I have been attending the Cheltenham Festival since going with my Dad in the early 1990s. I've hardly missed a year since. Yet I came out of my now normal two day pilgrimage on the Wednesday night last year and decided I wasn't going back.
My first year attending may have been 1992 (painful memories of my hero Carvills Hill's eclipse) but the fabric of my Festival memories goes back a lot further- to my early teens when I first got interested in racing and began to partake in the endless winter debates about Champion Hurdles, Gold Cups and Champion Chases. Speculation about Irish horses going over to take on the might of England kept us enthused in the long winter evenings and tales of heroes past like Vincent O'Brien's domination of the Gloucester Hurdle, Paddy Sleator's daring raids and Mick O'Toole's tilts at the ring filled many a Friday evening at Uncle Jim's.
It was simpler them, three perfect days, three championship races and nowhere to hide. All that changed utterly when the jamboree expanded to four days. Now we had races at intermediate distances- the Ryanair, the JLT, three novice hurdles, mares races, a Cross Country for God's sake. It was Quantitative Easing for racing- dilute the product and spread it thinner, no one will notice. Outwardly, they haven't. All four days are well attended, the focus on Cheltenham is arguably narrower than ever, the racing is still exciting. The Festival dollar in your pocket still buys what it always did- or does it?
Michael O'Leary was out front and centre this week pushing for another new Festival race- an intermediate distance Championship hurdle. In his argument he mused that the Gold Cup in 2016 was no poorer for the absence of the 176 rated Ryanair winner Vautour. All of the speculation that season after he was chinned on the line in the King George was around whether he would get the trip in the Gold Cup- it split people down the middle like a civil war. Then mere days before Cheltenham the news came that he was ducking the gig and taking the easier option over two miles five. Anyone who asserts that this didn't devalue that year's Gold Cup is a fool or a knave- I'm not sure which you are Michael but it's evens each of two.
The extra races have already torn the narrative of time, of champions- how good was Quevega? Annie Power? Could both have won multiple championship races against the boys? How many Bobsline/Noddy's Ryde clashes have we missed out on since the JLT? Can you name the last 4 winners of the Martin Pipe?
Why do I feel relaxed about missing out in March? It's no fun any more- I don't know what will run in which race, I don't really care who wins most of them and I no longer deem it worth the scrum and the expense. I will go back, but I'm not saying when.
If you're losing me from the March extravaganza you're losing a fair chunk of your previous diehards. In good times like this it may not matter, but when the next downturn comes your four days may start to look a litttle threadbare, both in terms of the "product" and the bottom line.
Sunday, January 28, 2018
Tuesday, January 9, 2018
Irish Racing, because we're worth it.
Kevin Blake wrote a blog for Attheraces this week calling for, among other things, an expansion of the winter Dundalk programme and a second all weather track in Munster. I argued against this on Twitter but the constraints of 280 characters prompted this blog.
Irish Racing does entitlement like The Donald does hair and ego. The simple truth is that the Irish industry is blessed by being subsidized from the public purse every year. Betting turnover does not cover the cost of putting on racing. Calls for more racing, especially lower class Flat racing must be viewed through this prism.
Dundalk on a Friday night is one of Irish racing's success stories: it's getting good brand recognition through the Attheraces coverage with the two cheeky chappies and the horses and personalities there are becoming known to a wider audience. People bet on things they are familiar with- Dundalk on a Friday is becoming part of the fabric: you go down to the pub, watch it on the telly and have a few bets- what better way to kick off the weekend? Would Tipperary on a Tuesday night garner the same interest or betting turnover? Would betting turnover increase substantially as the number of 0-65 all weather handicaps ballooned?
They can do it in France, was the cry- ah yes, but they have a Tote monopoly and every penny of betting turnover is made to count. In our model we have to make do with the scraps from the Paddy Power table.
What our industry has to realise is that the only sustainable business model is one where it is self-financing. There is only so much rural employment guff successive governments will listen to when (inevitably) times get tougher. The current exchequer largesse is a low hanging fruit waiting to be picked by the next left-leaning coalition partner facing into a difficult budget with the media screaming about hundreds of patients on trolleys. If at that point we have another all weather track and a further bloated fixture list the pain of loss will be far worse.
The energies of those in our industry should be put into consolidating and selling what we have. The Irish Tote despite some success in promoting the Pick 6 is largely moribund and shows very little appetite for modernization or innovation. It needs root and branch reform to offer a real alternative to exchange betting and fixed odds. TV coverage is gold- the Friday night programme sells the product. We need more features on the people and horses who put on the show, even if the industry funds them itself. Ger Lyons' son recently produced a "day in the life" piece on his Dad which was excellent- that sort of human interest piece is what should be playing on Attheraces between the Friday races. Why aren't we inviting Luke and Jason over for a tour of Meath/North Dublin via Ado McGuinness, Garvan Donnelly and Demot McLoughlin?
If we get into a situation where the product generates enough betting turnover to pay for itself we can talk about more tracks and more fixtures. Until that we need to concentrate on selling what we have.
Irish Racing does entitlement like The Donald does hair and ego. The simple truth is that the Irish industry is blessed by being subsidized from the public purse every year. Betting turnover does not cover the cost of putting on racing. Calls for more racing, especially lower class Flat racing must be viewed through this prism.
Dundalk on a Friday night is one of Irish racing's success stories: it's getting good brand recognition through the Attheraces coverage with the two cheeky chappies and the horses and personalities there are becoming known to a wider audience. People bet on things they are familiar with- Dundalk on a Friday is becoming part of the fabric: you go down to the pub, watch it on the telly and have a few bets- what better way to kick off the weekend? Would Tipperary on a Tuesday night garner the same interest or betting turnover? Would betting turnover increase substantially as the number of 0-65 all weather handicaps ballooned?
They can do it in France, was the cry- ah yes, but they have a Tote monopoly and every penny of betting turnover is made to count. In our model we have to make do with the scraps from the Paddy Power table.
What our industry has to realise is that the only sustainable business model is one where it is self-financing. There is only so much rural employment guff successive governments will listen to when (inevitably) times get tougher. The current exchequer largesse is a low hanging fruit waiting to be picked by the next left-leaning coalition partner facing into a difficult budget with the media screaming about hundreds of patients on trolleys. If at that point we have another all weather track and a further bloated fixture list the pain of loss will be far worse.
The energies of those in our industry should be put into consolidating and selling what we have. The Irish Tote despite some success in promoting the Pick 6 is largely moribund and shows very little appetite for modernization or innovation. It needs root and branch reform to offer a real alternative to exchange betting and fixed odds. TV coverage is gold- the Friday night programme sells the product. We need more features on the people and horses who put on the show, even if the industry funds them itself. Ger Lyons' son recently produced a "day in the life" piece on his Dad which was excellent- that sort of human interest piece is what should be playing on Attheraces between the Friday races. Why aren't we inviting Luke and Jason over for a tour of Meath/North Dublin via Ado McGuinness, Garvan Donnelly and Demot McLoughlin?
If we get into a situation where the product generates enough betting turnover to pay for itself we can talk about more tracks and more fixtures. Until that we need to concentrate on selling what we have.
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