THERE can be no doubt that the quality of racing at Goodwood’s Qatar Festival is excellent, and in terms of its setting, it remains a contender for most picturesque racecourse in the world, but that doesn’t mean it is a universal success, and a number of aspects of its offering came in for criticism again this week.

The most jarring issue at the time of writing is the timekeeping, and this has become a major issue now that Racing TV is responsible for showcasing both Galway and Goodwood, and the way the races were presented on Thursday, through no fault of the broadcaster, was an absolute shambles which made enjoying the key races almost impossible for viewers.

The two big races confined to fillies and mares, the Nassau and the Corrib Fillies’ Stakes, ended up being presented via a split screen, and unless your television is four times the size of mine, that ruined both as a spectacle.

The same happened with the Galway Hurdle, which was reduced to a portion of the screen along with the finish of Goodwood’s maiden. Both Goodwood race were due to go off a full 10 minutes before Galway, and while the stewards explained that the running order at the Sussex track was affected by a series of incidents through the day, it is simply not good enough to supply excuses for why you’ve ballsed the whole thing up when your job is to get it right first time.

One of the issues cited is that there is a long way to post at Goodwood, with no shortcut unlike at some tracks, while jockeys like to go to post at tracks like Epsom and Goodwood as steadily as possible for fear of horses bolting, but again these are merely reasons why timekeeping is traditionally poor at certain metropolitan courses in the UK, and not a valid excuse for the practice.

Horses lose shoes, there are stewards’ enquiries and other issues which can cause delays wherever you happen to be at the races, but it is each racetrack’s responsibility to find ways of overcoming such issues, and the fact that Galway has dealt with many more runners and still kept the show running like clockwork just highlights what Goodwood should be able to achieve.

The runners for the Galway Hurdle were lined up and ready to go a couple of minutes before the scheduled off time, while their counterparts in England were milling languidly around as if they weren’t already 10 minutes late.

The prize-giving went on longer than expected after the Nassau, for crying out loud.

How anyone could volunteer this information and expect to be taken seriously is beyond me.

If you can’t keep to a schedule that other courses can, then start half an hour earlier in the day and stagger the races accordingly. Just make it work – it’s really not rocket science.

The other problem that those who have been racing at Goodwood have been moaning about is the value for money. There isn’t any.

Unlike virtually every other major racecourse in Britain and Ireland, people paying over £50 for a ticket do not have a choice of using the course’s premier enclosure, which – in a throwback to the Victorian era – is reserved for members and their guests.

That wouldn’t be so bad if it allowed those who are not members to see the whole of the pre-parade ring or the paddock itself, but that was another bugbear for regular racegoers, who then had to put up with paying a small fortune for Goodwood’s own catering, with the standard price of a beefburger said to be £8, and a pint to wash it down is just a couple of quid less.

Again, it will be pointed out that Goodwood is something of a boutique racecourse, and hasn’t got the capacity to cater for the crowds that Ascot or Cheltenham can in the premier enclosure, but this is small comfort for those who feel they are being squeezed for every penny for what is, compared to Galway, a substandard experience.