Racing For Change

Why? I thought you were in a number of syndicates, Gamla. So why don't you cough up the £195 annual fee to the ROA and join the Owners' Badge Scheme, which is free? It's open to anyone with an aggregate of 50% ownership of horses - that's in multiples of percentages in any number of gee-gees, and you'd have got in free, been given a race card, and had all-day free tea and coffee in the owners' bar. And you'd go racing free at all British courses for all of their fixtures bar the main premier events. Stop doing things the hard way!

If you'd paid £25 to Brighton in advance, you'd have got a Premier Enclosure badge, race card, Tote betting voucher, drinks voucher, tea/coffe and bikkies on arrival, and ME* taking you on the backstage tour! Surely that* alone should be an incentive?!
 
I'm not in any syndicates anymore Kri, water down the drain that game.

£25 for that deal is absolutely embarrassing compared to the Sandown offer I'm afraid to say despite the offer of a tour from your good self!

The racing at Brighton is a fifth as good as Sandown's yet they charge the same amount!
 
I would find this article easier to read if i thought it was a spoof.

http://www.mihirbose.com/index.php/nic-coward/

Appeared in the Evening Standard yesterday evening.

Proof it it were needed how awful Mihir Bose is - he falls into the same boat as Rishi as regards the BBC choosing him for the colour of his skin than any discernible talent, insight or knowledge.
 
kri, that's all fine and dandy but I would bet you a million pound you will not be profitable over an extended period yet this piece seems to infer you will which is frankly nonsense and I am not in favour in any way of people being allured into horse racing on the pretense you can win plenty gambling. The simple fact is you can't.... In my last three years of punting on racing I am marginally down. It's possible not to lose much or even turn a small percentage profit but the reality is that unless you are Agnes Haddock or Barney Curley it's very difficult to make money from the game...
 
Aragorn said:
Once you get in there they have this article, which i've copied - In essence folks we should give up and starting picking names we like because on average for every £7 bet we'll earn £44.... You couldn't make it up... I didn't realise the game was so easy.

I'd agree... irresponsible tosh.
Click to expand...
 
What I hate most of all about the website is the daft 1960's style overly lipglossed mannekin that comes up on the intro.

So, let's get this straight the best photograph they could find to indicate that racing needs to change was a highly made up model?

DOH!

When oh when will anyone understand that although sex does sell stuff, horses and betting sell a lot more in racing. :(
 
They could start with today's racing programme.

Three Summer jumps meetings on a Sunday afternoon in July.

On Friday, there was racing from Ascot, Chester, Newmarket, Newbury and York, all group one tracks, three of which aren't a million miles from one another.

Perhaps not a bad idea to move one or two of these to this Sunday in future? You know, on the days of the week when people can go to racing more easily?
 
I understand your complaint, Gamla, but I think that the Flat courses - all Group One as you say - will say why the hell should they move from prime days (although it was a small crowd at Ascot yesterday) they've enjoyed for years, when 'summer jumps' is the intruder into the fixtures list?
 
Surely they'd get more people through the gates on a Sunday though?

That Ascot meeting is a prize contender to move to today with no meetings in the South today. Just doesn't make any sense.
 
This year it's a difficult one - you've got the World Cup Final tonight, even if you don't have a load of F1 fans wanting to watch the British Grand Prix first on the Beeb. I imagine, with further glorious weather, folks have been maxing the BBQ at home or beer gardening, and racing just hasn't been top of the agenda. Not to say any other year it wouldn't be worth trying, Gamla, but this year's WC has flushed a few attendances down the pan!

Ascot yesterday was remarkably quiet - loads of space everywhere, especially pleasant out on the lawns with a reasonably-priced tray of fish 'n' chips and a cold drink. Easy to march about between the parade ring and the front, although inside the Concourse ("passengers please go to Gate No.4... ") the queues seemed to be a bit silly for a pint. Plenty of places to seat yourself, which pointed to a small turn-out. When I say small, it's hard to judge with their tiers of hospitality boxes and the sheer scale of the stands, but I'd not have said more than 6,000, which is tiny for the course. (A sell-out for Brighton and Lingfield, but they're very tiny courses anyway.) I agree with the points you're making, though - there have been some really dumb runs of fixtures this year and last. That's what comes of OFSTED making it an auction free-for-all! Be interesting to see what they go for with the planned reductions. Personally, I'm not sure that courses won't just give up their least popular meetings and just bung an extra race (or two) into the remaining cards to keep their picture rights income up.
 
