Edward Gillespie ready to welcome fresh faces as Festival ticket sales dip

Managing director puts positive spin on ticket sales for the meeting next March being 18 per cent down on the corresponding time a year ago

In these financially challenged times, getting people through the gate is an initiative test for every racecourse. Sandown last Saturday solved it with sleigh rides from the station and an ice rink – in addition to the best chaser in training. Towcester lets everyone in free, Newmarket loves bands and Fontwell is one of many offering cut-price deals. But what of the biggest meeting of all, the Cheltenham Festival?

When the advance booking discount period ended on Monday – a date always regarded as a key indicator – ticket sales for the meeting next March were 18 per cent down on the corresponding time a year ago. So far, 71,000 have been sold, down from 86,000, and the figures are taxing the sang-froid of Edward Gillespie, the managing director.

Characteristically, Gillespie puts a positive slant on the situation. Aside from the obvious inference that many have decided not to pay up before an already straitened Christmas just to save an average £5 per ticket, there is, he believes, a possibility that the demographic of the meeting could change markedly.

“There is a lot of concern among the hospitality companies but Cheltenham is just one of many sporting events to suffer in that area,” he said. “Our own hospitality sales are 20 per cent down and most other agents are about the same, so we might be making some tweaks to reduce the size of the tented village.

“I do think some will trade down to other areas and that different people will come this year. In the past, a lot of people have told us they had the money but not the time to attend. Now, it might be the other way round and we’re hoping to attract those who might have made career decisions that have left them with more time on their hands.”

One inevitable casualty of the economic climate has been Cheltenham’s next significant development, featuring a new weighing-room complex, media centre and aerial walkways. “We now know we’ll be staging a minimum of three more Festivals before it is built,” Gillespie said. “Jockey Club Racecourses will decide in the spring whether it is scheduled for 2011 or even later.”

The builders are still in at Cheltenham, though, putting the finishing touches to a sales ring that, on racedays, will be a splendid new covered area for Tattersalls customers. The way things are going, it will also become a regular stage for the phenomenal purchasing power and will of Graham Wylie.

Many leading jumps owners, including David Johnson and Sir Robert Ogden, have severely curtailed their outlay on new horses since the credit crunch took hold. Not Wylie, though. His late love affair with racing remains as strong as his faith in Howard Johnson, his trainer, and together they are producing winners as never before.

Just as well, really. At the last Cheltenham sale, Wylie’s spending of 430,000 guineas accounted for half the takings. Then, last week, in a depressed market at the Kempton breeze-up, he bought two horses for 170,000 and 95,000 when no other lot fetched more than 41,000. Doubtless, he will be active again at the after-racing sale at Cheltenham tomorrow.

When two separate committees investigated the subject of inside information, it was not all about corruption. Opening up some of racing’s traditional secrets for public consumption was also on the agenda – specifically, the raceday weight of horses, disclosure of wind operations and of in-foal mares. How sad, then, that for varied reasons of cost, scientific advice and, perhaps, owner/trainer resistance, the British Horseracing Authority has had to concede that none of the three will be made available in the foreseeable future.

Come mid-February, racing will have an intriguing new pub quiz question. Of the 60 racecourses in Britain, name the only one never to have staged a Sunday meeting? The answer, paradoxically, will be the course most likely to be filled to bursting point if it ever did race on the sabbath. Cartmel, though, stands on church ground, so its status is likely to remain unchanged. Sedgefield will become a Sunday venue for the first time on February 15, having bought one of the slots initially earmarked for days off, until the bookmakers had their say.

Tags: advance booking, Cheltenham Festival, Gillespie, hospitality companies, Newmarket, racecourse, Sandown, Sporting Events, tented village, Towcester

Category: Agricultural Events, Credit Crunch, Sporting Events