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21 Feb 24
21:44
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Can someone paste the above article r.e. small fields on here please.
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[b][i]Farcical Ascot Chase and Cheltenham ticket sales show jump racing's slow-motion car crash is leaving fans indifferent/b]
https://www.racingpost.com/news/opinion/comment/farcical-ascot-chase-and-cheltenham-ticket-sales-show-jump-racings-slow-motion-car-crash-is-leaving-fans-indifferent-aFGT86H4w2Gt/
Jump racing purists will have greeted this week's revelations that Cheltenham is finding three-quarters of its marquee festival an increasingly hard sell and that uncompetitive, small-field Grade 1s are damaging for the sport's profile with another tired sigh of resignation.
We're straying into dog bites man territory here because this is a slow-motion car crash that has been happening for years.
Yes, we're all meant to be cheerleading now that the countdown to the festival is nearing its conclusion, but sticking fingers in ears and humming along merrily won't work. And, as ever, it's not a concern merely for British racing in isolation. Racing on either side of the Irish Sea is all part of the same ecosystem.
Last Saturday's rather unsatisfactory Ascot Chase was followed by a leading bookmaking firm stressing how what are in effect elite non-events had become a scourge of ITV's live racing coverage.
Quite aside from the betting revenue generated by these races, which the Levy Board chief executive Alan Delmonte subsequently confirmed are a major turn-off for punters by reporting they generate only around 50 per cent of what the same races would if they had eight runners or more, it really is a sad indictment of the sport that the contests it should be hanging its hat on are frequently reduced to such banal spectacles. The last Grade 1 chase in Britain to feature eight runners or more was the Gold Cup in March 2023.
Harry Cobden has received lots of praise for his ride on Pic D'Orhy at Ascot but the truth of the matter is he didn't have to do anything special. Watch what happened after the tapes went up – he looked over his shoulder at his rivals as if to say, 'Really, you're not even going to try to keep me honest?'.
He clearly had an inkling of what was going to unfold but, still, he was surprised they were just letting him off. People have honed in on Derek Fox's stark change in tactics on Ahoy Senor, the suggestion being connections have an eye on Cheltenham, but watch how vigorous he then is on the horse down the home straight. Ahoy Senor ended up having a hard race so it is difficult to make sense of.
Charlie Deutsch has got a bit of a free pass on the basis L'Homme Presse was apparently always going to be at the pin of his collar over two miles and five furlongs on good to soft ground.
Again, the Cheltenham theory has got an airing for him too. He is a cracking horse who could make his presence felt in a Gold Cup, but saving a soft-ground performer for a race that could well be run on even better ground seems to epitomise the Cheltenham myopia.
At Lingfield last month, over just a furlong further, Deutsch lined up and went with Protektorat out of the gate. Because he did so, his horse lit up and raced. He kept Protektorat honest and, even though there were points when he was flat-footed, Deutsch's tactics ensured stamina eventually came into play and he got on top.
On Saturday, on better ground, L'Homme Presse wasn't asked to go with Pic D'Orhy. They gifted the best big-race rider in Britain an easy lead, sat back and made him look good. Fox and Deutsch were doubtless riding to instructions, and anyone who reads this column regularly will know I'm not in the habit of criticising jockeys for ill-judged rides, but it looked as though the connections of the beaten horses showed their hands to Cobden and offered it up.
This was a race worth £100,000 to the winner. When again are either the second or third going to be involved in a lucrative four-runner Grade 1 in which they are both rated superior to the other two runners? Probably never.
It's a symptom of so much of what is wrong with jump racing now that such a valuable Grade 1 should be reduced to near farcical proportions, but it's kind of where we are: a dearth of suitably decent horses in Britain and the connections of many of those that there are seemingly utterly fixated with Cheltenham.
Racing is in a perilous position thanks to the impact of draconian affordability checks, but it is not helping itself either by serving up such insipid fare that is being passed off as something 'premier'.
Apart from the seemingly stillborn Premier racing concept, British racing has been tying itself up in knots to generate betting revenue and fuel the levy with initiatives like Saturday morning and Sunday evening racing.
