IT was heartening to see quite a reasonable crowd turn out at the Curragh last Sunday for the Irish Cesarewitch meeting which was themed as the track’s community race day.
The last weekend fixture of the year in what has been a tumultuous season for the track offered free admission to all and this initiative seemed to work well.
On a very pleasant autumn afternoon, the track’s bid to engage with its local community appeared to work well and quite a few families were in attendance.
In all this represented a positive way for the Curragh to bring down the curtain on its weekend slots for 2019 – the track will stage its final fixture of the season on Tuesday.
After a trying Irish Derby weekend, the Curragh has rallied through the last couple of months of the season with day two of Irish Champions Weekend a success on several fronts before last week’s free admission offer. Hopefully, it will be able to build on these foundations next year.
On a similar theme, the decision to offer free admission clearly had a beneficial effect on the attendance levels last weekend and the Cesarewitch fixture attracted more people than would have been the case had standard admission charges applied.
This is not to say that free admission should be applied liberally across the board but there are times and places where such initiatives have their place and Irish racing should not be afraid to extend such a practice to other meetings.
Free admission
There is an argument to say that free admission devalues the product on offer and could set a dangerous precedent – will the same customers pay to attend a meeting having availed of free admission elsewhere? There are counterpoints to this view though.
Attendance levels at Irish race meetings are not what they once were. In 2007, the average attendance in this country came in at 4,569 while last year the corresponding figure was 3,510. Over the course of 11 years this represents a decrease of some 23%.
Admittedly during those 11 years much has changed in terms of how those that follow racing consume the product on offer. The advent of televised coverage on various digital platforms means that many who once went racing now find staying at home a more attractive proposition. Furthermore, racing faces a great deal more competition for audience share in the leisure sector than would have been the case in decades gone by.
Nonetheless, the figures as outlined above demonstrate a need to innovate. This is not to say that the product on offer requires a radical overhaul but rather that there are changes that could be made here and there which could boost footfall at race meetings.
One such change comes in the form of offering free admission on occasion as a positive initial experience for one person, a couple or even an entire family has the potential to result in repeat business on another day.
The Curragh could easily have opted to go with free admission for next Tuesday’s meeting and maintain normal admission charges for the fixture last Sunday but commendably offered up a weekend slot for free entry and were rewarded with a reasonable crowd.
This isn’t to say that free admission is a magic bullet or anything like it but surely there are a host of fixtures across the country throughout the year, particularly midweek industry meetings, where free admission would be a worthwhile venture.
It would at least offer the prospect of an improved level of attendance at meetings where the number of paying customers would be negligible in any case. This is not the first time such an argument has been made but a look at the slide in attendance figures for the last 11 years would suggest two things.
Firstly, the marked drop in attendances would indicate that change of some sort is required and sooner rather than later. Secondly, that there is at the very least nothing to be lost by rolling out free admission for a portion of fixtures each year.
THIS time last year flat racing returned to Thurles for the first time in 11 years and the star of that fixture was Constantinople who won his maiden by 10 lengths and went on to win this season’s Gallinule Stakes.
While he proved to be short of Group 1 class in Europe, the former Aidan O’Brien inmate could easily make his mark at the highest level when he begins his new career in Australia. He ran in the Caulfield Cup this morning.
Last week saw Thurles play host to another flat fixture and there may well have been a Group 1 talent on show in Aidan O’Brien’s Peaceful.
After catching the eye when finishing a close-up ninth in a Leopardstown maiden two months previously, she looked every inch a class act last Thursday as she dished out a seven-length trouncing to her rivals.
It remains to be seen if we will get to see Peaceful again in 2019, but whether her next run comes this year or next year she is a filly worth following and it would come as absolutely no surprise if, in due course, she was to prove Group 1 class.
If that turns out to be the case she will be following the rich tradition of high-class flat runners taking their formative steps away from the high-profile metropolitan fixtures, with the most recent example being the Cheveley Park Stakes heroine Millisle beginning her career with outings at Bellewstown and Down Royal.