Punters' body warns of 'dangerous time for racing' due to lack of runners

Punters are increasingly turning their backs on engaging with British racing as a result of the prolonged slump in field sizes on the Flat and over jumps, the Horseracing Bettors Forum (HBF) has warned.

Field sizes have dropped to historic lows during the last year while races with fewer than six runners, a key metric used by the BHA for assessing the sport, have increased.

The HBF, which was established by the BHA to represent the interests of punters, posted on Twitter recent messages sent to it by those betting on racing, including its own exasperated plea of: “Anyone listening????”

One of the messages sent to the HBF said: “Fields have been atrocious at all levels which really makes the whole thing less appealing – can’t remember a time when I’ve had less [sic] bets!”

The topic of small fields and their impact on betting was discussed at an HBF meeting on Monday, with chair Colin Hord outlining the organisation’s belief that reducing the volume of racing was the only plausible solution to making the sport more competitive.

“Small fields have been with us for some time and we’ve had a number of excuses and a number of reasons why, but nothing seems to stack up,” he said. “More and more people are saying to us they are not engaging with racing as much as there are small fields and they are not betting as much.

“It is clear there is a drop in the number of horses, yet we have as many races as we have ever had and it seems fairly obvious what has to happen: there needs to be a reduction in the number of races. It’s particularly frustrating to see courses holding meetings with seven races that have small fields, it makes no sense to anyone looking on.

“There needs to be urgent change to a system that works on the basis of ‘more races means more revenue’ because it’s an illogical approach to take to what we can all see going on.”

Hord called on racecourses to take the lead on addressing the issue of field sizes, warning racing was mired in a “dangerous” moment and risked drifting into increasing irrelevance if action was not taken to improve competitiveness.

“The BHA don’t have control of the ship when it comes to most of this,” Hord said. “They can change the programme around a bit, but it’s the racecourses who have the control and are steering the ship, and they need to think about what that really means.

“I can’t stress enough how dangerous a time this is for racing. We have a cost of living crisis going on and we have a less competitive and interesting product.

“If we're not careful it is going to become increasingly unattractive and not something people are going to want to engage with. In the end, that’s going to have an impact on the funding of it.”

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