Why Cheltenham Should be a Five-Day Festival – Even Though My Knees, Liver and Wallet will Struggle to Cope

When you’re in the stands at Prestbury Park and look across to Cleeve Hill, you’ll see the radio masts at the top. Travel a few miles beyond them in a straight line and you’ll get to my house. I sometimes say (though it isn’t strictly true) that if you slip the hand-brake on my car, it’s downhill all the way to the members’ car park. I’m here primarily because I adore Cheltenham Races and the Cotswolds. So do most of my friends, many of whom I am going to antagonise with this blog, so apologies in advance.

Here is my prescription for a proposed new Festival – make it five days; have the Gold Cup as the centrepiece on the Saturday; reduce the number of races to six per day; frame extremely valuable handicaps to end each day; ensure that these races enable grass-roots owners to have runners; and set a target for 300,000+ attendees.

In an ideal world, my personal preference would have been for a two-day, concentrated event – a National Hunt Breeders’ Cup meeting, or something similar to the superb Dublin Festival of Racing at Leopardstown in February. Putting all the top races together in a two-day extravaganza would be fabulous, but there is clearly no chance whatsoever of that occurring. Cheltenham over the years has quite rightly made the event bigger and broadened its appeal. All the arguments against this on the basis of dilution appear pretty weak, and really we have to regard the Festival as one of British Racing’s most valuable assets. Let’s make it bigger and better, as soon as possible.

The starting point is to do with the bigger picture of British Racing, which seems to be in decline in terms of ownership and racecourse attendance. Owner numbers have been on a steady downward trajectory throughout most of the past decade, and despite the ambitious goal of seven million racecourse attendances by 2020 – set as a key target of racing’s Strategy for Growth – the reality is unfortunately that numbers have dropped, to 5.62 million last year, from 6.13 million in 2015. There are doubtless quite a few structural factors behind this, and it is likely to be impossible to reverse these declines without significant change on a broad but targeted front. Attracting new racegoers into the sport is absolutely essential, and the demand appears to be strong for festivals and marquee days, which is something that the racecourse groups can’t afford to ignore. Without going into too much detail, why doesn’t racing incorporate a programme of top-quality Saturday events throughout the year, designed to appeal to this demand. One of the arguments will always be that it would clash with football or other sporting events but, for starters, how about a sequence of even bigger racedays for the Aintree Grand National, Epsom Derby, York’s Melbourne Cup (aka the Ebor), Ascot’s Champions’ Day, Haydock’s Betfair meeting and, of course, Cheltenham and The Festival (which I’ve noticed is now trademarked, with by-lines such as The Best Spectacle in Sport and In March, the Only Place to Be.

From the ownership standpoint, all roads lead to Cheltenham. It’s incredible that for this year’s Festival there are 928 entries for the 10 handicaps alone, including 156 for the Martin Pipe, 148 for the Coral Cup, 99 for the County Hurdle and 96 for a race that I can’t even remember what it’s now called – the Plate. All owners, and particularly those at the grass-roots level, want to be part of the Festival. For trainers it is a symbol of success to have runners, never mind winners, and for staff it is hugely motivating to lead up the horses in the famous Cheltenham amphitheatre. The ideal would be to frame races to enable broader participation, and it would be terrific if every day there were hugely valuable handicaps that put significant winnings into the hands of lesser trainers and owners. It wouldn’t be difficult to design races to facilitate that. Indeed, I’ll be at the forefront of a campaign for a syndicate series that has its final at the Festival. These types of races could also be linked in with nationwide qualifiers that would spread the wealth and increase field sizes at the lesser tracks.

Many will characterise the expansion of the Festival as commercial greed, designed to “milk” the racegoer and punter. There are already lots of events and sideshows around the Festival that a lot of people dislike. It won’t be everyone’s cup of tea to participate in The Park, which is, apparently, “a totally unique area ….. offering an alternative experience ….. the Insta-worthy place to be” (whatever this might mean). But we shouldn’t belittle the marketing talent that is going into the Festival, and the considerable contribution made by Jockey Club Racecourses to prize-money as a result. In 2010 this was £13m per year, and by the end of the decade it has climbed to £27.1m. Hats off to JCR!

Over to Martin St. Quinton, the new Chairman of Cheltenham, not only to grab this commercial opportunity with both hands but to bring in a broader audience of racegoers, especially when the Gold Cup is on a Saturday. If a few of the traditional fans reduce their attendance or even drop by the wayside, so be it. As one of them, I’m sure I’ll adapt, even if the physical demands are becoming more onerous with age. But doubtless the Cheltenham roar at the beginning of each day will make attendance worthwhile …. and when one of my horses wins the Syndicate Final on the Saturday of Cheltenham, I’ll be in seventh heaven. Bring it on!

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Worrying Trends in Racecourse Attendance in the UK. Time for Soul Searching, Re-think and Renewal?

