Sandown Sell-Out

S

stodge

At the Start
Joined
May 2, 2003
Messages
206
Location
Sutton
According to Sandown's own website, Thursday evening's meeting is a complete sell-out:

http://www.sandown.co.uk/fixtures/girls-aloud-music-night/

Now, I've never known a Sandown meeting sell out before. Does this mean Thursday's mundane fare of Class4 and Class5 handicaps are more popular than the Eclipse, Tingle Creek or BetFred Gold Cup meetings ?

Perhaps the fact that Girls Aloud are playing after racing is a factor. The Girls will be playing for just an hour from 9pm.

Good luck to Sandown - they've got a full house and will doubtless be hoping the take at the bars and eateries will fo some way toward paying the huge fee they will have had to pay to get the Girls to appear. They can also console themselves that the ticket money is already in the bank and they won't need to worry if next Thursday is, weather-wise, a repeat of last Wednesday.

The issue for me, and the question no one wants to address I think, is how many of those going next Thursday give a rat's for the fact that there is some horse racing going on ? For me, the balance has shifted. There was a change when the racing came first and the music was clearly a supporting feature.

Now, it seems the music is the important thing and the racing the support.
 
Must admit me and 4 mates are going, purely to see Girls Aloud, won't be getting there until after a couple of races.
 
Good piece stodge. Something similar occurs over here sometimes and I dispair. Rather than concerts, over here it is massive promotion of fashion and ladies day.

Get the people in the gates, dont worry about what they do once they get in...could not care less weither they look at a horse at all during the day. That is not good for racing.
 
Sandown..

Thanks for the comments. I don't expect anything approaching serious comment or analysis on RUK or in the Post but I would love to know how the crowd numbers develop during the evening. I suspect many, like chris, will arrive midway through the evening, have a couple (or more) drinks and await the arrival of the Girls.

Galileo, I don't know of any other sport that is so insecure in its own product that it has to put on a completely unrelated attraction in order to get people in. You couldn't imagine rugby (either code) or football doing it but racing has to.

Sandown may revel in its 15,000 or whatever attendance on Thursday but I'm going on the afternoon of the 24th. I suspect that'll be a better indication of the size of the true racegoing population.
 
I'm looking forward to my first trip to Cartmel since the day High Chapparal won the Derby on Thursday where I don't believe there is any bands on although there is the requisite bouncy castle for the kids.
I am also concerned at the fact that those who wish to go racing on these days are now having to pay extra for the privilige because of these concerts after racing.
Even York is going that route now with the two day meeting at the end of this month having tribute bands after racing both days.
 
stodge said:
Galileo, I don't know of any other sport that is so insecure in its own product that it has to put on a completely unrelated attraction in order to get people in. You couldn't imagine rugby (either code) or football doing it but racing has to.
Click to expand...

The racing will be shit though won`t it. Any Group races? I doubt it. I don`t see where the rugger comparison comes from, i don`t see that sport as particulary well attended.
 
Sandown have been sold out before - they were sold out last summer on the dates when UB40 and Madness played, I'm sure.
 
Presumably Newbury was pretty busy on Friday for UB40,it certainly won't have been for the racing which was very poor for a top track..
 
I know - I'm amazed anyone's interested in UB40 nowadays. It was pretty crowded by all accounts at Newbury though - and at Sandown's UB40 meeting last year it was packed out too.
 
I suppose it`s the night out on a weekend as well. Chester and Haydock always get rammed on a friday evening in the summer as well. I know a few who go and none of them are punters.
 
Last edited:
stodge said:
Galileo, I don't know of any other sport that is so insecure in its own product that it has to put on a completely unrelated attraction in order to get people in. You couldn't imagine rugby (either code) or football doing it but racing has to.
Click to expand...

Actually, I seriously considered attending the final of Euro 2008 purely to see Enrique Iglesias. :o
 
I think all this is ok, so long as there are plenty of alternative fixtures around. The night before theres a fair card just up the road at kempton and theres Windsor on Monday of course. Regular racegoers in the sw london area havent lost much really...Kempton and Sandown evening meeting used to be on alternative weeks

And if it brings in a new audience, then fine...

All a bit like the 20/20 at Cricket. My concern (like 20/20) would be if it started to impose itself a little too much
 
I was at Sandown last year Trackside, granted - for the racing! Was out of the gate before they started warbling away.....
 