Last edited:
Surprised Ascot was quiet, I've only been three times and all three were big high profile meetings (Royal Saturday 2009, King George 2009, Royal Thursday 2010) and I now have a deep set hatred against the place but probably it's unjustified and I should try the place for a quieter meeting. That combined with the fact I never seem to win there (Rowe Park yesterday a long overdue exception).

I see the World Cup argument but I don't know why tracks don't embrace it. Why not have a twilight Sunday card with the last race at 7.15ish tonight and then put the final on all the big screens? I know bookmakers usually close at 6 on Sundays but surely they're staying open for the kick off anyway?

Me and Hamm went to watch England vs Germany in Richmond the other week and I proposed going to Windsor for the afternoon until I saw they had a really grumpy message on their website saying "we will only be showing the England game on small screens in the bars, nowhere else." I can't see why these tracks don't turn these threats into opportunities rather than putting up barriers. Racecourses have great facilities to put on big screen football matches, they have the bars and catering etc (racecourses could put their own BBQ on, would be better than the shite they serve at most of them!). It seems a no brainer yet everywhere is seemingly against it and put up a brick wall against things like the World Cup.

I wouldn't know much about how courses bid for certain fixtures but if that is the case then Racing For Change need to sort that out asap. Having 3 fixtures in the South on Friday and none on Sunday and 2 in the Midlands on Sunday and none on Friday is just madness and so is the lack of top quality flat action today when there was arguably too much of it on Friday!
 
But, to go back four years, dearest, we had - as I've said elsewhere - about 5 paying customers at Brighton when we clashed with a WC match. We did special offers, Big Screen, cheap beer, you name it. It wasn't a nice day, mind you - if my feeble memory serves me right, it rained, which doesn't help any meeting, but it was a disaster. I do think courses could well take the WC into account in 2014 when planning fixtures. Have you gone onto the RfC website and chucked in your pennysworth? I have -for whatever good it'll do, at least if voices are heard, they have got to take note.

I don't like Ascot since it was transformed into Bluewater or Terminal 4, either. The Concourse is a ghastly mess still, with people slopping beer around while trying to avoid those queuing at the Tote stalls, and there just isn't much that's 'pretty' about it any more, bar one or two superb old trees still standing. The parade ring tiered viewing area was bedecked with small troughs of bright red geraniums, but it still has too many dead-ends - a couple of exasperated blokes walked past me on the steppings and cried, "oh, no! Not another way we can't get out!" One decent spot was the underpass where the horses come from the pre-parade into the parade ring, where you can sit comfortably and watch them. Especially nice on what was a very hot and also quite humid day - until a sudden gust of wind blasted the parasol off the table next to me and the people I was sitting with, straight onto ours, along with an extra salt pot and someone's mineral water! Just as well the old bloke had gone to put on his £2 e/w, or else he'd have been nutted!
 
I always say Ascot is now just like a giant Wetherspoons!

Interesting point about Brighton, hadn't read that on other forums. It does surprise me that it didn't work but the weather would be a massive factor, nobody wants to sit outside in the rain watching football.

Amuses me that you have to register for the RfC website and can't just go on it to have a look round, it's as though they're just trying to be difficult!
 