It's hard to believe that the solution to an oversaturated market would be to shunt more racing into pockets of the calendar that didn't have it before, yet that's what's happening.
More always seems to be the answer. It is what has bloated the programme book, driven Cheltenham to four days and led to it being padded out with a raft of unworthy shoulder races, and it is also what put a fifth day on the agenda. More, more, more. Infinite growth, one of the human race's most arrogant, narcissistic and destructive fallacies.
After last year's Dublin Racing Festival, which saw its attendance soar by nearly 10,000 to 35,000, in this space I wrote how, with its condensed and clearly defined format, Leopardstown had tapped into a racing public that had become disenfranchised with Cheltenham. Extortionate ticket, food, drink and accommodation prices and a woefully diluted programme had clearly begun to put people off. Sure enough, a few weeks later the crowd figures for the Cotswolds mecca collapsed by 40,000.
The trend has continued this year when the crowd at the DRF (which no-one is saying is perfect) topped 36,000, and now we're hearing again that, apart from Gold Cup day, Cheltenham is struggling with ticket sales.
The festival is the Jockey Club's golden goose, but nobody likes to be sold a pup and fans have grown disillusioned by what it has become.
Will it still provide epic moments next month? Of course it will, it always does. Now, though, little of what happens around the edges appeals to many apart from those involved. Fans need to care, they need to be invested in their sporting escapism, but with jump racing nowadays too often they are left feeling indifferent. That's a dangerous reality the sport needs to wake up to.
[/i]
https://www.racingpost.com/news/opinion/comment/farcical-ascot-chase-and-cheltenham-ticket-sales-show-jump-racings-slow-motion-car-crash-is-leaving-fans-indifferent-aFGT86H4w2Gt/
Jump racing purists will have greeted this week's revelations that Cheltenham is finding three-quarters of its marquee festival an increasingly hard sell and that uncompetitive, small-field Grade 1s are damaging for the sport's profile with another tired sigh of resignation.
We're straying into dog bites man territory here because this is a slow-motion car crash that has been happening for years.
Yes, we're all meant to be cheerleading now that the countdown to the festival is nearing its conclusion, but sticking fingers in ears and humming along merrily won't work. And, as ever, it's not a concern merely for British racing in isolation. Racing on either side of the Irish Sea is all part of the same ecosystem.
Last Saturday's rather unsatisfactory Ascot Chase was followed by a leading bookmaking firm stressing how what are in effect elite non-events had become a scourge of ITV's live racing coverage.
Quite aside from the betting revenue generated by these races, which the Levy Board chief executive Alan Delmonte subsequently confirmed are a major turn-off for punters by reporting they generate only around 50 per cent of what the same races would if they had eight runners or more, it really is a sad indictment of the sport that the contests it should be hanging its hat on are frequently reduced to such banal spectacles. The last Grade 1 chase in Britain to feature eight runners or more was the Gold Cup in March 2023.
Harry Cobden has received lots of praise for his ride on Pic D'Orhy at Ascot but the truth of the matter is he didn't have to do anything special. Watch what happened after the tapes went up – he looked over his shoulder at his rivals as if to say, 'Really, you're not even going to try to keep me honest?'.
He clearly had an inkling of what was going to unfold but, still, he was surprised they were just letting him off. People have honed in on Derek Fox's stark change in tactics on Ahoy Senor, the suggestion being connections have an eye on Cheltenham, but watch how vigorous he then is on the horse down the home straight. Ahoy Senor ended up having a hard race so it is difficult to make sense of.
Charlie Deutsch has got a bit of a free pass on the basis L'Homme Presse was apparently always going to be at the pin of his collar over two miles and five furlongs on good to soft ground.
Again, the Cheltenham theory has got an airing for him too. He is a cracking horse who could make his presence felt in a Gold Cup, but saving a soft-ground performer for a race that could well be run on even better ground seems to epitomise the Cheltenham myopia.
At Lingfield last month, over just a furlong further, Deutsch lined up and went with Protektorat out of the gate. Because he did so, his horse lit up and raced. He kept Protektorat honest and, even though there were points when he was flat-footed, Deutsch's tactics ensured stamina eventually came into play and he got on top.
