The sport must have more faith in itself

THE racing world of social media has been falling over itself trying to conjure up reasons why the sport is not appealing to enough people.

While there are a plethora of reasons why casual racegoers have a one-and-done approach to a day at the races, the fact the horses aren’t the main attraction is the No1 issue.

With Covid restrictions easing, racecourses usually book up a star name to stage a concert afterwards. For example, Olly Murs performed at the Hungerford Stakes card at Newbury a few Saturdays ago and McFly at Newmarket last night.

It would be fair to suspect a large section of the attendance that day were there to pay for the aftershow rather than the seven races. Why? The card at Newbury had seven races and the majority of them were six runners or less.

Genuine racing fans forking out £60 for the premier enclosure at Newbury on August 14? For context, you could have picked out a ticket for the first three days of York’s Ebor Festival for less.

Racecourses try all sorts of various themes to attract people through the turnstiles. From Windsor’s Rum ’n Reggae Caribbean themed nights to Craig David performing at Sandown to gain revenue, the actual racing and horses become something of a mere afterthought.

Jockey Tom Marquand would like more focus put into the horses to ‘sell the sport.’ The 23-year-old (left) said: ‘We aren’t promoting racing for what it is. Sometimes we maybe try to complicate things too much... why not work with what we’ve got?’

And there’s nothing wrong with that. The average racing fan isn’t on social media. They want to see the best horses, jockeys and probably have a bet in the process, too. It’s that simple.