RfC just wants your e-mail address, I think, Gamla. I'd go on and tell 'em exactly what you think. As an old auctioneer I heard once said, "speak, or I don't hear you!". There are a number of fair points on there, although a lot betting-related, which I don't always understand. No - make that ever understand! But things like making it a welcoming, clean and comfortable experience, and not feeling you haven't had value for money, must be tops. Stan Clarke had the customer ethos all right when he bought up his nine courses to form Northern Racing. Whether they will manage to thrive and still look halfway decent is going to depend on whether the Reuben Brothers continue to set impossibly high goals for their managers to attain. For example, and this is no doubt the rub at most courses, tiny Brighton was told this season to do 53% better than last! Having broken all the past goals set for it, and being the best-performing on non-raceday events, they've now set the bar at what is an unrealistic level. Who the hell gets told that their performance, not just excellent before, but outperforming consistently, now has to be over 50% better than before? The knock-on is that staff get dispirited with the pressure, especially when racing is also hit by the recession and so many other distractions, and quit. That means a faster turnover of staff with fewer links to racing or any view to it being a long-term career. Raceday staff see managers and accountants come and go on a regular basis at most of the commercially-owned, rather than family or indie-run, courses. It's disheartening to reinvent the wheel for them every season, trying to point out why certain decisions don't make sense or aren't in the racing public's best interests. Example: trying to hike the price of a Class 6 meeting race card to £3 and then wondering why so many were returned unsold at the end of the day. Hiking entrance fees so that you pay £20, regardless of whether you get 6, 7, or 8 races, or whether there's any class to the meeting. And so on and on...
 
Last edited:
Ascot on Friday was very quiet, but there was nowhere to sit near the pre parade ring in the shade. All the benches were lined up against the small stands by the ring and sitting in them would have meant having one's back to the horses. I did speak to an official and asked why they couldn't have put some of the benches on the lawns under the tree facing the other way - good point they said, but none were moved. Otherwise it appeared the only other places to sit outside were in seats belonging to bars.
The prices of the refreshments continue to be a joke: £3 for a plastic cup of lemonade which was actually two mixer bottles, with ice in it, to make up the whole cup, and as for the Pimms....
 
G-G, everything not in the hospitality suites or formal restaurants will be plastic, due to the unfortunate incidents of having the public smash bottles and real glasses, either accidentally or when tripping, or over each other's heads at the end of day. The only 'outside' beverage containers now have to be paper or plastic. That's why when people try leaving the bars with their glasses, they're turned back by staff.

Pimms is outrageously expensive at most courses - I've no idea why it has to cost £20-30 a pitcher. It's a price which seems indefensibly high. My fish and chips, which was excellent in quantity and quality, was £6.50, I think. About a quid more than my local chippy.
 
Pimms prices vary massively by course as well. Some charge £5 for a small cup, Brighton in fairness charged about £4.50 for a pint I seem to recall and the guy there said he'd hardly sold any. The best Pimms routine is at Sandown where you have to pay a £5 deposit for your jug! It's always much better value to buy a jug if there are three or four of you though.

What gets me though is that some courses that sell pitchers, then don't allow drinks infront of the grandstand so one person has to stand round the back looking after the jug and glasses whilst the others watch the race. Newmarket, Newbury and Goodwood the serious offenders in this instance.

I agree with the Fish and Chips at Ascot, I was very impressed. They were extremely tasty and £6.50 isn't bad at all. I know chippys in London where they cost more than that and would be a lot worse in quality.
 
krizon said:
G-G, everything not in the hospitality suites or formal restaurants will be plastic, due to the unfortunate incidents of having the public smash bottles and real glasses, either accidentally or when tripping, or over each other's heads at the end of day. The only 'outside' beverage containers now have to be paper or plastic. That's why when people try leaving the bars with their glasses, they're turned back by staff.

QUOTE]

My point was not about the cup being plastic - my point was about the cost of such a small quantity of liquid.
Click to expand...
 
Oh, sorry! I thought you were upset it wasn't real glass, which keeps the liquid cooler longer. I found out that Ascot's 200ml container (plastic, with ice) of orange juice cost me £2.10. Gone in four slurps. Now that was taking the mick, which is why I opted for the rather less healthy option of a much cheaper and larger Fanta with my fish!
 
Ah, but they still sell glass bottles of wine or champagne at Ascot that you are allowed to take away with you, and I've seen glass glasses (as opposed to plastic) as well.
 
That seems wrong that Ascot does that, Shadz (I'm not contending they don't) - I thought that bar licences only permitted you to sell liquor in glasses, not to sell them in bottles, like liquor stores, to remove from the premises. But perhaps not. Real glasses shouldn't be out in the public areas at all, but there we go - some naughty people hide 'em and the ancient raceday staff probably can't be bothered to go over and lecture them!
 
Back
Top