This article titled “Ascot racecourse attract bumper crowd on free racing day at the track” was written by Greg Wood at Ascot, for The Guardian on Wednesday 27th April 2011 17.26 UTCIt may not have had the Queen or the morning dress, but Wednesday’s meeting here shared one feature with its more glamorous counterpart in June. As a large crowd struggled out of Ascot station, the first thing to greet them was a gang of ticket touts – and this on a day when the track was throwing open its doors and inviting people to go racing for free.
It was not, perhaps, as odd as it seems. With well over 25,000 coming into Ascot’s main enclosure for nothing, there may have been some margin in selling tickets for the Premier enclosure, where the queues for food and drinks were much less daunting. It takes a proper crowd to bring a buzz to the aircraft hangar that is Ascot’s vast grandstand, and on Wednesday, when the standard of the racing went no higher than the Group Three Sagaro Stakes, the hum of excitement was certainly there.
The same card was part of Racing For Change’s “Free Racing” experiment 12 months ago, and many of those who took advantage then had clearly returned, and brought their friends as well. In all, there were 26,595 in attendance, more than 6,000 ahead of last year’s total, and the scheme is likely to continue in 2012.
The warm spring weather, and the fact that so many people are simply taking this week off, must have helped to swell the numbers. But as an advertisement for racing, and Ascot in particular, the timing was perfect, a reminder that for the five days of the Royal meeting in a few weeks’ time there will be nowhere better to be.
“This is one of those rare occasions in racing where there doesn’t appear to be a downside,” Nick Smith, Ascot’s head of PR, said. “We reckon that if today was a normal day, we would probably sell 3,000 tickets, so if 10% of the people coming in for nothing come back and buy another ticket, then it will be worthwhile, but it doesn’t really matter, the whole point is to try to get people to come racing.
“The catchment area locally of people who don’t go racing is huge. People are always thinking nationally and internationally, but there are thousands of people who go past the track every day and it wouldn’t occur to them to go. We’re trying to target them, especially with a day like this.”
Tickets were on sale for the Royal meeting in June, which is a lop-sided event in terms of attendance. The last three days will be close to a sell-out, but the opening day – which includes three Group One races – and Wednesday still have plenty of spare capacity.
“Today is not a novelty,” Smith said. “The top jockeys are here, and people are seeing racing as it properly should be. On the Tuesday and Wednesday at the Royal meeting we’ll get up to 40,000, which means that there’s 40,000 spare, then after that it’s 65,000 plus for the rest of the week. We are selling tickets today, and we will also have everyone’s email address added to our marketing database, so they will all get promoted to.”
There will have been several Royal Ascot attendees on show on the track here, including Richard Hannon’s juvenile Magic City, who is still being aimed at the Norfolk Stakes despite finishing only second behind Miss Work Of Art when a 1-4 chance for the opening race.
Askar Tau, the winner of the Sagaro Stakes, will also be back in June, and is 16-1 (from 20-1) with Totesport for the Gold Cup after a smooth success in one of the most significant trials for the Royal meeting’s feature event.
Marcus Tregoning’s gelding travelled much better than has often been the case, and while his overall form is many lengths behind that of Fame And Glory, the ante-post favourite for the Gold Cup, he is at least proven at the two-and-a-half-mile trip. “He just needs top of the ground,” Tregoning said. “For some reason he just wasn’t moving as well last season but we got him started early and he was very good today.”
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