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Rain and a re-schedule of the first day of The Championships led to a disastrous crowd of 11,575 people making their way to Royal Randwick.
Dress it up however you like but there is simply no excuses for a figure that poor.
The number would have been higher had the race meeting been run on Saturday, but the horses would have needed a snorkel on a gloomy day.
The race meeting was postponed until Monday and the weather was still a disaster – there would have been a large number of refunds – but it is still an absolute shocker and a rip in the sails of Racing NSW.
It shouldn’t be this way either. It was a quality day of racing, with four Group 1s and arguably the best sprinters in Australia going head-to-head.
If one thing is for certain it’s the fact that people in Sydney just won’t go out in the rain. From an insider on the track it doesn’t sound like racing NSW did themselves any favours, with facilities too spread out, and the food and beer too expensive.
People won’t go to a venue if they aren’t going to enjoy the experience. All over twitter there was plenty of examples where it rained in Melbourne and the crowd has been much larger, with fields of less quality.
Those comparisons were made to a Melbourne Spring Carnival meeting where there is absolutely no competition for the racing. Perhaps this is the problem with The Championships? In a competitive market, racing isn’t doing enough in Sydney to draw crowds.
A big problem is the lack of members going to the races. In Melbourne during the spring close to 10,000 members go to each race meeting.
But if we are going to use competition as an excuse why did the Oakbank races do so well this past weekend?
Oakbank, with a proud history of Easter Racing, smashed the Sydney attendance with upwards of 40,000 attending the Saturday meeting, and just over 13,000 attended the Easter Monday races.
Perhaps it’s the prices? We are already seeing fans turn their back on rugby league with prices for tickets reaching ridiculous highs. The general price for a GA ticket to The Championships was $50 for the meeting on Saturday, compared to Oakbank charging just $30.
One suggestion was that Racing NSW and the ATC should move The Championships. But if moved earlier the meet would interfere with overseas races, and if moved later would interfere with the Brisbane winter carnival.
Last year and the first meeting of this year’s Championships the weather has been poor. But if the weather gets better and attendances don’t reach 20,000 Sydney should be stripped of The Championships.
I’m a big believer in spreading the quality of a Group 1s between both Sydney and Melbourne, but if the people of Sydney aren’t going to support The Championships, then it needs to be moved to Melbourne.
We already know that the people of Victoria would bet on two flies on a wall, so why not take the racing where it will be truly appreciated?
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