the racing post is taking the p....!

​Let me be clear: reading the Racing Post is the highlight of my drab, weary existence. Truthfully, life without the Post would be a life less well lived; akin to the drudgery of subsistence farming. To criticise the Post is, to me, similar, though not exactly the same as, falling-out with the woman you know to be ‘the one and only’. But by God the Post, or more precisely, I suspect, Tom Kerr, the paper’s present editor, is taking the proverbial. 
From today the cover price of the Racing Post is Sunday to Friday £3.90 and on Saturdays an exorbitant £4.20, an increase per week of £3-10. 
Of course, we expect the price of the paper to increase the week of the Cheltenham Festival, it is almost a tradition, though in years gone by the increase was explained as necessary due to overheads of one sort or another. This year, though, Tom Kerr boldly has offered no mitigating circumstances, only that the paper employs 120 journalists, analysts, handicappers and tipsters and unrivalled data-base, all of which needs to be paid for. I would suggest getting rid of a few members of staff to save money so the need to increase the cover price is avoided.
It is my theory that amongst this huge array of staff many are being overpaid. It’s not as if the Post has a competitor on the High Street. No hard-copy Sporting Life to deny them the monopoly that allows the Post to charge their dedicated readership whatever cover-price they can arbitrarily get away with. And this at a time when the previous day’s race reports are becoming progressively thinner, with sometimes only one race worthy of a write-up. I for one do not necessarily believe the Racing Post to be good value.
What equally bugs me is that if I were to sign-up to Members Club Ultimate the subscription provides digital access to all newspapers associated with the Racing Post for less than £1 a day. We all know where this is going – in a few years there will be no hard copy of the paper as ‘the demand will have shrunk to levels that make it uneconomic to continue publication’, forcing anyone whose life is shaped by the sport to go on-line. Well, not me, Tom. I’ll switch to a national daily before I use a smart device to follow my sport.
But what really presses my buttons about this horrendous increase in price and the charade of it always occurring Cheltenham Festival week is that at the best part of £4 a copy it re-enforces the common belief that racing is only for the wealthy, the toffs, the aristocracy. The Racing Post, the industry newspaper, should exist to be a welcoming handshake to newcomers wishing to experience and learn about the sport. But no. £4 a copy is a barrier, a closed sign, a prohibited area, broken glass atop the wall of a fine mansion. How can the sport attract a younger audience when from the news-stand to Royal Ascot there are clear implications that this is not entertainment for the working-class?
What is more alarming is that many people working within the racing industry will also not be able to afford the paper. The Racing Post is asking stable staff, for instance, to pay £27.60 a week for the industry newspaper. Peanuts, of course, to someone on Tom Kerr’s salary or a top-flight jockey. But a large percentage of a groom’s disposable income and out-of-the-question for someone with kids and a mortgage, I suspect.
If there is an ombudsmen for the trade, I could go to challenge this increase I would not hesitate. Certainly, Tom Kerr is going to get a short but precise e-mail by the end of this afternoon. At a time when everyone in the sport needs to pull together to ensure the health and long-term future of the sport the Racing Post has thought, yet again, only of itself. Shocking. Truly shocking.