Racing’s biggest issue is the decline in field sizes

‘I don’t want to seem unromantic,’ said Mrs Oakley as St Valentine’s Day approached, ‘but this year please don’t buy another of those Monet cards you seem to find appropriate for all occasions from birthdays to anniversaries.’ And there was me thinking I had cleverly avoided slush and over-commercialism all these years. Behaviour patterns creep up without you noticing and the same is true in racing. For too long we have been enduring small fields, especially in steeplechases, still to me the most exciting of all the spectacles racing has to offer.

Ascot recently celebrated its 50 years of jump racing with a racecard that included three chases. One had attracted six runners, one had five and the other four. None offered the minimum eight runners required for the each-way betting on the first, second and third beloved of British punters. It was a similar story at Wincanton. Two chases there fielded six contestants, the other had seven. These were not low-grade midweek ‘keep the betting shops open’ contests attended by only three men and their dogs. These were part-televised Saturday fixtures with respectable prize money. Constantly now racecourses are being forced to reopen race entries after closing in their desperation to attract respectable fields.

Paul Bittar began confronting what he calls ‘possibly racing’s biggest issue’ in his recently ended term as chief executive of the British Horseracing Authority. The BHA is currently researching its way towards a realistic programme that will restrict the number of races per fixture and use bookmakers’ voluntary contributions to create races (like decently funded veterans chases) likely to attract better fields. They are looking at entry and non-runner issues. But Bittar told me at a Cheltenham racing evening that the average field size has contracted by two horses per race in recent years and that, while syndicates have technically increased the overall number of racehorse owners, the number of those with between two and 20 horses is also significantly down.