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RACECOURSES ANNOUNCE NEW INITITIATIVE
From The Sporting Life.

Britain's leading racecourses are to launch a landmark £10 million flat racing competition to crown the champion British racehorse.

The Sovereign Series will link 10 of the most prestigious races in the racing calendar into a major new competition and will run for an initial three years beginning in May 2010 with new terrestrial broadcast and commercial agreements planned.

The Series will feature 10 of the leading Group 1 races, starting with the Stan James 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket and culminating with the Emirates Airline Champion Stakes again at Newmarket in October.

The Juddmonte Lockinge Stakes at Newbury, The Derby, the Prince of Wales's Stakes at Royal Ascot, the Coral Eclipse at Sandown, Ascot's King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, the BGC Sussex Stakes at Goodwood, the Juddmonte International at York and the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at Ascot complete the line up.

The Sovereign Series has been created with the full support of the British Horseracing Authority, and has received industry-wide backing from owners, trainers and jockeys, as well as all major stakeholders.

Racing UK, the media rights company representing the courses, will be promoting and managing the collective broadcast and multimedia rights.

In addition to the existing prize money of just over £5 million, a further £5 million per annum will be added to the Series, culminating in a £2 million prize for the overall winner.

An extra £3 million has also been committed to the marketing, promotion and production of the Series both on and off the course, which will take race goers and viewers right to the heart of the action.

Simon Bazalgette, Executive Chairman of Racing UK and Chief Executive designate of The Jockey Club said: "Horseracing is one of Britain's great sports but is faced with increasing competition from other sports and leisure activities, so Racing needs to evolve and appeal to a wider audience.

"We believe the Sovereign Series will capture the imagination of a new generation of sports fans who have never before been interested in Racing."

"Our vision is that in 5 years The Sovereign Series will have become established as a major sports competition on the British calendar alongside Wimbledon, The Open and other similar events."
 
Alan Lee; Racing Correspondent
A £10 million initiative, packaging the keynote races of summer into a coherent series, was launched in London yesterday. As an overdue attempt to confer the Flat season with narrative and climax, it has much to commend it but many questions remain unresolved - notably, where the money will come from.

The impetus for the Sovereign Series, which is set to start in 2010, has come from the racecourses involved but the strings are being pulled by the television channel they own, Racing UK. Andrew Brown, its chief operating officer, said that racing has been “shunted into a niche” and claimed that this series will “take it back to the mainstream of British sport”.

Fine words, and there were many more in similar marketing-speak. But it is now down to Brown and his team to extract serous money from a television channel in order to underwrite the series.

Launching such a project before the finance is in place might be considered high risk and Nic Coward, chief executive of the British Horseracing Authority, admitted: “That was the first question I asked.” Coward, however, is fully supportive. “Throughout our recent fixture-list review, people were screaming at us to do something like this for the Flat season.”

The timing of the launch illustrates his concern. To the uncommitted public, the two compelling events of the Flat season are the Derby and Royal Ascot and they are run before the campaign is halfway through.

Though valuable races in late summer and autumn engage regular racegoers, they do not resonate with a wider audience. Unlike the jumps season, which leads inexorably to Cheltenham and Aintree, the Flat also fails to provide a high-profile finale - something envisaged for Newmarket in October now that the Champion Stakes will complete the new series.

Brown claimed to be “very confident” of selling the rights favourably. However, Channel 4 has repeatedly pleaded poverty to the point of persuading racing to pay for its coverage, neither ITV nor Channel 5 has previously shown any interest and Sky are ruled out by the Derby being a listed event. There is, then, a burden of expectation on the BBC, which presently shows four of the ten races against six on Channel 4.

If BBC bid successfully for the series - and preliminary discussions have apparently been “encouraging” - Channel 4 could conceivably leave racing or, at the least, concentrate its attentions on the winter, when its prime property is Cheltenham.

Three of the Sovereign races are at Ascot, who are named in the parent company despite being attached to Racing UK's satellite rival, At The Races. This is not seen as a conflict, though, with Charles Barnett, Ascot's chief executive, pointing out: “This is a series intended for terrestrial television. ATR will continue to be our satellite broadcaster.”

Barnett also conceded that the inclusion of the Prince of Wales's Stakes could see it moved from its traditional Wednesday slot at the royal meeting. “We could move it to the Saturday if that is what the broadcaster wants.”

Many other issues - the exclusion of the fillies' classics, the role of corporate sponsors, the points system and the split of the £2 million win bonus - will occupy debating hours in the months ahead. But if the challenge of selling TV rights can be met, this is a laudable innovation.
 
Jim McGrath says no..

From Daily Telegraph, 03 July 2008....


Racing's capacity to be sucked in by marketing men, who promise the earth, is seemingly endless.

