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Tired, unlovely and unloved: work needed to bring back missing thousands to Kempton
The biggest mystery of this season's Ladbrokes King George VI Chase was not how did Hewick come from an impossible position to win, but how has Kempton managed to lose thousands of customers?
An attendance fall for a major raceday was nothing new in 2023. Every day at the Cheltenham, Grand National and Derby festivals was watched on course by fewer people than in 2022, while only the Wednesday of Royal Ascot was up year on year. There was certainly better news for some other high-profile days, but nowhere has an exodus been so stark and sustained as at Kempton on Boxing Day.
The Jockey Club on Tuesday reported a crowd of 11,703, marginally up on the 11,318 of 2022 and the previous year's 11,578. In itself, that sounded positive, but an analysis of those numbers against the four years preceding the pandemic should send a shiver down the sport's spine.
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Published on inLee Mottershead
Last updated
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- JP McManus was right to raise the subject of transparency - and here's my solution to his worry about weights
- No-one has ever emerged from the womb wearing a trilby - racing's future survival hangs on pursuing a young audience
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