Irish Racing Coverage

Francie Barrett

RacingUK coverage an absolute disgrace again yesterday.

Instead of showing the Group 2 Minstrel Stakes at the Curragh yesterday, they showed a poor novice handicap chase in England instead.

I hope HRI are proud of themselves.

longshotvalue

They are doing the deal again today for £10 a month for 12 months.



I took it so ill have it for the whole NH season. Seems about the price its worth .


Had it for free for 6months with the skybet offer, kind of missing it now.

The Tetrarch

I decided to go to the races at The Curragh yesterday evening, Friday 23rd August.
The first race was at 17:10 so I left south Dublin at 15:45, 1 hour and 25 minutes before race time. Google maps shows the fastest route as 57 kms, time 45 minutes.
I arrived at The Curragh just after 18:00, a journey time of 2:15. The reason was an accident on the M50 at Finglas, and then a three car shunt on the N7 near the Dublin/Kildare border.
I missed the first two races and arrived as the field for the third pace was leaving the paddock to go to post.
Putting on the races at traffic rush hour can result in delays to spectators.

The “crowd” at The Curragh was about 500 people.
Before one race I was at the rail near the finishing post, turned around and started to count the crowd in the stand.
I got to 120 for the left half of the stand (incl people at tables), the race started, the rest of the stand had about 180, a total in the stand for the race of 300.
Imagine attempting to count a crowd at a racecourse! It is easy at The Curragh. :pac:

Walking to the car park before the last race (to avoid the crowd :rolleyes:) I bought two Toblerone and the woman said “There is no one in there, the races start at 5 o'clock and people would be at work“.

The television rights to Irish racing were sold a while back in a controversial deal.
Now we have the Irish Derby at 17:20 in the evening, and four race meetings at The Curragh in August on Friday nights starting at 17:10.
I am a little slow. The idea is forming in my head that he not only sold the TV pictures, he also the Irish race programme to the TV companies.
Four race meetings on Friday evenings must be for a foreign TV (betting) audience.
Do the TV companies decide when the races are run. Are the races run at times to suit TV viewers in other countries, ignoring the Irish race-going public.
It is a bit like the English soccer Premier League. The event is at the time the TV company dictates.
Events are spread throughout the week to increase the online betting take.

To attend four August evening meeting at The Curragh if employed you would need to take four half days from your annual leave.
Other than that the attendance must be pensioners (me), the unemployed (very few in a booming economy), a student with a car, a housewife/househusband with a car and no dependants, tourists (are there any tourist attractions/beaches near The Curragh?).

All the race meeting last night was missing was the tumbleweed.

IAMAMORON

It is appalling that there is no Irish race meeting at the Curragh today to enable the fat cats of the HRI take a deal from UK television execs to have a Friday night race meeting that no one attends. What a shambles.

chinguetti

IAMAMORON wrote: »

It is appalling that there is no Irish race meeting at the Curragh today to enable the fat cats of the HRI take a deal from UK television execs to have a Friday night race meeting that no one attends. What a shambles.

I believe the lack of Sunday racing today is the agreement with trainers/stable staff that they would have more free Sundays throughout the summer months so staff could have holidays and the staff shortages that trainers are having.

Nothing to do with money but manpower I believe and will be interesting to know if the 2020 fixtures will have much changes on this when they come out in a couple of weeks.

onlyonpaper

aidankkk wrote: »

They are doing the deal again today for £10 a month for 12 months.



I took it so ill have it for the whole NH season. Seems about the price its worth .


Had it for free for 6months with the skybet offer, kind of missing it now.

Assume this was literally a one day offer. Went into their site and it’s still full price

longshotvalue

onlyonpaper wrote: »

Assume this was literally a one day offer. Went into their site and it’s still full price

Yeah . It popped up on my app . Only yesterday. It’ll defo be back again . Worth it for nh season

abarkie

onlyonpaper wrote: »

Assume this was literally a one day offer. Went into their site and it’s still full price

Yes checked at 10pm on Friday and had to add Sky viewing card number by 23.59

STB.

abarkie wrote: »

Yes checked at 10pm on Friday and had to add Sky viewing card number by 23.59

4.8E not good enough !

onlyonpaper

abarkie wrote: »

Yes checked at 10pm on Friday and had to add Sky viewing card number by 23.59

Thank you. Bugger and damn. Would have done it if I had seen it. Prob miss next one as well

The Tetrarch

This might need a thread of its own.

From The Irish Field 24th August 2019, page 3.
"Horse Racing Ireland will learn in the High Court on Wednesday what chance it has of recovering over Euro 500,000 it is owed by cash handling firm Senaca."
"The liquidator has found that Senaca owes Euro 2.5 million to 70 clients and there is just Euro 800,000 in company funds. Of the Euro 1.7 million shortfall, it's thought Irish racing accounts for Euro 750,000 in missing funds."

The racing shortfall is Tote takings, floats, gate receipts, cash takings at four HRI owned/associated tracks.

The Tetrarch

https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/business/provisional-liquidator-concerned-over-deficit-in-client-monies-of-security-cash-in-transit-business-941527.html

abarkie

STB. wrote: »

4.8E not good enough !

Lol!