On Saturday, on better ground, L'Homme Presse wasn't asked to go with Pic D'Orhy. They gifted the best big-race rider in Britain an easy lead, sat back and made him look good. Fox and Deutsch were doubtless riding to instructions, and anyone who reads this column regularly will know I'm not in the habit of criticising jockeys for ill-judged rides, but it looked as though the connections of the beaten horses showed their hands to Cobden and offered it up.
This was a race worth £100,000 to the winner. When again are either the second or third going to be involved in a lucrative four-runner Grade 1 in which they are both rated superior to the other two runners? Probably never.
It's a symptom of so much of what is wrong with jump racing now that such a valuable Grade 1 should be reduced to near farcical proportions, but it's kind of where we are: a dearth of suitably decent horses in Britain and the connections of many of those that there are seemingly utterly fixated with Cheltenham.
Racing is in a perilous position thanks to the impact of draconian affordability checks, but it is not helping itself either by serving up such insipid fare that is being passed off as something 'premier'.
Apart from the seemingly stillborn Premier racing concept, British racing has been tying itself up in knots to generate betting revenue and fuel the levy with initiatives like Saturday morning and Sunday evening racing.
It's hard to believe that the solution to an oversaturated market would be to shunt more racing into pockets of the calendar that didn't have it before, yet that's what's happening.
More always seems to be the answer. It is what has bloated the programme book, driven Cheltenham to four days and led to it being padded out with a raft of unworthy shoulder races, and it is also what put a fifth day on the agenda. More, more, more. Infinite growth, one of the human race's most arrogant, narcissistic and destructive fallacies.
After last year's Dublin Racing Festival, which saw its attendance soar by nearly 10,000 to 35,000, in this space I wrote how, with its condensed and clearly defined format, Leopardstown had tapped into a racing public that had become disenfranchised with Cheltenham. Extortionate ticket, food, drink and accommodation prices and a woefully diluted programme had clearly begun to put people off. Sure enough, a few weeks later the crowd figures for the Cotswolds mecca collapsed by 40,000.
The trend has continued this year when the crowd at the DRF (which no-one is saying is perfect) topped 36,000, and now we're hearing again that, apart from Gold Cup day, Cheltenham is struggling with ticket sales.
The festival is the Jockey Club's golden goose, but nobody likes to be sold a pup and fans have grown disillusioned by what it has become.
Will it still provide epic moments next month? Of course it will, it always does. Now, though, little of what happens around the edges appeals to many apart from those involved. Fans need to care, they need to be invested in their sporting escapism, but with jump racing nowadays too often they are left feeling indifferent. That's a dangerous reality the sport needs to wake up to.
[/i]
Oops. Sorry about the failed attempt to embolden the title.
This is the important part, imo:-
Apart from the seemingly stillborn Premier racing concept, British racing has been tying itself up in knots to generate betting revenue and fuel the levy with initiatives like Saturday morning and Sunday evening racing.
It's hard to believe that the solution to an oversaturated market would be to shunt more racing into pockets of the calendar that didn't have it before, yet that's what's happening.
More always seems to be the answer. It is what has bloated the programme book, driven Cheltenham to four days and led to it being padded out with a raft of unworthy shoulder races, and it is also what put a fifth day on the agenda. More, more, more. Infinite growth, one of the human race's most arrogant, narcissistic and destructive fallacies.
This is the important part, imo:-
Apart from the seemingly stillborn Premier racing concept, British racing has been tying itself up in knots to generate betting revenue and fuel the levy with initiatives like Saturday morning and Sunday evening racing.
It's hard to believe that the solution to an oversaturated market would be to shunt more racing into pockets of the calendar that didn't have it before, yet that's what's happening.
More always seems to be the answer. It is what has bloated the programme book, driven Cheltenham to four days and led to it being padded out with a raft of unworthy shoulder races, and it is also what put a fifth day on the agenda. More, more, more. Infinite growth, one of the human race's most arrogant, narcissistic and destructive fallacies.
Infinite growth is certainly possible. The history of the human race proves that. But it only works when that growth comes from making innovative and more efficient use of what you've already got - from human ingenuity refining its resources. Not from diluting those resources by piling on more and more of the same thing.
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