RACING FORUM

Posted: **Wed Jul 27, 2011 6:18 am**

Perspective is everything! To illustrate exactly how far the public interest in horseracing has declined look to a small and not very interesting story in the press that the BBC has signed a 1 year deal to televise the Arc later this year. Now for most of us racing is important! It affects a lot of what we do, it is the thing that connects us to most of our friends and clients. Our ?personal? calendar is set by the first day of the flat, the Craven meeting, the first Classics, Chester, York, The Derby, Ascot and so the year progresses.

We are living in a very small and slightly surreal bubble and we need to understand this.

It transpires that the Arc, which is Europe?s premier race and sits comfortably in an afternoon of racing littered with Championship Group 1 races attracts a television audience (in this country) of LESS THAN A MILLION viewers.

This is what racing has become, a very small minority interest activity. This is the legacy of years of ineffectual governance and poor leadership.

This indictment of what the sport has become should be enough to shame the current executive to admit complete and utter failure and to go as soon as possible! The sheer dreadfulness of the situation is however its most compelling challenge. You would think that from such a low participation rate it would be relatively easy for people with vision and ability to double or treble interest at this level.