Around 30,000 may have turned up at Doncaster to watch Arctic Cosmos gallop to victory in Saturday’s Ladbrokes St. Leger but the numbers disguise a deep-rooted problem threatening the very future of horse racing in Britain. Indeed, some would say that the sport is already facing a severe crisis. For reasons ranging from a decline in betting revenue via the bookmakers’ levy to a British economy still teetering on the edge of recession, the sport has seen prize money, television viewing figures and sales prices plunge in recent years, leaving British horse racing as a very poor relation in the sporting world when compared to football’s multi-million pound Premier League and other Sky-endorsed products such as rugby union.
The first true indicator of horse racing’s precarious position will come on September 23rd when, almost two months later than usual, the British Horseracing Authority will publish the 2011 fixture list. It is widely expected to announce that about 150 fixtures will be axed, a reduction of approximately 10% on recent years, in response to what racing’s regulators say is a dramatic collapse in funding for the sport. The number of horses in training also looks set to plummet, while the betting levy is at its lowest level in decades. Betfair, as a betting exchange, only makes a voluntary contribution to the fund while bookmakers argue that their profits no longer rely on horse racing as its chief contributor of revenue with in-running betting on such as football, cricket, tennis and golf now much more popular. Prize money is now so low at some minor tracks that owners don’t even cover their expenses if their horses are placed. Gone are the days, it seems, when punters would still have a bet on even the most mundane of meetings.
Racing For Change‘s brief is to make racing easier to follow but their early efforts have hardly been a guiding beacon of light to the industry and Ralph Topping, chief executive of William Hill, for one remains sceptical. "We cannot applaud a series of small changes when we need big changes. We have nothing against Racing for Change, but it has been too slow." Betfair‘s head of media, Tony Calvin, also believes that measures such as a proposed end-of-season European Championship for jockeys and horses and celebrity endorsements of the sport aren’t sufficient: “The proposals are well intentioned and all the points make sense. However, I believe that the plan aims only on ‘quick wins’ while the proposals fail the distinctive appeal.” As I commented to a colleague the other week – what’s the point of changing a ship’s course if nobody’s on board? Maybe racing has realised too late that not only is it no longer laying the golden eggs, it isn’t even the goose!
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September 13th, 2010 / paul - Category: Betfair
Charged with introducing horse racing and the appeal of betting to a wider audience, new body Racing For Change is proposing some radical changes as it attempts to drag the sport into the 21st century. Among plans to make racing less elitist by cutting out some of the jargon and perceived mysticism that surrounds the sport the most talked about initative, set to trial this spring, is the decimalization of starting price odds. Fractions like 13-8 and 10-3 have long been a subject of mystery to novice punters but the question racing’s administrators have to ask themselves is, will 1.625-1 or 3.33(recurring)-1 prove any less baffling to the youth of today, who appear to be the target group of choice in this proposal? That, of course, may be immaterial as some critics of the plan believe internet layers may attempt to profit should the switch become permanent. For example, 1.625-1 would become 1.6-1, etc. You can imagine how the pennies would accumulate should decimalization be adopted across the whole spectrum of betting (I don’t think it’s coincidental that former Coral managing director Wilf Walsh is on the Racing For Change board), though it could be argued that fractional betting has already been eradicated on exchanges like betfair with no obvious adverse effect. Those who principally ply their trade in the betting ring don’t appear to be enamoured with the idea, however, after all the tic-tac men are going to have to develop a whole new language, for one thing, and £40 at 7-4 is an awful lot easier to calculate than £40 at 1.75-1! Traditionalists also fear that this may also be the first step towards bringing Britain into line with the rest of Europe. For five furlongs read 1000 metres, for example, and how does 57kg sound instead of 9st? Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote, "Every reform, however necessary, will by weak minds be carried to an excess, that will need reforming." Racing may need to tread very carefully if it’s not to alienate those who have sustained it for so long.
January 6th, 2010 / paul - Category: Bookmaker News
