment, said yesterday: "This is an enormous project and the key figures involved are also all directly involved with Racing For Change. There is enormous goodwill behind the venture and, quite simply, it has to be done now – and it has to work. If it is not in place for 2011, there will be enormous momentum lost."
Smith also confirmed the date had been given the nod by the European Pattern Committee. "Two weeks before the Arc is highly likely to be the date. They all know that it is going to happen as long as it is in tandem with the European Pattern, it will," he added.
Smith added; "The only way something like this [RFC] is going to work is to have 25 balls in the air, and to catch them all."
 
The new meeting will take the place of Newmarket's Champions Day

:(

As has been mentioned by many on here before, Champions Days works quite well. I'd rather see them put any money and effort into upgrading the races.
 
"Two weeks before the Arc is highly likely to be the date. They all know that it is going to happen as long as it is in tandem with the European Pattern, it will,"
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Have I got this straight? Two weeks before the Arc, one week after the Irish Champion Stakes, and they are expecting agreement that a major new 10f race will fit into the Pattern?
 
How will this fit in with the rest of the calendar sandwiched between the Irish Champion and the Arc?

I personally think Group 1's should be the highlight of most any card. As good as Arc day is, I would far prefer the 2yo Group 1's to be on a different card. They (the Lagardere and Boussac) deserve more than the billing than the billing they are getting now, just as the National Stakes should absolutely not be on the same day as the Irish Leger.
 
I disagree TS - Arc day is the best day's racing of the year, and whilst the flat season trumps the jumps by not having all it's best races crammed together, the Arc day/weekend works really well.
 
Grey said:
Have I got this straight? Two weeks before the Arc, one week after the Irish Champion Stakes, and they are expecting agreement that a major new 10f race will fit into the Pattern?
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Reading that article it sounds like that has been cleared already? It sounds an absolute disaster if you ask me.
 
So what happens to the rest of Champions Day?

They'd be better off moving Champions Day to Ascot and leaving it where it is and just increasing the prize money for the various races if possible or even better just not prat around with the whole thing and have RFC trying to justify a position.
 
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