Wolverhampton - staged first trial fixture

Flutter brands report positive stakes on Wolverhampton Sunday evening card

By Sporting Life

Horse Racing

Tue January 09, 2024 · 2y ago

Flutter were encouraged by stakes across their three UK and Ireland brands, Betfair, Paddy Power and Sky Bet, for the fixture at Wolverhampton on Sunday evening.

Racing took place at Dunstall Park as the first of six trial meetings scheduled in the timeslot through the winter, in an attempt to boost racing’s finances through increased contribution from bookmakers to the Levy.

The card featured strong numerical fields and enhanced prize-money with a minimum of £15,000 per race, with most races run for almost three times the minimum value for their respective grade.

It led to strong turnover with Seb Butterworth, Commercial Director at Flutter, saying: "It was a really promising start. Races were competitive, with good field sizes and customer engagement was very positive – with overall stakes up 10% across our brands versus a usual Wolverhampton card, and the meeting itself being the 6th highest in stakes across the whole week.

"So from a betting perspective, we can see there is a window for Sunday evening that is of interest to customers. But betting is only one part of racing - and alongside trying to grow the sport - we must consider the impact to the participants. Are there creative ways in which to make this more appealing to the jockeys, to the stable staff, and even to the race-going pubic? This is a trial and we need to understand it it from all viewpoints."

Some people have voiced their opposition to the fixtures including jockey Callum Shepherd who won the opening contest on Charlie’s Choice.

Richard Wayman, chief operating officer at the British Horseracing Authority, said feedback from all areas of the industry will be considered while one of the main aims of Sunday racing was to help grow interest in British racing.

“One of the things we are trying to do as part of the Industry Strategy is to try to grow interest in racing and grow the number of people who follow the sport,” he said.

“We’ve got various workstreams in relation to the fixture list which are designed to try to achieve that. Make more of the big stuff on a Saturday through Premierisation and we want to improve the quality of Sunday racing and through listening to our colleagues in the betting industry, who have told us there is significant growth in the amounts of money being bet generally on a Sunday evening, (we are staging the trial).

“What we don’t know at this stage is the appetite for betting on British racing on a Sunday evening, so the purpose of the six trial meetings is just to try to ascertain what demand there is. These six fixtures will tell us what the demand is.

“Callum’s comments are perfectly understandable as this does put a lot of strain on those people servicing the fixtures such as jockeys, trainers, stable staff, our own staff, the racecourse staff servicing those fixtures as there are a lot of people involved in putting a race meeting on, so as part of the trial we will get feedback from all of those people.

“At the end of those six fixtures we’ll take a view on whether this is something we should be thinking about long term or not, but only by trying it can we make that decision.

“The betting industry will make the figures available to the BHA and we have set targets. We’d like to see these meetings outperform a regular all-weather night meeting by 15-20 per cent, even if it does do that it doesn’t necessarily mean it will carry on.”

The next Sunday evening fixture is scheduled for Chelmsford on January 21.

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