Off to Dublin at the weekend for the sensational Festival at Leopardstown. This was a highlight of the racing year for me in 2018 and I enjoyed it even more than Cheltenham, Aintree and the York Ebor meeting. Every race was exciting, field sizes huge, prize-money massive, but what really made the difference was the animated, knowledgeable and passionate crowd, which was a joy to behold. There seemed to be a huge buzz in Ireland, probably helped by the sensational victory against France in the rugby. This year it’s England’s turn to raise the excitement levels. I’ll be watching the end of the game in a super wine bar, The Grange in Foxrock, and the atmosphere is bound to be electric. Bring it on, and may my liver survive! It could be detox next week.

There have been other passionate racing moments over the last month. The story of Andrew Gemmell, owner of the new Stayers’ Hurdle favourite Paisley Park, and his love of racing despite being blind from birth, was uplifting. Emma Lavelle is a popular mid-tier trainer and everyone I know would be delighted to see her win at the Festival. My pleasure was heightened by the fact that the horse was bought by our good friend and agent, Gerry Hogan, who has been involved in many of our NH purchases. It’s a tough life for the majority of trainers, and it’s lovely to see the lesser lights win big races. I’m sure that’s one of the reasons why a lot of people will be rooting for Presenting Percy in the Gold Cup, and for Phi Kirby’s stable, star Lady Buttons, when she takes on Altior in the Champion Chase. I’ll also be cheering on the trio of Dunvegan, Articulum and Derrinross at Leopardstown as they all come from small yards.

Racing without passion, emotion, rousing stories, cherished horses and animated crowds is a soulless experience. Unfortunately there are far too many racecourses and racedays which only provide joyless fare. Over the winter I’ve been to all the all-weather tracks to watch moderate horses fight it out in the cold and dark. Truly dismal. Indeed I had an unwelcome “first” at Southwell a week ago when I stood in the paddock as the only owner present for my race. Clearly all the other owners had given up hope. The horse disappointed and I left almost immediately, having been on the track for less than 20 minutes. Driving home, I reflected that I would be embarrassed to take a new owner there, as I can’t believe they would stay in the game for very long. Southwell have actually improved the facilities for owners recently, and their O&T bar is a most pleasant and cosy room, but surely what really matters is the total raceday experience that lifts the spirits rather than depressing them. I’m afraid winter all-weather racing, and for that matter many other turf days, completely fails to do that.

So when the raceday attendance figures for 2018 were published recently, they weren’t a total surprise. Back in 2015 the BHA published growth targets for racing against a 2014 baseline, one of which was for racecourse attendances to reach seven million by 2020. They have however declined for each of the last three years, with the most recent total 5.77m, the lowest this century. Average crowds fell to 3,924, with the median figure a mere 1,567. Racing may still be the #2 sport behind football in spectator terms, but there is no escaping the reality that it looks as though racecourses are going to undershoot on their 2020 attendance goal by 1.25m.

After these figures were published, social media was full of negative reactions and prescriptions: far too much dull and dreary racing; uncompetitive, small fields; weak product on too many racedays; high cost and over-charging; declining loyalty of local customers; expensive food; failure to provide modern facilities and easy access to the internet, etc. As an aside, I didn’t see any references to horse welfare and the use of the whip, a subject to which I will return and which has been blown completely out of proportion. At the moment racing is concentrating too much on too many of the wrong issues.

There is one major encouraging trend which is that the big festivals and “marquee days” appear to be doing very well, and sometimes it’s easy to think everything in racing is rosy when you attend a big day at Cheltenham or Leopardstown. One obvious route for racecourses is to identify the fixtures that they can develop into mini-festivals. I’d even propose that the Racecourse Association develop that strategically and identify festival fixtures across the country for every week of the year.

It’s not as though there hasn’t been a strategic approach to improving attendance. Back in 2015, “customer growth objectives” were developed, with racecourses committing to develop a stronger partnership with the then new broadcaster, ITV; the creation of a digital-led “Come Racing” campaign promoting a “kids go free” message; best practice guides for racecourses; RCA’s leadership of an “Insight = Growth” project with data warehousing and bespoke planning to attract new customers, secure earlier ticket sales and increase customer retention. To be fair, several aspects of this strategy have been quite successful, particularly improvement in advance ticket sales to over two million.

However, there’s no escaping the conclusion that the overall strategic plan has failed to meet its objectives. There is now a new Chief Executive at the RCA and it’s time, again, to revive and renew the strategies and plans to boost attendance. My own plea is that strategy is not just a technocratic activity. It must contain initiatives that bring passion back into the sport, rather than just running it as a money-making, levy-generating, gambling-enhancing activity. We need strategy with soul.

I am always interested to hear your views so please do leave a comment. If you can't see the comment box at the bottom of this post then navigate to the post using the right hand navigation or click here > and scroll to the bottom of the page. Look forward to hearing your views. Thanks very much for sharing them.

