Tony Wells - Racegoers Club column July 2024
How was your Derby day? Was it the highlight of your day? It was for me, but Epsom is my local course and we live just a short walk from the mile-and-a-half start. However, for many people, the Derby is no longer the highlight of their day and if we believe what the media is telling us, it has slipped down the rankings of what the public want to do on the first Saturday in June.
So, what can be done to restore the event to its former glory? There are traditionalists that hanker for a return to a Wednesday Derby. But it is 30 years since the colts’ Classic was last run on the first Wednesday and expecting it to slip back seamlessly into its former midweek slot may be too much of a risk.
The Jockey Club said it wants to extend the Derby meeting to a week-long festival. Quite how that will be organised is still to be determined, but it makes sense to make more use of the course, as it must be costly to build the temporary hospitality marquees for just two days’ racing. It is rumoured that the Oaks could be moved to a Saturday, with the Derby taking place the following Saturday and an additional Coronation Cup meeting in between, possibly on a Wednesday. I agree with moving the Oaks, as Epsom should have more than one Saturday meeting a year, and it would allow the fillies’ Classic to stand on its own and not be seen by many as just an hors d’oeuvre to the main event the following day. However, I’m not convinced that a Saturday/Wednesday/Saturday would work.
Racegoers are creatures of habit and those that have been regular attendees at the two-day Derby Festival in recent years may not be able to, or want to, attend three separate days spaced apart, particularly those that travel a considerable distance and make a weekend of it. As a regular attendee at the festival meetings, would I go to more than one day if Cheltenham, Newmarket, Ascot, Goodwood, York etc had gaps between racedays? Probably not, or if I did, I would travel there and back on the same day, therefore impacting revenue for local hotels and restaurants. The Jockey Club need to think very carefully before deciding on the format for the new Derby Festival.
The Jockey Club’s plans for the Derby got me thinking. Is it best positioned to attract newcomers into the sport? The organisation has commercial drivers that may not be best aligned to attracting new racing fans. Its recent record of managing the Cheltenham Festival has come in for much criticism. So, should we as racegoers take more responsibility to promote the sport we love to friends and family?
I asked myself – what have I done in the last year to encourage friends and family to go racing?
I organised trips to Sandown for the Eclipse and Tingle Creek meetings for a group of eight of us, mainly old school friends. Four of us attended the Tuesday and Wednesday of the Cheltenham Festival, and another four went to the Dublin Racing Festival. Two of my grandchildren came with me to Kempton on Boxing Day and it’s that younger generation that we really need to encourage if racing is to flourish. I like the idea of getting youngsters more involved in racing. ITV’s Ed Chamberlain often talks about taking children racing; it’s an easy sell as they get in free and most racecourses have a family day each year, where fairground rides are often free.
Thinking back to how I first got interested in racing, it was my mum telling me that Arkle was running and that we were all going to watch him on the telly, as he was the best horse in the world! On a Saturday, my dad always had the racing on and when Red Rum won his first Grand National, that was the clincher.
On Derby Day, we hosted a BBQ for friends and family. There were 12 children under the age of 13 and they saw City Of Troy close up at the start. After watching the runners exit the stalls, they couldn’t wait to get back to the house to watch the race and see how the horse they picked in the sweepstake got on. The prizes for the first three were bags of sweets. But the prize for racing could be so much more if those youngsters remember the afternoon they saw City Of Troy was the day a lifelong passion began.