HORSE RACING SHOULD ALLOW RACEGOERS TO ROAM.

​In today’s Racing Post, David Jennings wrote a piece on the success of Dundalk racecourse, Ireland’s only all-weather track. At least for the moment as Tipperary has promised to go in the same direction and in time, I think they will. Not that David Jennings needed to have travelled to Dundalk, as good a journalist as he is, and I am a big fan of his writing style, as Lisa O’Connor, marketing manager at Dundalk these past five-years, might have conducted her own interview as she extolled the virtues and pleasures to be gained from attending a Dundalk race-meeting. Successful marketing is about believing in your product and boy does Lisa O’Connor believe in her product.
And that is the thing about persuading people who have never attended a race-meeting to give the sport a chance, it is all about belief in the product. Goodwood, it seems, is chasing its tail when it comes to selling tickets for its Glorious meeting, which does not bode well for Goodwood in general, I would have thought. Goodwood, is, by common consent, a glorious racecourse, as long as the infamous mist and sea-fret do not pay a visit.
I would suggest if Goodwood want sell-out crowds for their premier fixture, the work to sell the meeting needs to start at their very first meeting of the season. Have a free draw at every meeting to win two tickets for the Glorious meeting. Extoll the virtues and pleasures of attending Goodwood’s big meeting, as Lisa O’Connor sings the praises of Dundalk. Give away free tickets in the local paper for the minor Goodwood meetings, lay on a free coach service for people of the local area who would like to sample a day at the races for the first time.
Dundalk have no restrictions on where people can go once they have paid their £15 or should that be euros entrance fee. No bowler hatted official  asking to see your badge, preventing you from transferring from one enclosure to another just for the opportunity of a better or different view. The problem with some British racecourses is that they hold on to the snootiness of the outmoded class system. It is just about still acceptable at Royal Ascot, though the required mode of dress for men borders on both inequality, reverse sexism and, in hot weather, downright cruelty. Dundalk is the way forward, not dress codes and adherence to the ‘old ways’ of different enclosures for different classes of racegoer.
If you want better patronage, racecourses cannot do enough to make people welcome; you have to give to receive as a reward. I believe every racecourse should be made to have an ‘open day’ of free entry. It does not need to be first class racing, though it must provide a first-class welcome. Good food, guides to explain the various elements that comprise a day at the races, stalls selling local products, the work of the various equine charities exampled, with a retired racehorse or two for people to pet, meet and greets with trainer and jockeys, entertainment for kids and perhaps some form of after racing entertainment. I would not, though, go as far as clowns as clowns are too scary, though not perhaps for the hardy young.
Further, I would suggest every marketing manager of a British racecourse should visit Dundalk and try to learn from one of the best.
Horse racing is viewed by the public as an elitist sport. I have argued time and again that horse racing is very much a working-class sport. No one works harder than those who work in racing stables, no matter what their differing backgrounds. Jockeys, too, work long hours, with only the select few lucky enough to live in big houses and drive ‘flash’ cars. Trainers also work from dawn to dusk, even if many of them do live in big houses, if above their station and salary in life. Those outside of our sport do not know this. They see Royal Ascot and think it the pinnacle of an elitist sport and not for the likes of them.
The benefit of under eighteens getting in for free is voided if it costs the parents fifty-quid to get in, added to which another fifty-quid must be spent on petrol/diesel/charging to get to the racecourse and another fifty-quid spend money on eating, drinking and perhaps having a small bet.
If you build it, they will come. Yet the crowds will never again be as great as they were before television, before there was so many other sports and entertainments for the public to choose from. A day at the races is to attend an outdoor event; it is a countryside pursuit, even when urban sprawl means the town or city now threateningly surrounds the racecourse. Do not coop people up in enclosures. Allow them the freedom to roam, which will set racing apart from all other non-equine pursuits. Horse racing should resemble the Badminton horse trials, not Centre Court at Wimbledon.