Towcester - Showing others the way as usual

How does their model run. If they are free entry then their income comes from TV rights and income from bars/restaurants if they run themselves. Does anyone have a clue how it works as the Irish tracks could learn from it but no-one seems to know.
 
I was there a couple of years ago and would definitely recommend a visit.

According to BHS data its average attendance is above 4,000 while for other racecourses in its league the norm would be about half that. Lord Hesketh must reckon that the extra 2,000+ sales of race cards, drinks and food portions, plus the savings from needing fewer gate staff, and the higher value of bookies' pitches, is worth the £30k or so per meeting that is forgone in admission fees.

Prize money is ok by UK standards for the grade of racing and they don't bother trying to stage any fancy feature races, which presumably keeps costs down.

By the way, I think they charge admission at the Christmas and Easter meetings.
 
I think the difference might be that Towcester runs its own catering whereas most irish courses have external caterers so they miss out on the huge food margins you can make from it.
 
The course does indeed charge ten quid on easter Sunday and Boxing Day.. Both are always rammed as well.

The catering is run by the course (The smaller bar could do with extra staff and better stocking if anyone from Towcester is reading this!) although they must lease pitches to the gourmet burger and sausage stands they have next to the betting ring. The number of staff is relatively low as there is never any trouble, they don't have to man the stalls and the course is relatively small in size.

They said that the attendance for the last friday meeting of the year was about 4500. I think they made that up because they only have two people at the gate selling racecards and with both doors open there is no way they can count accurately. I think there was closer to 6000 there that evening. It took me 45 minutes to get a drink when I arrived, not ideal but worth it for the atmosphere you get.

I would imagine the money they are generating from people spending on course is balancing the books; most are there for the whole day. Plus they have a good number of bookmakers (About 15 - 20 in total - They have some next to the parade ring, the main ring and then a few others near to the first fence. It gets so busy that people set up camp down there an barely move all day). The racing is not of the greatest quality but Sunday's was card was all class 4's and the performances of Palypso De Thaix (Who I could not believe was 6/1 when he had won a G3 chase in france) and Alan King's Asturienne were worth noting (Asturienne should do well in Mare's hurdles in time, i'd expect her to be competing in listed events).

If you have never been I would highly recommend it.
 
Cantoris said:
I think the difference might be that Towcester runs its own catering whereas most irish courses have external caterers so they miss out on the huge food margins you can make from it.
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It's the same with most sporting venues tbh - it's all franchised out so any profits outside of a flat rate they pay annually is taken out by an external company.
 
Lingfield does its own catering, but that still means you've got to furnish the supplies, the foodstuff, pay the cooks and the catering staff! Picture rights were some £4,000 per race a couple of years back, so I assume still around the same. They'll save on not paying, say, around £50 a meeting to turnstile operators and guardians of enclosure gates, but they still have to have a number of security/safety stewards in place for the BHA to licence them, as well as all of the other raceday staff such as jumps attendants, ground staff, paramedics, St John ambulance, and all the officials, who don't do their jobs free: the judge, Clerk of the Scales, weighing room security, vets, doctors, etc. It also has to cover the cost of watering (Brighton requires a fair amount at times, being chalk based, and the annual bill's around £20,000), bedding for the horses, maintaining stable staff accom and all the course's buildings, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera! Then it still has to cover the full salaries of admin staff, its manager, the Clerk of the Course, and a few groundsmen to help him keep the estate in trim all year round.

Bookies generally pay five times the entrance fee, so I'm interested to know what they pay five times of as it's free! Perhaps the NJPC rules state they have to pay a specified minimum for their pitch - it's currently £85 for Tatts or rails at Lingfield on the AW, for example.

But the course would have to be selling one helluva lot of restaurant bookings, hospitality, hot pies and bottles of beer to cover their running expenses. Courses separate their accounts on racing and non-racing events (such as weddings, exhibitions, selling space for seminars, etc.) so it would be no good to conjecture that one would cover the other.

I don't know how they do it, either, but it's nice that it's a popular venue and has the support of regulars to keep it chugging along.
 
God knows but Kempton seem to be almost managing it. That's with feeding the Judge and the Stipes in the restaurant as well!!!

As for picture rights, I can't recall the figures but TurfTV tracks receive considerably more per race than do the SiS tracks. Which is, no doubt, why Kempton keep on insisting on staging eight race cards of dross, then delaying the final two races for half an hour when the fog descends, just to make sure they can still fit them in! :nono::mad:
 
Shadow Leader said:
God knows but Kempton seem to be almost managing it. That's with feeding the Judge and the Stipes in the restaurant as well!!!

As for picture rights, I can't recall the figures but TurfTV tracks receive considerably more per race than do the SiS tracks. Which is, no doubt, why Kempton keep on insisting on staging eight race cards of dross, then delaying the final two races for half an hour when the fog descends, just to make sure they can still fit them in! :nono::mad:
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What did you make of those shows in the last race SL? Robust on course trade?
 
Yeah, like hell!!!!!! I think they were value busting books with a first show of around 132% and a starting price of around 142%.

There is never robust on course trade at Kempton sandpit meetings, never.
 
Shadow Leader said:
Yeah, like hell!!!!!! I think they were value busting books with a first show of around 132% and a starting price of around 142%.

There is never robust on course trade at Kempton sandpit meetings, never.
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I was being ironic. The favourite opened at 4/6 on course, reflecting a Betfair price of a shade over Evens. It then drifted marginally to 2.22 a few seconds before the off, witha Betfair SP of 2.17. Imagine my surprise when the subsequent shows from the track read 8/13, 4/7, 1/2 and finally 4/9. This is the benchmark for industry SPs.
 
That's commonplace at Kempton, especially recently. There just aren't enough bookmakers who go there to ensure a healthy oncourse market so such anomalies are getting more regular. It's a joke to have SPs returned on the back of a minute handful of bookmakers serving a few hundred people, but since Kempton insist on quantity over quality the situation isn't going to improve anytime soon. If they at least staged slightly less than 3, 4 and even 5 meetings a week, they might have some chance of attracting both bookmakers and punters. As it is, they don't actually care how few people come through the gate and do nothing whatsoever to encourage people to come back. Would you pay nearly £20 to go to what is for all intents and purposes a banded card, knowing full well that unless you forked out for a three course meal in the restaurant your chances of finding any food on sale that looked remotely edible is zero, 3/4 of the main stand is closed off to the public, and only one public bar is open in the entire place?
 
Yes, too loudly; they've taken it upon themselves to turn up the tannoys of late and the combination of the track being empty and Kemp screaming down the microphone makes it unbearable. Yes, he'd be worth the entry fee - if it were paid to him to get in his car and go home!!
 
I watched those last few races on RUK last night, I found the desparate attempts of the pundits amusing as well as one nag being reversed towards the stalls a full two furlongs.

But moreso, the images of the runners racing through a low lying blanket of mist under spotlights was truly speactacular. I wonder if RUK are considering making a few prints or using the images for publicity.
MR2
 
montyracing2 said:
I watched those last few races on RUK last night, I found the desparate attempts of the pundits amusing as well as one nag being reversed towards the stalls a full two furlongs.

But moreso, the images of the runners racing through a low lying blanket of mist under spotlights was truly speactacular. I wonder if RUK are considering making a few prints or using the images for publicity.
MR2
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Nick Luck was desperate to go home, wasn't he?
 
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