Ayr 12 February 2011

An interesting approach to entertaining the punters and getting them through the gates is seen when you compare my visit today with last week at Musselburgh.

Race courses are having to find ways of attracting their customers and last week was an excellent example of having a celebrity compere. Mind you, Musselburgh is small enough to do this, with the excellent and skilled Derek Thompson in charge of the MC duties.

Today's meeting at Ayr was billed as Valentine's Raceday. The only nod in this direction was to be seen in one hen party, one stag party, and a lot of women thinking they should dress for Ascot Ladies Day on an end of winter's day. Other than the usual band after the meeting, there was little else to share romance at the meeting.

This was also the day that the shocking news from Newbury came through on the TV screens in the lounge bar. Two horses had (possibly) been the victim of a faulty electric cable in the parade ring and had been electrocuted. This information was not know when it was announced that the meeting was to be abandoned. We wondered if it was to do with adverse weather, until the announcement included the deaths of the two horses. Then the assumption was that it was the feed or water that might have caused it. It really was like a Dick Francis novel when the facts began to emerge.

It was a challenging day to find not only a winner but a forecast in a four horse race. The latter being a turn up for the books when Robert Goldie's (son of Jim) outsider Alexander Oats beat the favourite.

There has been some roof damage in the club end of the stand and a large section of the stand was cordoned off because of this.

Another observation worth making is the approach to race cards. Free or not free? At Musselburgh they were free but Ayr, who used to hand them out, have started charging £2 for them. The upside is that this includes a £2 voucher to use on food and coffee in any of the outlets. However the catering managers at Ayr need to go a long way to improve this side of things.