Let’s Give ITV Racing and the Opening Show a Chance to Demonstrate their Worth

It was certainly a tremendously exciting end to 2016 on the National Hunt scene, not least because of the superb runnings of the Colin Tizzard superstars, Thistlecrack, Cue Card, Native River and then, more recently the highly promising staying youngster, Finians Oscar. There is a feel of a movement in the tectonic plates of top British NH racing here, with so much concentration of firepower in a yard that is as popular as it is professional. It is hardly grassroots racing, but I’m convinced that most owners and racegoers feel that this is a super trainer, without necessarily being a super-power yard full of the very richest owners in the land.

Christmas also demonstrated the enormous popularity of racing, particularly over jumps, with record crowds. Apparently over 204,000 racegoers turned out on Boxing Day, which was more than ever before. It would be mean-spirited to make any negative comments on the so-called “brilliant raceday experience”, which is how one of the Racecourse Association (RCA) officials described it, but there is still a real need to convert this racing enthusiasm into higher levels of attendance throughout the year. Apparently most racegoers only attend one, or possibly two maximum, race days per year and then only at their local track. If British racing could encourage them to attend just one more day, it would be one huge step forward in the economics of the sport – definitely a challenge for those who promote and market it.

Maintaining a high profile for the sport on terrestrial television has always been a tremendously important element in that marketing and promotion. People need to grow up with the sport and become enthusiastic when young, because it has been demonstrated that when this happens they tend to stay with racing throughout their lives. Certainly when I was a teenager I was an avid follower of BBC and Peter O’Sullevan, and also the pioneers of ITV such as John Oaksey and Brough Scott, and I can still remember the “pleasures” of losing money steadily every Saturday on the ITV-7. Indeed, the Little Oak in Chester was the pub I always went to, and last time I called in it hadn’t changed much over the years ….. although the TV was massively bigger. The switch from ITV to Channel 4 was a positive one in terms of the quality of presentation, but like the Little Oak it needed a fair bit of refurbishment after 32 years. Channel 4 Racing and the Morning Line had definitely become flat and stale (unlike the excellent hand-pumped beer in the Little Oak), and most racegoers and owners that I’ve spoken to were happy to see a change.

It wasn’t a propitious start, with the new ITV line-up committed to broadcast live from the winner’s enclosure at Cheltenham regardless of the drenching they received. The friendly and professional Ed Chamberlin appeared to cope manfully with everything, though apparently all his notes were destroyed in seconds, and his iPad gave up the ghost in the terrible weather. Oli Bell and Luke Harvey were well received, though unfortunately Matt Chapman confirmed the “Marmite” reaction that you either love him or loathe him. If you throw in A.P. McCoy, Mick Fitzgerald, Alice Plunkett and Richard Hoiles and (to be sexist for a moment) some eye-candy in Victoria Pendleton and the good-looking weather forecaster whose name I can’t remember, it seemed a decent team. The first edition of The Opening Show also seemed modern and professional, with some excellent features and a much lighter tone than the old Morning Line.

Unfortunately the overall reaction has been quite mixed, with the viewing figures on New Year’s Day being higher than previous years although not massively so, and The Opening Show, which goes out on ITV4, wasn’t especially popular. Personally I really hope that they can build up the numbers, and do so dramatically, as it really matters to the sport. It seems clear from the initial broadcasts that they have made a decision to pitch the commentary, tone and style of the shows at a much broader audience, rather than the die-hard enthusiasts and punters. That led quite a few to criticise them for “dumbing down” racing, although that seemed a bit harsh when set against the high quality of the production.

ITV has a four-year contract as racing’s exclusive terrestrial broadcaster, and we wish them well. We definitely need them, and high viewing figures, if terrestrial coverage is to be guaranteed into the future.

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Will the New PASS System Pass the Tests of Ease of Access and Enhancing the Owner Experience?

