WITH two small children to entertain, I’ve found that my ability to go to a race meeting on a whim has been severely curtailed, and it’s rare for me to go racing in a non-professional capacity these days.

It was, therefore, a pleasant surprise to be able to spend Thursday evening at Sandown’s Brigadier Gerard meeting, and I must admit to enjoying myself much more than I’d expected.

It’s important to contextualise the evening, and while there was a good crowd there, it would be significantly less than if the same meeting was held on a Saturday, and the logistics of weekend fixtures and their associated anti-social issues cannot be judged by what happens midweek.

There are lessons to be learned from positive experiences as well, of course, and Thursday was a case in point.

The most important factor in my enjoyment of racing at Sandown is that it is possibly the best venue in the UK for presenting the horse at the forefront of the occasion, and from the pre-parade ring to the paddock, the equine stars are on show in all their pomp, while the rhododendron walk to the track gives horse-watchers more time to enjoy the horses close up before they head to post, which is an underrated pleasure.

APPRECIATION

The intimacy and charm of the winner’s enclosure also sets Sandown apart, and this appreciation of the horse is an aspect of the sport that is consistently undersold by those paid to promote it.

Too much of the focus of marketing is telling people that a day at the races isn’t all about racing, but has a variety of other activities to make it appealing to the masses.

That’s true, but there is a big difference between promoting racing as a sport and an event, and simply increasing short-term revenue for racecourses.

Racecourses can and will find other revenue streams to supplement the gate money paid by those who come for the races, but it’s important that we don’t conflate concert-going crowds with those solely attending for the sport into figures which suggest racing is enjoying a popular renaissance.

Getting big numbers through the gates doesn’t equate to successfully marketing the sport, if a large portion of that crowd are there under false pretences.

It was refreshing to be at a meeting which was promoted almost entirely on the basis of quality, and it worked really well as a social occasion because of the size of crowd and a shared appreciation of the occasion.

There was a palpable sense of community which made for a more enjoyable evening, and while such things are not always easy to define, it’s obvious that a collection of people with a common purpose are going to be easier to please than a crowd made up of competing interests, and trying to sell different experiences to different people is clearly fraught with problems.

COMPLEX

Racing, and racecourses, would do well to remember that the people who are the best advocates are those who are passionate about going racing. While the sport is often viewed as too complex or specialised to promote without adding other “attractions”, an evening of quality racing at an excellent venue turns out to be a great way to showcase the sport, and it’s a pity there are so few opportunities for racing to present itself in such a slot.

Having ITV cameras at Sandown can only be a good thing, as it further advertises all that is best about horse racing to a different demographic than the Saturday-afternoon crowd.

I didn’t particularly look forward to the trip to Esher the other day, but I’m genuinely happy that I did go, and it’s once again sparked my enthusiasm for a day at the races. Catching up with people who share my passion was a forgotten pleasure, and made me want to do it all again, which is surely the aim of such events, so I tip my hat to Sandown.

Evening meetings in Britain tend to produce quite a pleasant ambience, but suffer from a lack of quality; combining the setting with a classier programme of racing is clearly a winner based on my observations, and I would love to see more courses move their prestige days away from Saturday afternoons, which are already unpleasantly congested in every sense.