Sad day! The RL offered some of the best betting opportunities you could ever find in Horse Racing. This years meeting at Chepstow was a thing of beauty. And it went on to produce the Ces winner and the game as they come Crowd Quake. It was very strange to me to hear punters were so down on it.

Yeah I lost 10k on the fav but was over the moon about it because Yorkshire won the race 

Never understood how people get themselves into a proper frenzy over the shergar cup it’s 6 races in a season .

Regarding the racing league whilst I thought the racing was pretty good it was probably getting to good as it started to effect other handicaps particularly in the north,races like the great st Wilfred.

Good evening north east

Couldn’t disagree with any of your post music nights certainly not for me that said I went to one of the first ones possibly the very first one Gerry and the pacemakers at the July course,I wouldn’t go to the shergar cup but have absolutely no problem with it,I did go to plenty of the racing league fixtures ,the student days are not as bad as many of us elder ones think even though plenty have had a few drinks there remarkably polite throughout the day.

"Never understood how people get themselves into a proper frenzy over the shergar cup it’s 6 races in a season"

Not sure I'd call it a proper frenzy, but those brought up on horse racing as a cultural cornerstone of British life in the 20th century, and who have a genuine connection to the turf, choose to voice opposition because it is anathema to that connected understanding. Racing is not, and never will be, a team sport. But even then it might pass unnoticed and ignored if it weren't for those who talk and act like it occupies a vacant space in a desperate and misguided ploy to capture a fickle and disengaged audience.
As I've said many times on here before, horseracing exists in the conscience of the committed, as a result of exposure at a vulnerable and impressionable age to a world of edgy risk, laced with an air of intrigue and the whiff of disrespectability. It was a heady cocktail, and I got drunk on the fumes in the 1970s, both in the betting ring and downbeat betting shops. In 2025 those influences are long gone, and are unlikely to be replaced by the sanitised vaccuum of family friendly gimmicks and team racing.

A very fair point cropstick but with Newmarket,haydock and the curragh on it won’t happen.

steerforth I agree that those in charge of racing seem to think that change is vital but few of their ideas seem as good as what they replace. I have never known a life without racing. I was (or so I was told) taken to a PTP before I could walk and certainly remember going every Saturday from March to June from the age of 4. First time at Prestbury Park in 1955 (and a member there for 35 years). 70 years later I still watch most races every day on TV. What I miss most is the diversity of trainers and riders as the sport gets into fewer and fewer hands just like every other part of the economy. Back in the 1960s I could recognise the names of 90% of owners, trainers and riders and the horses were household names but now too many of them are in French or Arabic and I forget them in a month.

I dont think that a few minutes of entertainment every 30 minutes is high on the agenda of the 18-25 generation . Like most on here the love of racing originated from our famiy upbringings . Even in the 1960s I remember thinking then that a lot of time was wasted , I soon grew out of that notion  .

20 years is optimistic. I will be in the ground by then and none of my family will notice when jump racing disappears.

Reports of the death of the Racing League are greatly exaggerated. That was the message sent out by founder Jeremy Wray, who is already working on ways to get the competition staged this year.

Wray had been talking to potential new partners even before the Racing Post broke the news on Monday that Arena Racing Company had dropped its support.

The Racing League has run on its tracks for the last five summers and been covered on ITV4, but the future of the team-based series looked to have been thrown into serious doubt after it was revealed Arc and ITV are now uniting to create a new 'Friday Night Live' programme of meetings from January to March next year.

However, Wray said: "We knew what was coming and what Arc were doing and now it's out there. But we want to continue with the Racing League.

Jeremy Wray:
Jeremy Wray: "We want to continue with the Racing League"
"We are pursuing other options as to where we can showcase it this year. I've been having those conversations since I was aware of this. I've been talking to other racecourses and other media groups."

Wray remains hopeful, although he admitted that it is a difficult time to secure financial commitments from racecourses or media organisations, for a series which again offered more than £2 million in prize-money last summer.

He said: "There's an element of 'wait and see' with the budget coming up next week as everyone's attitude to these things at the moment is that they want to see how they'll be affected by what happens with that.

"When I present some of the numbers that we achieve, there will be people out there pleasantly surprised at what the Racing League can bring – the betting turnover is a major factor to anyone involved commercially."

Trainer Jamie Osborne, who was a Racing League team manager, hopes the event can be resurrected.

Leading Jockey Saffie Osborne with her dad and team manager Jamie Osbourne at last year's Racing League
Jamie Osborne and jockey daughter Saffie with their 2022 Racing League trophies
Credit: John Grossick (racingpost.com/photos)
"It was a great prize-money boost for owners," he said. "Lots of people paid for their seasons through it so to lose that would be disappointing.

"I'd like to see it survive, for everybody's sake. It was something slightly different, without trying to reinvent the wheel, and there were some quite lowly-rated horses winning big chunks of money.

"To a degree, having a chance to do that with some horses would keep some people in the game. I just hope it can be resurrected so that opportunity is alive going forward.

I'm not really a fan of AW racing, but love the sport and all it entails, not only the betting aspect. Quite often i only have 1 or 2 bets, but watch most of the card; even better with a few mates and drinks etc

There was support for the racing league based on the money thrown at it. I don't think the format was a real factor. If you throw that sort of money at any format there will obviously be support for it. I would guess that over 80% had no interest in the team aspect.