Is free entry the answer?

I cannot understand why so many racing fans have no issue with jockeys who break the whip rules. Jim Crowley’s recent winning ride on Hukum in the Group One King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot is a case in point.

There was an outpouring of dismay at the penalties imposed on Crowley for using his whip 3 times more than the permitted number stipulated in the rules. His €10,000 fine and a 20 day suspension was certainly a more severe penalty than we are used to, but many racing fans simply felt he did nothing wrong despite breaking a rule.

I’m not referring to animal welfare here. I wouldn’t consider myself in any way qualified to know whether 4 strikes, 6 strikes or 8 strikes is the correct number to attain the optimum response from a horse without causing harm to the animal, but whatever that official number is in any particular racing jurisdiction is what I’m referring to.

Look at other sports and how outraged fans become when someone gets away with breaking the rules. Soccer fans still get hot under the collar thinking about Thierry Henry controlling the ball with his hand before scoring the winning goal against Ireland in a World Cup qualifier in 2009. Imagine if the referee had seen the infringement and allowed the goal to stand, but issued a yellow card to the player.

This is effectively what happens in horse racing on an almost daily basis. Jockeys, often deliberately, break the whip rules in the knowledge that they will keep the race and simply serve a suspension. I’m probably in the minority here, but I’ve always felt that the sanctions for riders breaking the rules don’t act as a deterrent when the stakes are high in major races.

This is beginning to change in other jurisdictions. The BHA is getting a lot of flak for stiffening the penalties for whip offences in the UK, yet in all, but the most extreme cases, the breaking of the rules still won’t end in the disqualification of the horse. And even then it will only occur some days after the event, so has no implication on bets struck on the day of the race.

French racing is about to take penalties for whip offences to a new level. From the beginning of next month if a rider hits a horse 9 times with the whip during a race it will result in automatic disqualification. Since earlier this year the number of times a rider is permitted to strike a horse in France was reduced to 4, so this new threat of disqualification will only come into effect if the rider goes 5 about the permitted level.

In Ireland riders only receive suspensions for breaking the whip rules as there is no provision for the disqualification of the horse no matter how far beyond the limit a rider goes.

I struggle to understand why breaching the whip rules is not viewed in the same way as all other rule offences. Afterall, it is obvious that an extra strike or two with a whip can be the difference between winning and losing in a tight finish.

Changing the subject, after a number of years of falling attendances at Irish race meetings the first half of this year has seen that trend bucked with numbers back on the rise. According to Horse Racing Ireland the reported attendances at race meetings from the 1st of January to 2nd July were up 7.6% on the equivalent figures for the same period in 2022.

In light of that it was interesting to see that last week two big race meetings in Ireland had free entry for the public. Naas on Bank Holiday Monday was free thanks to the sponsorship of Ballyhane Stud and the on-course bookmakers’ association underwrote the entry at the Curragh on Saturday for a card that included a Group One contest. Both courses saw significantly increased crowds on those days.

Could free entry be the answer? Well I suppose it depends on what the question is. If the sport is simply looking to add extra bums on seats, yes free entry works. But if the sport is trying to attract punters to bet or re-engage with its former audience I’m not sure how successful it will be.

It’s also interesting that neither free entry scheme was the initiative of the racecourse itself, which makes me wonder what the actual thinking of the racecourses are when it comes to free entry. Presumably, the racecourses view 200 people paying €20 to get in more favourably than 2,000 paying nothing.

There is no doubt that both racecourses with free entry last week saw far more footfall than they would have if patrons had to pay in, but will any of the same people return when it’s €20 a head at the next meeting?

When you look at Festivals like Galway where 25,000 are willing to pay €30 a head to go racing for the day it suggests that the entry fee is not necessarily a deterrent.

Perhaps a better way of boosting crowds would be to incentivise those that are willing to pay for the privilege by giving them discounts or free entry at future meetings. If the Galway crowds were all given tickets to use at any meeting over the following month it might encourage those racegoers to race more often and get back into the habit of racing regularly.