Talking Horses: tracks on alert as racecourses open their doors again

I t was odd to look around the bleak emptiness of the York racecourse on the final day of the Dante meeting on Friday and remember that on John Smith’s Cup day at the track in less than two months’ time, the grandstands could – in theory, at least – be full to bursting point for a card that reliably attracts 40,000 racegoers if the sun is out. The following month, it could welcome around 85,000 more to the four-day Ebor Festival.

After 14 months with no paying spectators at British tracks, apart from a couple of “trial” days last summer and a handful of meetings towards the end of 2020, the thought of an imminent return to the sights, sounds (and smells) of a packed racecourse still feels somewhat far-fetched. And all the more so, admittedly, after Boris Johnson’s warning on Friday that the Indian variant of Covid-19 could “seriously disrupt” the easing of lockdown.

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For now, though, the “road map” remains intact and the process of rebuilding as much of racing’s pre-Covid annual attendance of 5m-plus as possible starts on Monday, when Carlisle, Redcar, Leicester and Windsor will all throw open their doors to British racing’s first paying spectators for five months.

Attendance at all four tracks is limited to 4,000 or 50% of capacity, whichever is lower, and for the next few weeks at least, all days at the races will need to be booked in advance. That does not make life any easier for tracks which have a large “walk-up” attendance from casual fans who want to check the weather forecast before committing themselves, and the raceday experience in terms of hospitality, where you can go and what you can do is unlikely to be what it was for some time yet either.

But it is a start, after 14 months when the venues which collectively boast Britain’s second-biggest annual sporting attendance have seen hundreds of millions of pounds in ticket revenue disappear from their balance sheets. Newbury posted a record £2.38m loss earlier this month, while York – which does not stage jumping – lost £2.6m in 2020. The full impact of Covid-19 on Jockey Club Racecourses, which owns Cheltenham, Aintree, Epsom and Newmarket and more, as well as at Ascot, the country’s best-attended track with nearly 600,000 racegoers in 2019, will become apparent over the next few months.

Attendance limits will still be in place for the Derby meeting at Epsom on 4 and 5 June as well as the Royal meeting at Ascot from 15 to 19 June, but the crowd numbers as doors finally open at courses around the country over the coming weeks will offer some hint of how big a hill racing needs to climb to rebuild its live audience.

We can also expect to learn quite a lot about the loyalty and commitment of the race-going public to the sport, and how much traction a day at the races still has when people decide how to spend their spare cash.

Monday's horse racing tips, by Tony Paley

Carlisle: 1.00 El Caballo 1.35 Ventura Flame 2.10 Latin Five 2.45 Ralphy Boy Two 3.20 Prince Of Pearls 3.55 Lexington Knight 4.30 Lexington Liberty 5.00 Seventeen O Four (nap) 

Ffos Las: 1.10 Lilly Pedlar 1.45 Apache Creek 2.20 Mill Green 2.55 Shantou Sunset 3.30 Marble Moon 4.05 State Crown 4.40 Bucks Dream

Redcar: 1.20 Mutawaarid 1.55 Vindobala 2.30 Potapova 3.05 Way To Win 3.40 Kendred Fire 4.15 Savalas 4.50 Elzaal 5.15 King Viktor

Leicester: 5.05 Strozzi 5.35 Chichloui 6.05 Cirrus (nb) 6.35 Bashosh 7.05 Spanish Star 7.35 In The Breeze 8.05 Bit Of A Quirke 

Windsor: 5.20 Hollywood Lady 5.50 Lovely Mana 6.20 The Daley Express 6.50 Dream Of Dreams 7.20 Endowed 7.50 Matamua 8.20 Rains Of Castamere

Football and rugby – first and third respectively in terms of attendance before the pandemic – will expect to be knocked over in the rush when tickets for the live experience are back on sale. Racing’s audience, though, is different. It is less tribal and more spur-of-the-moment, less invested in support for a team and turning up come what may.

Previous surveys of Britain’s racegoers have also suggested that for many, going racing is something that happens once a year, and quite often on the same day each year, to meet up with the same group of family or friends at their favourite track. It is an annual habit, in other words, and a habit that will now have lapsed at some point over the last 14 months.

For some, that may mean that the habit is gone for good. For others, getting back to a racecourse, even if it is just once a year, will be an essential part of the process of getting back to “normal”. For some tracks, and in particular those that rely on one or two big days a year to cover the cost of all the others, where the balance falls could be the difference between survival and closure.