May attendances rise almost 13 per cent on 2022 as racing fights back against tough economy

Attendances across British racecourses enjoyed a healthy uptick of almost 13 per cent in May when compared to last year, a welcome boost for the sport in the face of stubbornly high inflation and a gloomy economic outlook.

Just over half a million people went racing in May and, even allowing for the help given to the figures by Newmarket's 2,000 Guineas fixture returning to that month having been run on April 30 in 2022, the numbers offered a significant improvement on the alarming declines recorded in March and April.

Across May's two big midweek fixtures, York's Dante festival posted a slight rise, thanks to a strong performance on the Friday, while damp weather undoubtedly contributed to a two per cent drop across the three days of Chester's May meeting. The two tracks both raced on Saturday May 27, fixtures which retained the number one and two rankings for the month.

While the overall picture is positive, the results were decidedly mixed from meeting to meeting. Newmarket will have been pleased that fewer than 1,000 came off the gate for Guineas Saturday, despite the rival attraction of King Charles' coronation.

Against that, Newbury suffered a 26 per cent fall on Al Shaqab Lockinge day compared to 2022, with the attendance falling below 10,000 for the first time since 2009.

Saturday attendance is under intense scrutiny due to the ongoing work being undertaken by British racing's stakeholders surrounding the 2024 fixture list, part of strategic efforts to boost betting turnover – and thus prize-money – as well as to attract new fans as the sport looks to combat what some have called racing's demographic time bomb.

Cartmel could be one of those tracks asked to move one of its fixtures from a prime mid-afternoon slot on a Saturday in order to accommodate British racing's premierisation ambitions for the 2024 fixture list.

Helped by the return of the late May bank holiday following a one-off rescheduling to allow extra time off around the late Queen's Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June 2022, Cartmel posted impressive figures for its Saturday-Monday double-header, with a combined 21,029 people through the turnstiles across the two days, close to the 21,400 that attended the same two days pre-pandemic in 2019.

"We were pretty happy to get the bank holiday back and that contributed somewhat to a return to form on the Monday," said Cartmel's general manager Geraldine McKay. "It was really pleasing to see because sometimes when something moves there's no guarantee your attendance is going to come back.

Cartmel welcomed more than 21,000 spectators over two days in MayCredit: GROSSICK RACING

"We did a lot of promotional work around the bank holiday being back. There were three bank holidays in May this year with the additional one [for the coronation] and we made a big deal about the last bank holiday being the best one. We also did a lot around the Saturday and 51 per cent of our guests this year live locally, while 49 per cent were on holiday."

Under the premierisation proposals – part of 'core principles' agreed in May by the BHA board – three meetings will be allowed to take place during the "shop window" of 2-4pm on most Saturdays, meaning the BHA and racecourses are now engaged in the final stages of negotiating how and where to redistribute other fixtures that currently fall in that time period.

"Our business model is all around attendances and producing an event and so the timings are really important." said McKay. "We do want to support the future of racing and not stand in the way of anything. All we can do is continue to stress to various different stakeholders about how important the timing is to us.

"In any part of the negotiations we have presented our case and although we do get good numbers through the gates, it's not just luck. We work hard at it and so it is important that we can go as close to the middle of the afternoon as possible. It's uncharted territory and we don't know how it will pan out, but we would hope we can continue to state our case."

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