BANK HOLIDAY MONDAY.

Today is a bank holiday in Britain. In this country at this time of year, between April and the end of May, it is almost the bank holiday season with, if Easter is late, three bank holidays in a six or seven-week period. Why today is a bank holiday is hazy in my imagination and why we need a day off work between Easter and Whitsun is also lost on me. The B.H.A. deal with this rogue bank holiday by ignoring it.

Now, nonsensically, we all know that horse racing, or the B.H.A., do not own the race fixtures that comprise the racing year, with the racecourses owning the majority of fixtures, and we also know that in many instances the B.H.A. is a  toothless tiger with no sense of direction and operates without a rudder and with little authority when it comes to the number of meetings per year. Bank holidays are a time when the public have free time, time to choose a destination for a family day out. This is an opportune time to entice people to a racecourse and to give them such a good time that a fair percentage of them become long-term supporters of the sport.

For first-time racegoers I doubt if the quality of horses on show has any impact on whether they enjoy their day. A horse is a horse is a horse and the racing can be just as exciting at Bath or Wolverhampton as it can be at Royal Ascot or Goodwood. For the dedicated follower of our sport, though, there should be, I believe, a race or race-meeting synonymous with the bank holday. Easter always used to be linked to the Roseberry Handicap at Kempton, along with the Queens Prize, two races that are now a shadow of their former selves. As far as I am aware, this bank holiday, Whitsun and the August Bank Holiday have no race of substance attached to them.

I doubt if today is a bank holiday in the Republic of Ireland yet the main meeting today is at the Curragh with a Group 2 and several other interesting and important classic trials. The most valuable race in this country is at Fakenham, a beautiful country racecourse in Norfolk, with a £26,000 to the winner hurdle race. So with the flat season now beginning to fly and a day after the conclusion of Newmarket's Guineas meeting, the big race of the day is a hurdle race at lowly if lovely Fakenham. Does this make any sense? 

Today there is racing at Beverley in Yorkshire. On Saturday, at Thirsk, also in Yorkshire, the £50,000 to the winner Thirsk Hunt Cup was run. Would it not make sense for Beverley and Thirsk to swap dates, allowing the Thirsk Hunt Cup to dominate the day, so that in time people might come to associate the Thirsk Hunt Cup with the bank holiday? Instead, an important race in the northern schedule is overshadowed by being run on the same day as the first classic of the season.

Last week we had Epsom's opening meeting of the season, with the Blue Riband Stakes, a trial for the Epsom Derby.  Wouldn't this meeting be a great fit for this bank holiday. Or Ascot's Royal Ascot Trials Day, staged last Friday on the same day as the first day of the Guineas meeting. Why allow these two meetings to clash when there is a bank holiday only four-days later. Next Saturday, Haydock stages the Swinton Hurdle, the first major race of the new National Hunt season, a race that used to be the last major race of the season. Again, instead of this race clashing with important flat fixtures, the Victoria Cup at Ascot and the Derby and Oaks trials at Lingfield, it would be the key meeting of the day, making it, I would hope, a better sell to a sponsor.

There is a debate to be had on this subject and I hope anyone visiting this site today will debate it with themselves as you can bet a dime to a dollar it will not be debated within the walls of the B.H.A.

Yes, a bank holiday allows the smaller racecourse a bumper attendance and a swelling of the coffers. But I would contend that bank holidays, as with Boxing Day and the King George and New Year's Day at Cheltenham, should be associated with a race of significance and importance. Thirsk, Epsom, Ascot or Haydock would fulfil that void. Or perhaps even Fakenham.