Before I really get going let me declare an interest: myself and two friends from England are planning our annual (2020 excluded) weekend pilgrimage to Ireland to take in racing at Dundalk, Leopardstown and Naas; this is from Oct 15-17 – exactly one week before Ireland returns to normal. Well…the part that has nothing to do with racing returns to normal.
I’m not so sure that racing wants to return to normal that quickly so am concerned about what we can expect. Let me explain my fears:
Now, as we all know, Ireland has allowed virtually no spectators onto racecourses for 16 months. Admittedly this increased to 500 in June and Galway was allowed only 1000 for its Festival (let’s just put aside, for now, that people in the West of Ireland can’t count and that there must have been, at least, 2000 there every day) but I think we can all agree that you can’t make much money on those numbers (unless you give up on running a racecourse and run a COVID testing/vaccination centre instead)
Let’s review the COVID protocols outlined on Tuesday:
From September 6th:
a) Outdoor areas have a 75% capacity unless spectators are not required to be vaccinated; then it falls to 50%. Given racecourses do not intend to check on vaccination status for outside spaces then 50% is the number
b) 60% are allowed indoors for food and beverage provided they can prove full vaccination status.
From October 22nd, all restrictions will be eased
With this most recent relaxing of COVID protocols it has been interesting to see how our beleaguered sport has reacted. First of all, Brian Kavanagh (CEO – Horse Racing Ireland) had this to say:
“That's the real beauty of Tuesday's announcement, in my view. You can look to plan towards Christmas or next year with the confidence of having full crowds.”
Er..Brian, you can have full crowds after 22nd October! What other retail/hospitality industry is going to react to Tuesday’s announcements by saying ”oh thanks – we will take our time and look forward to next year!”? The ones I know would be saying “it’s probably too late to save our business but we’ll give it a go from September 6th”
Now, let’s be honest, it is late to plan any food or concessions at Leopardstown and it is difficult to get the staff these days but could we not, at least , give a try?
Here are some random thoughts on the crowd limits:
Leopardstown 4000 people
Based on the above, you would think that 50% of the outdoor capacity and 60% of the indoor capacity would be a potential target. Apparently not….
The Racing Post reports: “The track’s manager Tim Husbands said outdoor capacity is 8,000, and therefore couldn’t permit any more than 4,000 on September 11”
A few points here:
1) The use of therefore in this sentence is interesting. Perhaps: “couldn’t permit any more than 4000 outdoors..” would be a better clarifier
2) Then again, what about the indoor space? Leopardstown had an attendance of 17,783 at the Christmas meeting in 2018. If the outdoor capacity is 8000 then it would appear that the indoor capacity is at least 9783. (I am assuming the course did not breach any fire code restrictions)
60% of 9783 is over 5800 people; 5800 people additional to the 4000 outside!
3) Of course, Leopardstown would counter that, with only one week, to go, they couldn’t be expected to find caterers to meet the demand of these spectators. That is a fair enough argument but I would make the following offer:
I will fly myself over from Boston at my own expense; spend Friday night and Saturday morning making fresh sandwiches, bag a few crisps, give Coke a call and then take my chances that I would make a profit on the deal even if, say, only 2000 people were allowed inside.
You know, it’s even possible an Irish caterer, short of business for 16 months, could galvanize themselves to do the same within a 7 day period!
Listowel 2000 people
Don’t get me going (too late) so let’s review this rationale. Over to Brian again:
“Listowel is an outdoor-only event as they have greater restrictions on their indoor facilities. They still intend to use some of those facilities for jockeys, stewards and press”
Let’s examine this logic in a little more detail:
According to the Kerryman website (September 2016) : Friday's Ladies' Day attendance figure of 29,278 represented an all-time record crowd for the long-running Listowel Races
I am a qualified CFO and my friend is a postman but we are both agreed that if the outdoor capacity is 4000 and the attendance is 29,278 then the indoor capacity is, at least, 25,278.
Now, I am sure that both Listowel and HRI would quickly counter that this is nonsense and that there is no way the indoor capacity at Listowel is anything like 25000. They would be correct, because what is truly nonsense, is that the outdoor capacity is only 4000!
Due to the fact the mere act of writing this is helping me to calm down and also because of a very relaxing bottle of wine, I am prepared to be generous and accept that indoor capacity is only, let’s say, 5000 people.
But none of these 5000 people, even if Listowel can conjure up caterers or I turn up with five loaves and two fish, will be allowed inside and that is because, wait for it, 25 jockeys, a few stewards and press members need all of that space! Either we can expect of lot of overweight runners or someone has miscalculated here. One jockey is equal to 60% of a typical spectator (50% if we allow for some COVID creep) so, by my reckoning, 30 equivalent people are depriving 5000 people of a place indoors (and you know it’s going to rain as well!)
This is truly incredible: wouldn’t it be better to hire a few portakabins for that group and free up the cavernous indoor space for the long suffering spectator? Just an idea, Listowel and HRI.
I started this blog by mentioning that we intend to visit Dundalk again. I am not going to explain or apologize and can genuinely say that we have had great evenings there; helped, in large part, by the customer service of Laura. However, it completely boggles my mind that, for the last 5 weeks when restaurants were allowed to have indoor dining, Dundalk has not figured out how to position itself as a restaurant with a few horses just happening to run around outside. It makes you wonder if some racecourses haven’t just given up and written off 2021.
Finally, in some positive news: Laytown has been moved to November 1st and will be entirely outdoors!
Ah…I feel better now!