Ruby Walsh: Let’s have some flexibility with the racing programme
A blank Sunday, like tomorrow, on the Irish racing calendar is a bit of a rarity but I suppose when your sport is viewed as an entertainment product then it probably should be on when people want to be entertained — hence the popularity of all sport on the weekend days.
That said, in the current climate the ability to move and alter your programme to suit your audience’s tastes is also required, but likewise is the ability to foresee what else is on and what your product will be clashing with or where the opportunity’s might arise to avail of an opening to take centre stage.
In this strange year, racing is facing the might of the GAA championship at the real wrong time of year in terms of trying to avoid it.
There is no scope to alter race times in the shortening days of October into November and through December, so some of the big early National Hunt meetings could sail by under the shadow of the relentless beast that is inter-county football and hurling.
The luxury of turning on the lights that both the GAA and rugby have is not one National Hunt racing has.
So be it for the year that’s in it you might think, and you could be right, but our racecourse mangers and those in HRI who are in charge of times and schedules are going to have to try and keep up with what’s going on outside of their own small world if racing is going to garner any traction in early winter and maintain the progress it is making in terms of turnover.
Running the best races at times when the GAA action could be at half-time or between the lunchtime and early afternoon games will all have to be considered.
What sponsors racing has left will need to be given the opportunity to gain as much publicity as they can so those in charge need to be ready to adapt.
Both Leopardstown and the Curragh should be grateful Champions Weekend is well ahead of the inter-county resumption.
How we have two meetings here in Ireland today, running alongside four in the UK to make a total of six versus only three UK meetings tomorrow is crazy.
One here today and one tomorrow makes that split five and four and in a time when revenue from streaming, media rights and gambling turnover is the only income racecourses have, that would make far more business sense.
Joe Foley of Ballyhane Stud vented his frustration about the timings of races at Cartmel and Naas last Sunday and how little build-up his featured two-year-old races at Naas races received on Racing TV as it came hot heels of the National Hunt action in the north west of England.
Some of the races at Naas were pushed back by two minutes from their original times to avoid clashes and split screens on the channel which was asked for by RTV and facilitated by the stewards at Naas last Sunday.
However, I do believe I suggested this before and how Wolverhampton, Cartmel, Sandown and Naas could not have colluded with each other to race at 32-minute intervals — a race every eight minutes — when they are basically appealing to the same audience just beggars belief.
That said, somewhere between 320 and 400,000 people watched the Ballyhane Stakes on ITV3, so all was not lost. But Naas should have been well aware of what else was on Sunday outside of their own gates and had their eye on the ball to make sure their highest-value contest had the time to get the build-up it deserved.
The intentions and planning should be at least be correct.
Delays will occur that will be unavoidable for unforeseen reasons, but for the intentions of showcasing the sport to its maximum, the racecourses in Ireland and Great Britain need to realise they are selling the same product that needs to be unified to maximise turnover and make the sport achieve the most it can.
Cartmel was every bit as entitled to its eight minutes of coverage as Sandown, Naas or Wolverhampton last Sunday.
Each horse there had an owner too and that unique little venue attracts its own supporters and viewers, so racecourses need to start complementing each other and stop competing.
None of those four courses could provide enough entertainment on its own last Sunday but had they united on when they started, each one would have fared better.
Same goes for today: Six cards being run off with clashes and overlaps and only Redcar running into the evening.
God forbid we would give people something to watch on a Saturday evening.