A friend has a horse running at Sandown on Thursday and I turned down the badge, can't face driving all the way down there then up to Rasen on Saturday LOL! Not sorry really as I have had enough of crowds at the races for a bit

I'm easy about the music nights/ladies days thing - courses have to make their money somehow. these people don't just buy lots of badges - they spend a lot on course too. They even buy things - clothes & hats, paintings, books etc etc

I was at both big 'Ladies Days' the last two weekends - Sandown and Newmarket - and there were definitely two distinct kinds of punters there: the racing crowd, who went to the pre-p ring, paddock, stands and winners enc etc; and the 'social' crowd who stayed mainly in the bars behind the stands and in the hospitalities, often in huge same-sex gangs. The men wanted to bet and drink beer - the girls wanted to show off their finery, and sit down a lot as they had silly shoes on. Who cares if lots of people don't see a horse, so long as they don't get in our way?

I was chatting to a friend who goes to a lot of race meetings, on a BHA badge or whatever it is he has now. He was moaning about music nights, ladies in big hats, and not wanting to go to Great Leighs because he can't use his bins to see the whole course.

I asked him how much he spent when he got into a course, on average... Answer - nothing! He's the sort who has a sarnie and a coke in the car park and buys nothing on course - he might have a coffee if it's cold, but in general he never leaves the paddock except to got to the stand. Why would racecourses prefer his custom to that of the people who buy oysters and champagne? - or lots of beer and chips or ice-cream?

Racecourses are businesses with bottom lines to consider, and the brutal truth is, people like us are not their target clientele - we are tolerated!
 
Galileo said:
Good piece stodge. Something similar occurs over here sometimes and I dispair. Rather than concerts, over here it is massive promotion of fashion and ladies day.

Get the people in the gates, dont worry about what they do once they get in...could not care less weither they look at a horse at all during the day. That is not good for racing.
Click to expand...

Totally disagree and think you've got this fundamentally wrong Gal. Far from it being no good for racing, it might just come to save it. I don't personally like it, but then I don't have to. Racing is in the sports entertainment industry, and for such time as we live on planet football, it's always going to be a very poor relation. Courses don't exactly lend themselves to alternative commercial uses and those which aren't in peripheral rural areas, are normally in prime development locations.

In any event, there must be a system in here somewhere if loads of novice race goers are turning up with no comprehension of form and affecting on course markets by backing "Frankie" blind. It's one of the reasons I strugle with jumps racing as the geenral person who can be bothered to huddle in the rain and snow of Ludlow on a Tuesday is invariably more knowledgable than the Summer social race goer
 
I can see where you're coming from Headstrong, but to alienate the people who go because they actually want to watch the racing is pointless and long term, not the best policy. Matey boy who goes to watch the racing might not buy copious bottles of champagne and plates of oysters - but he DOES spend money there, he does go for the racing, and probably goes on a very regular basis. How often are the drunken gits falling over and getting in people's way - not to mention the dolly birds staggering around falling off their shoes - going to go racing? Not often, I'd bet - it's just another big piss up for them, it'll be a cricket match next time, or a pub, or anywhere else they can sit and drink themselves silly again whilst in ignorant, drunken bliss of getting in the way of everyone around them.
 
Last edited:
How often are the drunken gits falling over and getting in people's way - not to mention the dolly birds staggering around falling off their shoes
Click to expand...

I thought this thread was about evening fixtures at Sandown...not Royal Ascot
 
Ha ha Clivex - but this happens at all the 'big' summer meetings - and a few of the out-of-season ones too!

The point about my mate SL is that he doesn't pay for his badge - he's got access by virtue of having worked for the BHA for many years; and he doesn't even bet!! - he's a racing and horse addict - but he spends nothing on course to speak of bar the odd coffee. I think he buys a Racing Post.... and he's not untypical of quite a few I've met - most of them through Elite it has to be said!! Courses can't keep going without the kind who go along and spend £100 quid on a day out - and that's not counting their bets

I agree it's maddening when the dolly birds and drunken louts get in the way - but mostly they don't, except in the Champagne Bar at Nby when it rains, which really does annoy me :rolleyes:
 
There was a bit of a scuffle at the July meeting last week as well (can't remember the day) over a supposedly stolen bottle of champers. Or so I read.

Par for the course these days it seems.
 
It seems pretty harsh to me to, even metaphorically, tell the genuine racing enthusiast to feck off because he's not spending enough money in favour of a bunch of airheads who just buy more champagne, get pissed up, get in peoples way, scream and shriek wildly just because they're drunk and make a general nuisance of themself. It's a sad indication of the direction British racing is heading in, if you ask me.

Clivex - there is no way Royal Ascot is worse than Sandown. It's one of the worse for the pissed up lager louts - I nearly got in a fight on Whitbread Day when some bandjaxed tosser got in my way then walked into me. My colleagues found it amusing mind you!

Tonight was a pain in the arse too.
 
Back
Top