once everyone else has taken their share.<\/a><\/p>\nThe UK is still seen as one of the best places to train race horses, but increasingly, owners are training them here then shipping them off to race for more lucrative purses in other countries, and who can blame them?<\/p>\n
This all has an impact on the number of horses we see running in an average race in the UK. It\u2019s getting to the point where, for some horses and some races, it\u2019s just not worth the expense of showing up.<\/p>\n
How Can Field Sizes be Improved?<\/h2>\n
The issue comes down to money, but the money can only be improved by more horses being raced and bigger crowds showing up and betting on them.<\/p>\n
Much of the prize money comes from the horse racing levy, which is directly linked to bookmaker’s profits, and sponsorship and advertising, which is directly linked to the sport’s popularity.<\/p>\n
If the races are less competitive and less interesting to watch, fewer people will watch them and so advertisers will not be willing to pay as much in sponsorship etc. What’s more, a lot of the advertising comes from bookmakers so it’s a double problem in that respect.<\/p>\n
What’s more, if fewer people are watching and attending the races, then fewer bets will be made, reducing the bookies’ profits, and therefore reducing the levy and the amount they are willing to spend on advertising.<\/p>\n
This drives the prize purse down, which reduces the number of horses being entered, which means more short priced favourites because the races are less competitive, fewer places being offered which again reduces the number of bets being made…<\/p>\n
As you can see, it’s all linked together in such a way that a drop off in one area can quickly bring the whole thing down.<\/p>\n
So what to do?<\/p>\n
Well, some suggestions have included reducing the number of races rated 80-100 since this is where the field sizes are the lowest.<\/p>\n
Another would be to reduce the number of jumps races over the summer or to extend the summer break.<\/p>\n
In both cases, they would be reducing supply to increase demand; fewer races but the same number of horses wanting to race means bigger field sizes.<\/p>\n
This might work to a point, but something bigger is probably needed to make a significant difference in the long term, possibly even a complete rethink about how racing is funded in the first place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Average field sizes are falling in UK racing, that\u2019s an undeniable fact. The British Horse Racing Authority began keeping records<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"parent":212,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"page_type":[],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2024-05-15 10:21:13","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"page_type"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingwebsites.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8423"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingwebsites.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingwebsites.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingwebsites.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingwebsites.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8423"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingwebsites.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8432,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingwebsites.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8423\/revisions\/8432"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingwebsites.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingwebsites.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"page_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingwebsites.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/page_type?post=8423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}