The theory is that this package of races is sold to terrestrial television, which will find them irresistible and pay a fortune for the privilege.
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Never mind that racing is currently forced to pay Channel 4 to ensure the sport is aired every Saturday. Never mind that this new parcel merely contains hand-me-downs wrapped in new colours with a bright ribbon on top. A previous generation of 'ideas men' spoke boldly of something very similar. Whatever happened to the World Series?


The word 'narrative' is marketing-speak that betrays an old idea pushed vigorously and unsuccessfully. We all have to ask: 'Why should it succeed this time?'


I'll declare my hand here. Not only am I Hotspur, but I'm also senior racing commentator for the BBC and, on closer examination, this latest variation on an old theme is a ploy to lure ITV into the arena to bid for the rights, thus providing opposition to the BBC. It is commendable that the courses want to maximize rights earnings, but there are huge risks.


The BBC pays a seven-figure sum to cover the Grand National, the Derby, Royal Ascot and other meetings in its reduced racing portfolio. But if the 'Beeb' does not win the rights to the Sovereign Series - or even bid for them - it would forfeit its Royal Ascot coverage plus other plum events. I am informed that Ascot, for one, will not have two terrestrial broadcasters.
Doubling prize-money is attractive, but moving the International to Saturday would be awkward for York, while finding a slot for the Coral-Eclipse that did not clash with the women's final at Wimbledon would be difficult if the BBC were involved. The marketing men have bamboozled racing yet again.
 
It all seems a bit pointless to me - I can't see what racing is going to gain from it in terms of publicity. I also can't see that this is going to make ITV suddenly want to cover racing and getting one channel to cover all the races will be one big hassle and not one that can necessarily be pulled off.
 
Sovereign Series..

Yes, the "splash" coverage in the RP a couple of days ago rather betrayed the fact that this idea didn't seem much above the concept stage. The logistical obstacles have been pointed out - I would merely add that anyone thinking a Sovereign Race held during a World Cup or Euro Championships with England involved is suddenly going to be the "big" sports story are badly mistaken.

Other thought - looking at the races, it would be impossible (or extremely difficult) for a filly or mare to win the series as the Derby and 2000 Guineas are in but the Oaks and 1000 Guineas aren't. You also have the Derby and 2000 Guineas restricted to 3-y-o only and while I think 3-y-o can run in the Lockinge, I'm not sure that many have or do.

The concept of a "series" of 8-12 furlong races from midsummer onward isn't bad - this plan, as it stands, is overblown.
 
3yos can't run in the Lockinge since it was upgraded to Group 1 in the mid-90s, so the Guineas/Lockinge and Derby/Prince of Wales are effectively coupled together. 3yo fillies are unlikely to ever have a shot at it, true, but a top class older filly would have every chance.
 
Much as I would like this to succeed, and some of the new leaders of the sport are able and imaginative people, I fear that Aussie Jim may be right in his pessimistic assessment.

Trouble is, concentrating on the top 1m to 1m 4f horses leaves you open to the noxious influence of "international stallion values", where you could get the narrow leader ducking the Champion Stakes to run somewhere else, in the Arc or in America perhaps. It's like having one of the FA cup finalists not turning up at Wembley because they've had a better offer to play an exhibition match against Real Madrid in Tokyo.

For a UK-based championship which casual sports fans can follow and get enthused about, the best idea would be the "Stayers' Triple Crown" plus the Jockey Club in October, together with the warm-up races like the Yorkshire Cup and the Henry II stakes at Sandown. Maybe you could include the Cadran and the Gladiateur as well. Also, the horses are not likely to be rushed off to stud, or to another country, as soon as they've won a Group race or two.

The "international option" would be to concentrate on the Global Sprint Challenge, get all the races televised live, even if some of them might be at 4am or whatever, maybe put more money into travel subsidies to encourage more horses to run in "away" races. But I've been banging on about the benefits of truly international racing without horses being retired to stud as soon as they've snaffled a Group 1, (as happens so often in the 8f to 12f divisions) on forums such as this for years, and few seem to agree with me. Maybe Paul Haigh does, I don't know.
 
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At first I thought it was pretty positive but after reading a bit more, I can see it struggle and really it is only going to line the pockets of the big guys future. How about spending 10 million extra on advertising the great racing we already have?
 
Galileo said:
At first I thought it was pretty positive but after reading a bit more, I can see it struggle and really it is only going to line the pockets of the big guys future. How about spending 10 million extra on advertising the great racing we already have?
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Pretty much my line of thinking as well. At first glance I thought it was a decent concept, but the idea of increasing the prize money for top races (which isn't actually going to increase the quality of the fields) when prize money at the lower levels is in such a sad state is just a joke really.
 
Judging on what Alan Lee said on ATR on Sunday and the front page of tomorrow's RP (which can be seen on the RP site tonight), I think the RP is going to rip this idea to pieces tomorrow.
 
