It may have passed you by, with a rather more subdued opening this week, but the Racing League returns on Thursday night, with Yarmouth hosting the first week of action.
In years gone by, the fanfare, perhaps forced fanfare is a better way of describing it, has been hard to miss. The build-up has lasted days, maybe a week or two, but this time around, well, nothing really.
The only relevant news for the Racing League so far is that Megan Nicholls will lead the ITV Racing coverage, who will be in attendance every week, for every race. But as much as that’s great for Megan, you can’t help but think it’s also a sign ITV are lowering its importance, if it was big enough, they’d have their top team on board.
I was torn at the start of the Racing League, a concept I didn’t like, but at least racing was trying something new, even if it never seemed to work. We can all sit and criticise racing being in the dark ages, and trying to deliver the same old things time and time again. The Racing League didn’t do that.
Are We Heading Towards the End of the Racing League?
I’ll be honest and say I thought the end of the Racing League would have come at the end of last season’s event, when things were going downhill fairly quickly, especially with the participants.
Field sizes were low, there wasn’t much appetite from the trainers and jockeys to travel like they had before, it seemed doomed.
But let’s be positive, of the seven races on Thursday night at Yarmouth, just one has a single-figure field, and that’s got nine in.
Other than that, good turnouts all round, which is a positive start, even if only two of the seven races are actually full. I would argue that the recent rain has put paid to a few hopes this week, so when you factor that into things, I am happy enough with the numbers we’ve got on the track this Thursday.
The prize money is good, with three £35,000 races, three at £50,000, and then one at £75,000; it’s good from the start. Yes, there’s calls for racing to put that kind of money in elsewhere, and support the real grassroots of the sport, without a new competition, but at the same time, let’s acknowledge that we’re having this kind of money thrown around for class 3 and 4 handicaps, which we don’t get elsewhere.
I’m going to watch, and at the same time, I’ll try and completely ignore the team aspect of it, though of course, I expect ITV to throw that all across the TV screens as much as possible. Instead, I’ll focus on what should be competitive fields, racing for good prize money, hopefully finding a few winners along the way.
I do like the relaxed atmosphere of the broadcast from the Racing League meetings, and wish ITV would do that more often elsewhere, so I’m looking forward to them showcasing things in a more relaxed environment too.
So it’s not all doom and gloom, make sure you remember that, even if we’re not bothered about the whole concept of the Racing League, let’s at least enjoy the racing.