Regular readers of the blog will know that I have been campaigning over a number of years for radical improvement of the owner experience in terms of the way in which owners collect complimentary badges and enter the racecourse. At times I have been very critical of the old-fashioned way in which Owners & Trainers desks sometimes operate (no computers, when they do have computers there’s no internet access, if they do have access there’s no broadband, loads of paperwork and print-outs on which they can never find your name, long queues of owners irritated by endless delays, further irritation by people who are clearly trying to blag their way into the racecourse with no entitlement to badges, almost accusatory interrogation about who you are and proving your identity, etc.), while other elements of my campaign have argued for the adoption of customer relationship management (CRM) approaches where through technology and smart cards, different types of owner receive different types of benefits based on their contribution to racing through ownership. Basically the more you spend on owning racehorses, the better the benefits.

My ideal would be that everyone in the UK who is an owner in a racehorse (no matter what size the share) would have a smart ID badge that automatically contains information about their ownership and entitlement to badges and benefits. The more shares / horses you own, the better the quality of lounges and hospitality arrangements you can access. This would parallel the decades-old airline model of first-class and business-class lounges. Apparently in Australia this type of arrangement is already operative, with the benefits based around tiers of points. Although I have no first-hand experience of the scheme, it has apparently proved very motivating with owners investing in more shares in horses to lift themselves into the next tier of enhanced owner facilities. It wouldn’t necessarily need to be through a badge – it could just as easily be via a smart phone. Alas, this ideal still seems to be an awfully long way off for British, and indeed European, racing.

But some encouraging changes are under way, and a fair bit of innovation is coming into racing over the next twelve months which ought to enhance the owner experience. Let’s hope that all of this will be successful, particularly the way in which it is implemented. Again, regular blog readers will know how critical I was of Weatherbys Bank when they “upgraded” online banking. They are still sorting out that disaster.

In the UK, the Privilege Access Swipe System (PASS) card was introduced over 20 years ago by racecourses to manage exclusive complimentary access for owners to courses. From 1st November this Autumn, new gold PASS cards have been provided by the Racecourse Association (RCA), with some ambitious goals. They have been designed “to ensure quick and easy access to racecourses”; to “revolutionise your pre-arrival and entry experience”, giving you “the chance to personalise your raceday experience from start to finish”, and “this modern and mobile system allows better communication between you and racecourses, ensuring a personal touch to the raceday experience”.

The new PASS card is to be used whenever a registered owner has a runner, and also to gain entry via the Racecourse Badge Scheme for Owners (RBSO), which allows ROA members who are registered owners to gain complimentary access to over 1,300 race fixtures per year as long as they have 50% of a horse (or shares equivalent to that). Details are on www.rcapass.com and there is also an online concierge system to check allocation of tickets, pre-assign tickets to guests and discover information about special arrangements.

All of this sounds absolutely fantastic, as long as it works in practice for all the different types of owner, and particularly those in partnerships and syndicates. The major challenge for those who organise such shared ownership arrangements, and particularly for National Hunt where there are still 24-hour declarations, is that there is not a lot of time to liaise with all the owners and receive their instructions in terms of who will be attending and their requirements for additional badges for any guests, as well as confirming eligibility for lunches. Under the old system, which is now being replaced, the reliance was on telephone calls, faxes or emails to courses. Sometimes, with some courses, this worked well, but with others it didn’t. Whenever I have gone racing I have always taken a printed copy of the correspondence with me to sort out the errors and mistakes, and prove that we had given the course clear instructions. That shows how often the system broke down.

I had hoped to report by now on how well the new PASS system is working. I have tried to use it on two trips to the track, but on the first occasion they wanted to stay with the old system and on the second “the system was down” and computer said no. Not the most encouraging start! On the implementation timescale that the RCA has mapped out, they are convinced that the system should be “firmly established” from 1st January. We will have to wait and see. If any of you experience any problems at all with the new system, please let me know and I will do an update on how the new system is working in the New Year. For the sake of racing, I do hope that the RCA learnt from the Weatherbys debacle, and that the new system has been properly trialled and guaranteed to work really effectively. All crossed!

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.