BRIGHTON AND SIMILAR RACECOURSES.

​One of my main criticisms of British racing is the lack of imagination and foresight involved in planning the fixture list and the way it has been allowed to spiral into a free-for-all.
While it may be convenient to a jockey to be able to ride at Southwell on an afternoon and Wolverhampton on an evening, allowing a short drive to take in two meetings in one day, it is highly inconvenient to owners, trainers and jockeys based in the far north or south-west if there is no meeting in their area for days on end. There was a time, in a glorious past when the weather was more clement and coups were thought of as romantic, when race meetings were allocated to a regular pattern – one meeting in the south, one in the north and if there were a third meeting it would be in a part of the country between the two. Indeed, given a melodious voice the fixture list of olden days would read like a good poem or a more interesting variation on the shipping forecast. But now the fixtures list has the cadence of repetition about it, resembling a peppered target board, the splats overlapping, with Wolverhampton regularly clashing with Southwell, Kempton obscuring the view of Lingfield or Hexham getting in the way of Carlisle or Chepstow competing with Bath for racegoers as if there are thousands of such people to be bartered for on a daily basis. If we are to improve attendances day-to-day two racecourses should not be expected to share catchment areas.
Back when organised horse racing was in its infancy race meetings were wonderful diversions from the toil of ordinary life and were attended by everyone from monarchy and aristocracy to the hoi-polloi and plain villainous. After the two wars, when horse racing was allowed once more, racecourses were packed to the gunnel or gunwale, even if thanks to the literary efforts of Graham Greene certain racecourses were earmarked as the recreational areas of razor gangs, especially Pinkie, the evil main character from ‘Brighton Rock’. The racing media make a big deal out of falling attendance on both the racecourse and t.v. coverage. Yet today there is an overload of entertainment available to people that simply did not exist back in the twenties, thirties and into the 1970’s, and today crowds at football grounds are equally down on the halcyon days of Sir Stanley Matthews and Danny Blanchflower. Cinema and theatre audiences, too, I suspect have declined dramatically.
I have long argued, especially during the summer months, that the smaller racecourses should embrace the idea of festivals, marrying local fairs to all the fun of the local racecourse, making horse racing a central pivot of the merrymaking. All round the country fairs and markets were once the highpoint of the year and more and more these events are being restored to the local calendar.  It is easy to imagine, for instance, a medieval jousting tournament taking place at a racecourse before, during or after a race-meeting. Country fairs, too.
Brighton has its White Hawk Fair and I would propose the racecourse would make, when the sea frets allow, a spectacular venue for a three-day evening festival. Brighton is so much like Epsom it is unbelievable that the Brighton Derby Trial was allowed to lapse, but then the powers-that-be do not exactly go out of their way to help the smaller racecourses thrive or indeed even survive. The Irish race programme through the summer months is one festival meeting after another – Tralee, Ballinrobe, Galway etc.
It should not be about securing television coverage or huge sponsorship deals but the availability of dates in the calendar so that the smaller racecourses can advertise their presence to the local population, to create a festive environment to draw people to the racecourse that might not ordinarily think to attend and who might attend for reasons outside of the racing. Brighton has the facilities, the scenic location, the downs, to lead the way in summer racing festivals at the smaller racecourse. In the 1920’s the place used to be full to bursting. It already has a Ladies Day and 21 meetings annually and though the watering system is somewhat basic the racecourse always looks green in any photographs I have seen. One major race, a good quality seller (Brighton has a reputation for its sellers) and good competitive handicaps for lower end horses is all that is required. Tralee and Ballinrobe hardly ever attract a horse of great merit yet those festival meetings go from strength to strength.
Too many of our racecourses have been allowed to perish down the decades and I fear the powers-that-be are not wholly dedicated to protecting the racecourses that remain, especially the smaller racecourse. The race programme is too affixed to encouraging the success of all-weather racing, even in the summer months. This is short-sighted. It is the Brightons, Nottinghams, Warwicks etc that should be supported during the high days of the tourist season. The all-weather courses do a splendid job for racing through the dark days of winter but for the sport to exist in the decades to come we must not lose those racecourses who cater for the majority of horses in training. It is all very well increasing prize money at the top end of the sport to levels the general public might think obscene but a similar amount of support should also be afforded those at the lower end of the sport. And a good place to start would be allotting convenient dates for summer festivals.