More than good enough for me, but not for a friend in the pub, who has Sky but likes watching the Irish racing especially on a Sunday

RivetingRoger

Expect another RTV deal in January
prob the 10pm for 12 months again

The Mig

Black Friday before that Roger

RivetingRoger

The Mig wrote: »

Black Friday before that Roger

My deal expires on Jan 1st
Will expect an offer to stay or they can feck off and I will cancel
After January I will just have to go to the pub
Altho, 90% of the time, if you threaten to leave, they....twist your arm

abarkie

IAMAMORON wrote: »

It is appalling that there is no Irish race meeting at the Curragh today to enable the fat cats of the HRI take a deal from UK television execs to have a Friday night race meeting that no one attends. What a shambles.

https://www.racingpost.com/news/latest/friday-fixtures-to-be-reduced-at-the-curragh-next-year-after-poor-attendances/397409

Looks like someone noticed

marvin80

Looks like all the problems have been solved by a little bit of re-branding!

http://www.goracing.ie/

The Tetrarch

"Speaking on the eve of the last of seven Friday fixtures at the Curragh, Keogh said:
"I haven't given up on the idea of Friday evening racing at the Curragh and,
if something is worth trying, it is worth trying more than once."

Or, not it isn't.
That horse finished down the field seven times.
I went to only one Friday, and have a season ticket.

abarkie

The Tetrarch wrote: »

"Speaking on the eve of the last of seven Friday fixtures at the Curragh, Keogh said:
"I haven't given up on the idea of Friday evening racing at the Curragh and,
if something is worth trying, it is worth trying more than once."

Or, not it isn't.
That horse finished down the field seven times.
I went to only one Friday, and have a season ticket.

It seems like maybe season ticket people are not the intended market

As he refers to Leopardstown, maybe they want to have a concert following racing, "attracting" the younger audience

Nothing like alienating your core customer, whilst chasing new ones

The Tetrarch

Newmarket nights



The Curragh nights are a little different.

marvin80

abarkie wrote: »

It seems like maybe season ticket people are not the intended market

As he refers to Leopardstown, maybe they want to have a concert following racing, "attracting" the younger audience

Nothing like alienating your core customer, whilst chasing new ones

As an aside I doubt concerts in the Curragh would be a massive crowd puller like Leopardstown.
The big advantage Leopardstown has is close proximity to Dublin city and good public transport to boot.

A massive amount of office workers etc. in Dublin go to Leopardstown for one of their Thursday nights racing/concerts. I can't see them trekking down to the Curragh.

The Curragh redevelopment has been a disaster - some waste of 80 million.

tryfix

Stuck on Racing TV this evening to see the Cambridgeshire from the Curragh, got a half screen shot of it while all the commentary was on the Hamilton race which was on the other half of the screen. When both races were finished ( with no commentary yet from the Curragh ) off they went replaying the Hamilton race again.

HRI have burned Irish Racing very badly with this shoddy TV deal.

abarkie

marvin80 wrote: »

As an aside I doubt concerts in the Curragh would be a massive crowd puller like Leopardstown.
The big advantage Leopardstown has is close proximity to Dublin city and good public transport to boot.

A massive amount of office workers etc. in Dublin go to Leopardstown for one of their Thursday nights racing/concerts. I can't see them trekking down to the Curragh.

The Curragh redevelopment has been a disaster - some waste of 80 million.

Another reason to bring back the rail station

Can always remember walking across the field after racing - or the offer of the shuttle bus (used to always make me chuckle at how many people used to wait for it)

abarkie

tryfix wrote: »

Stuck on Racing TV this evening to see the Cambridgeshire from the Curragh, got a half screen shot of it while all the commentary was on the Hamilton race which was on the other half of the screen. When both races were finished ( with no commentary yet from the Curragh ) off they went replaying the Hamilton race again.

HRI have burned Irish Racing very badly with this shoddy TV deal.

According to a poster on Betfair, the Cambridgeshire was 10 mins late off, hence the clash

famagusta

tryfix wrote:

Stuck on Racing TV this evening to see the Cambridgeshire from the Curragh, got a half screen shot of it while all the commentary was on the Hamilton race which was on the other half of the screen. When both races were finished ( with no commentary yet from the Curragh ) off they went replaying the Hamilton race again.

tryfix wrote:

HRI have burned Irish Racing very badly with this shoddy TV deal.

Ya same as that, disgraceful stuff as always, we are bottom of the pecking order

tryfix

abarkie wrote: »

According to a poster on Betfair, the Cambridgeshire was 10 mins late off, hence the clash

Yeah, that was fair enough. The split screen was par for the course in such a case, but the Cambridgeshire race had finished without commentary and then AFAIK there was no attempt made to skip back from the finished Hamilton race to show what had happened in the big betting event of that night's Curragh meeting.

Surely punters deserved a quick update on what had happened in the Cambridgeshire?

STB.

@Tryfix.


I was watching RTVi which is the commercial version of Racing TV and they did the same. A 100k Cambridge vs a handicap from Hamilton, with priority given to the latter and only the closing stages were covered from the Curragh. Regardless of the delay, priority should be given to the race of more stature and prize money.

Add to that the most grating voice you will ever hear in between. Whose idea was to let Alex Hammond do studio commentary. In between her constant giggling, her high pitched voice would do your head in.

Just as well I could switch off to the other feeds.

supremenovice

Leopardstown wont be happy with a replay for the All Ireland clashing with Champions day. I wonder do they have a contingency plan to move racing back a couple hours?

Motivator

supremenovice wrote: »

Leopardstown wont be happy with a replay for the All Ireland clashing with Champions day. I wonder do they have a contingency plan to move racing back a couple hours?

They’d need to move it forward if they are to move it at all. Moving it back is not an option as the last race is usually around 7pm. Anything past 7.15 or 7.20 in mid september is going to be run in near darkness. I presume the football is going to be rescheduled for a 5pm throw in on the Saturday evening?

In my opinion they shouldn’t move it at all. I’ll be going for the racing and I’ll be watching the match at Leopardstown. Granted I’m not from Dublin but Champions Weekend is a once a year day and it’s a great day out with a fantastic card at the best track in the country.