Book the 2019 Dublin Racing Festival into your Diary – An Antidote to Dreary Winter Racing

At the beginning of February, my wife and I and a few owners went over to Ireland. Some went direct to Dublin while others went via County Tipperary, where we called in to see a couple of our youngsters who are being brought along superbly by P.J. Colville and his wife Grainne. It was probably a foretaste of what was to come when we were sitting in Mikey Ryan’s Bar and Restaurant (interestingly, owned and renovated by John Magnier, who apparently fancied a nice place in Cashel to have his supper), savouring a pint of Guinness at 7pm, watching the Ireland vs. France rugby game on TV. When Johnny Sexton slotted in his wonderful dropped goal to grab the game back from the French, the place absolutely erupted. Never have I been kissed by so many people in such a short period of time. The dinner wasn’t bad, either.

From then on, the weekend only got better. We went up to Leopardstown for Day 2 of the superb inaugural Dublin Racing Festival. Racing is always bandying around such phrases as “Sensational Saturday”, but this time the whole meeting lived up to it in spades. I don’t know about you, but I have felt that the 2017 / 18 NH season has been something of an anti-climax, with very few stand-out performances and lots of small field races being mopped up by Messrs. Henderson and Nicholls. An indication of that is the number of horses that Buveur D’Air has actually beaten, and his average starting price of about 1/5. There used to be a time when the Saturday NH meetings really did seem to be something to savour, with heroic performances from horses and riders. Somehow we seem to have lost that sparkle, with the whole of the season having shifted to an undue focus on the Cheltenham Festival. Horses aren’t racing against each other with the frequency that they used to, and it increasingly feels as though we’re just waiting for the denouement without really having enjoyed the lead up to it.

The Irish racing authorities seem to have felt the same, with a number of their better races spread over a period of weeks. They decided to consolidate the best races into the two-day Dublin Festival, and the competition and the craic were magnificent, with so many sparkling performances: Faugheen vs. Defi Du Seuil, Min vs. Yorkhill, Samcro vs. Sharjah, Footpad vs. Petit Mouchoir and then a fairytale outcome to the Irish Gold Cup with the “horse who came back from the dead” Edwulf putting in a gallant performance, although admittedly helped by the last fence fall by Killultagh Vic, who seemed to be travelling best of all. The Leopardstown stand erupted and it must have been 50 deep around the winner’s enclosure. It’s a long time since I’ve seen so many hats being thrown up into the air. It almost felt like going back in time to the great win of Dawn Run, which still stands in my memory as the most emotional and heart-felt reception for any NH horse. The whole atmosphere at Leopardstown was captivating – real enthusiasts, there to savour the racing rather than just the alcohol …. although there was a fair bit of that consumed as well.

Lots of English fans travelled over for the meeting. It was surprising though how few English trainers and horses made the journey, which is pretty unenterprising. Indeed the British trainer who gave the meeting the greatest support was Phil Kirby, and he doesn’t have many horses. Even stranger when you consider how many horses Nicholls and Henderson took up to Musselburgh on the same day, and stranger again when you consider the prize-money. Cheltenham Festival Trials Day only managed £204,688 of prize-money whereas Day 2 at Leopardstown was a whopping great €825,000, at an average of €103,000 per race and with prize-money often down to 8th. I’ve already said to all our trainers that if we have any horses suitable for this meeting next year, we’ll definitely make it the season’s target.

One of the themes discussed by the Brits in Ireland was whether we need to strengthen the British season with a similar high-profile mid-season festival. For some time there has been a debate about whether the Kempton King George meeting could be significantly upgraded, although the refrain seems to be that “logistical challenges” (whatever they may be) preclude it. That seems a real pity.

Anyway, a couple of weeks on from Ireland we were lucky enough to have a runner – and emphatic winner – at Newbury during Betfair Super-Saturday with Acey Milan (who may now go for the Champion Bumper at Cheltenham). The sponsorship of Betfair has brought in significant money, which we were lucky enough to participate in; the total on the day was £303,102. This triggered the thought that maybe Newbury and Betfair could work together to stage a Wonderful Weekend as a stepping-stone to Cheltenham. Indeed, as we were supping celebratory Champagne in the Royal Box after Acey’s victory, I floated this to a couple of the directors of Newbury and it definitely seemed to strike a chord.

As a postscript, I can only congratulate Newbury for the huge improvements that have been made at their course. Their spanking-new Owners’ Club is one of the best facilities on any British track and the investment all round the course from car parking to pre-parade has transformed the track. They have just started the second phase of their developments and Newbury must now be the course with the greatest improvement trajectory in our sport. A huge change is taking place, not just in investment and infrastructure, but just as importantly in mind-set. For those with a long memory I wrote a couple of scathing blogs about the course following a PR disaster in December 2013 (the link is to “Nonsense at Newbury”). The Chief Executive was fired shortly afterwards, to be replaced by Julian Thick, who can be commended for all the changes that have been made. Here’s hoping that they can put on a Wonderful Weekend – or maybe even two of them – so that they replicate Leopardstown’s Champions Weekend on the Flat as well as the Dublin Festival.

I am always interested to hear your views so please do leave a comment. If you can't see the comment box at the bottom of this post then navigate to the post using the right hand navigation or click here > and scroll to the bottom of the page. Look forward to hearing your views. Thanks very much for sharing them.