Racing For Change - Catch 22

doncaster today reminded why i dont go to aintree on a fri anymore.

have to say Ascot on wednesday was very civilised, free RP, free racecard and coffee - lot of families and they did try to entertain / explain. I'm normally the grumpiest ******* about but I was taking peoples' pictures for them - my wife thought I'd been on the pills !

Good point Quantize.
Reading the threads it appears that:
1. If you charge a higher price and throw in an extra enterntainment - this puts off the true racing fan.
2. If you let people in for free and get people for whom racing is not their main interest (and get a few p1ssheads as well) this puts off the true racing fan. By they way at Thirsk these p1ssheads turn up even when its full price.
It's a tough one - maybe each course should have a special "True Racing Fan Only". This is only available to subscribers and therefore entry on the day is say £10. Leave it to you clever forumites to determine what one has to do to be a member of The True Racing Fan Club. I think having no friends and being a misgynist are important.

Should read ... special "True Racing Fan" enclosure.

Well off topic but this Racing for change crowd should look at how hard it is now to watch replays of some of the great races on the likes of Youtube. RUK have got some of the great battles taking down. Stateside's the race are put up straight away for people to enjoy and they stay up. Hats off to the ATR site for free replays but everyone else in the UK is trying to get money out of your pocket!

A 'True Racing Fan' area may be the solution.

Ascot is huge just like Cheltenham and can get away with free entry to specific parts of the course.

Racing is no different to other sports though. Snooker is another that has suffered from lower interest.

Whilst racing is mainly funded through the levy there does need to be a serious look at the whole structure though.

If racing continues to be a smaller part of the profits of bookmakers then this will impact on the already poor level or prize money.

Maybe training fees are too high?
Maybe there are too many in the horse racing population?

There certainly is a problem that when winning just one race a year is generally not enough to cover the cost of training the horse.

Quantize - with a lot of races at the smaller tracks, winning one race a year does not cover a month's training. With horse travel, vets fees and other costs it is pretty much £20k per year to keep a horse in training. You could easily win 5 races in a year and still be out of pocket.

The biggest Catch 22 is that racing is now funded to a great degree by the BHA being in cahoots with the off course books to extract as much from punters as possible. So more and more difficult and unappealing races are being put on.

This link needs breaking.

Is the best way to catch the "true racing fan" by staging booze-free days? Also eliminates the p155heads, thugs and their dreadful womenfolk.

Admission and food prices also need a thorough reality check. Eight quid for a burger? Shooting themselves in the foot at every opportunity.

why doesn't some course announce that it will have a family day one weekend with the public bars closed.

just imagine a racecourse full of true racegoers as well as racegoers of the future, and no drunks in sight.

the course could still have a bar for their annual members and if this idea caught on there would probably be more people becoming annual members.
(I know some folk could abuse this system and become a member to get a drink but the course could withdraw membership for any breach and they would still get the extra revenue)

there could be a goldmine out there for the first course that goes drunk free as there are thousands of ordinary racegoers who would love to go back racing again but don't want the abuse that now comes with going racing.