409 entries for Bath races on Good Friday thanks to minimum purse of £26,000 per race

Fair play to them. If they can attract 406 entries for that firm ground dump, imagine what decent racecourses ought to be able to do.

Ant no more than 57 wish to win a million pounds in the watered down 21st century Grand National..................

Could be a fair bit fewer than that - a lot are double entered in the Irish Grand National.

Its great prize money. We seem to go from one extreme to the other. £26k for two 0-55s and a 0-52. Those three races would have been the prizemoney for 15 low grade races on the AW.

Presumably they'll also end up with very compressed handicaps because of the number of entries - so we'll effectively get class 6 conditions races. Is anyone crying out to watch that? Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

Bookmakers will be delighted with the big fields, but otherwise just a one off gimmick.

tbf strontium, I think that will appeal to a lot of small punters.

Arena Racing Company (Arc) hopes the decision to invest £1.6 million in prize-money on Good Friday will help its three meetings to buck the trends of falling attendances and field sizes.

The racecourse group stages the All-Weather Championships finals day at Newcastle, the All-Weather Vase meeting at Lingfield, as well as a meeting with seven low-grade but valuable handicaps at Bath.

Two of those Bath races would pay for the whole day and more at Thirsk today. Who says those running the sport don't have a clue?