That's interesting, after they spent at least two days creaming over the idea and dedicating pages and pages to the bollocks. Typical RP - change their mind with the changing tide.

Is anyone else fed up to the back teeth of the crap they print? I'm fed up of seeing bollocks reported as fact in the paper - and if you send a text or letter pointing out such it doesn't get printed. There are so many examples to call on it's not funny - like the time they printed an article about Adrian Pariser (stands as Sam Harris) criticising the SP returning method when he (and the journalist reporting on it!!) reported the calculations of it completely incorrectly; the letter the RP printed last week whereby Peter Savill says there are no bookmakers operating oncourse at Great Leighs (of course there bloody are - I found them, want me to draw you a sodding map???); the time last winter when some chimp reported about Alan King's jockey "Richard" Thornton riding winners in the daily report (Andrew King hasn't done anything except give me evils since the day I ripped hell out of the RP to him and others for calling Choc "Richard" - he wasn't amused!!!!) - the examples just run on and on.

The RP is an utter rag - you cannot believe what is printed in it since half the imbeciles writing for them are complete morons and know nothing of what they are writing about, whilst dressing it up in flowery prose to try and disguise that fact. The rest of it is arse licking stuff that is made up for precisely that purpose.

BTW, another interesting snippet about the RP is that at Chester's May meeting, after one of Barry Hills' horses ran, he asked as the reporters gathered round "anyone from the RP? If so, I'm not talking to you" amidst much bellyaching from RP hacks. The reason? He was incensed that the previous Saturday they'd been too busy printing shit like Clement Freud's column, Peter Thomas' column et al, to bother printing any of the entries for the following week. Like Hills pointed out, the entire point of the RP is to print the runners and entries, not bollocks arselicking columns. Hence the sudden inclusion of the "special" 4 page entries pullout that now appears on a Saturday!!!!

(of course I've already told you about the rubbish printed about the production of the taped "evidence" of something Bolger said which hadn't actually been produced.....)

It is, quite literally, a shambles.
 
Has it gotten worse since it was sold? I've stopped buying it because I don't possess the gene which allows me to read it whilst standing on the tube and not falling over.
 
Shadow Leader said:
<< the letter the RP printed last week whereby Peter Savill says there are no bookmakers operating oncourse at Great Leighs (of course there bloody are - I found them, want me to draw you a sodding map???) >>


Pippa Cuckson the Press Officer at Great Leighs actually emailed out a photo of mine with one of her missives to the massed racing hacks over a month ago, of the betting ring at Great Leighs, which showed a number of bookies in action in the ring LOL - yet still they print such rubbish :rolleyes:
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I think British racing needs more prize money at all levels. The prestige of the top races will erode if the money on offer falls too far behind what is available elsewhere.
 
The fist thing that needs to be done, is to put the Derby back to mid. week and Mr Brown (PM) could make it a Bank Holiday Extra prize money needs to be put in, but not like that.
 
I disagree slightly, Grey; before rising the prize money at the top end the lower level prize money needs addressing first.
 
Gareth - I couldn't say for sure if things have gotten worse sine the paper was sold but it does seem to me that I'm noticing more and more glaring errors and utter tripe being printed, pretty much on a daily basis.
 
Shadow Leader said:
Gareth - I couldn't say for sure if things have gotten worse sine the paper was sold but it does seem to me that I'm noticing more and more glaring errors and utter tripe being printed, pretty much on a daily basis.
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The quality of everything has decreased ever since SL was confined to crutches ~ can you spot the link? :p


btw: "sine" it was sold? :eek:
 
Slightly surprised to hear that the RP has continued its downhill slide, given that Alan Byrne is now in charge.

How much bearing he would have on the problems that Shadow Leader has pointed out, I must admit I don't know. I don't buy the paper BTW.
 
I've just read Down's piece on the Sovereign series and Gal wasn't wrong - he did a right hatchet job on it! Now, I think the concept is flawed, unrealistic and yes, utter bollocks, but Down really went to town on it. Is it me or are his articles becoming more and more abusive and Down himself becoming more and more arrogant as time goes by? When you look at the disgusting piece he did on The Listener's owner, and now to some extent this article, you wonder sometimes how he gets away with getting such articles into print.

(mind you I wonder - did a lot of the vitriol stem from him not getting an invite to the launch and it's free food/drink?! Just a thought!!!! :D)
 
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Well to be honest SL I would rather them take an opinion on it! We give out enough about journalists in racing pandering to the powers that be, somewhat refreshing to see some questioning (more than that) related to this topic.
 
I agree that I'd rather see them take an opinion on it - even thought they did spend days creaming over the idea until today - my point though is that Down is getting ruder and ruder by the day, and more and more arrogant. I'm surprised at some of the stuff of his that gets printed, in all honesty. I'm thinking more about the piece he did about The Listener than this one to be fair, but he still seems to be becoming more arrogant and cantankerous by the day.
 
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