Was the DragonBet Welsh Racing Festival a success?
It sounds like a straightforward question. Having spent three days at Chepstow taking bets, paying out winners and seeing our name around a racecourse that means a great deal to our family, you would think I’d have a straightforward answer.
But success depends on what you’re measuring.
For the bookmaker standing in the ring, there’s a fairly reliable starting point: did you leave with more money than you arrived with?
Across the three days, we did. Although by Sunday afternoon, considerably less of it remained than we might have hoped.
Friday was lively, as Fridays at this meeting often are, with the more serious punters out in force.
There were sizeable bets reported on Dan Skelton’s novice hurdle winner Cooltobecareless, backed from 6/4 into evens, before West Hill Verde gave the bookmakers a welcome result in the Persian War at double-figure odds.
A £3,000 bet at 4/1 on the final winner Reel Orange took a substantial bite out of our afternoon, but we finished in the green.
Saturday provided an early test of the nerves after we laid £250 each way at 50/1 on Ian Williams’s Valpovo. He returned at 8/1 and finished fourth, having run considerably better than our opening price suggested.
Northern Singer then supplied the sting in the tail. We’d laid 10/3 to a decent bet in the last, watched her return at 7/4 and then hack up without ever really looking like she would get beaten.
It’s always nice when a day’s work comes down to watching something you desperately need beaten win with its head in its chest.
Sunday was quieter for us on the rails. A customer well-known to us had £2,000 on Matty’s Getaway at 9/2, and its victory put an end to any realistic prospect of making money that afternoon. We weren’t holding enough to recover from a blow like that.
Still, the weekend as a whole produced an on-course profit. That matters. We’re a business, and however much we love racing, affection doesn’t pay the wages
Online, the answer is harder to establish.
Last year we handed out plenty of flyers and had lots of people signing up on the day. It gave us a number to point to and a fairly immediate sense that the sponsorship was doing its job.
The trouble is that sign-ups can become vanity numbers.
Someone opens an account, uses the welcome offer and disappears. In the industry, they’re known as “one and dones”. They count towards the acquisition total, but they don’t necessarily give you much of a business to build on.
This year, we didn’t see the same burst of registrations. What we do believe is that the customers who have joined us are more likely to stay.
That belief still has to be tested over time. We can’t declare someone a loyal customer after a weekend.
But hopefully they’ve come to DragonBet because they recognise what bookmaking and horse racing mean to us. They’ve seen us standing in the ring, supporting the meeting and taking a proper interest in the sport, and they value a company where those things matter.
If that gives us customers who stay, enjoy the service and build a relationship with us, it will be worth considerably more than a busy afternoon handing out welcome offers.
It just takes longer to count.
Then there’s success for Chepstow and for the people who came.
Early attendance figures suggest an increase in the number through the gates. Given the disappointment beforehand about the loss of the chase races, that is encouraging.
The absence of fences didn’t prevent a proper spectacle. There were big fields, competitive races and impressive performances. The big trainers struck, and I’ve no doubt we’ll see plenty of the weekend’s runners claiming significant prizes as the season unfolds.
Saturday brought a good mix of regular racegoers and people enjoying a more occasional visit. On Sunday, while things were quieter on the rails, Tattersalls was another world, with around 4,000 students and an atmosphere that could hardly be described as subdued.
Student days attract their share of criticism. Apart from an apparent dislike of bras and socks, I think they bring a huge amount to meetings like these.
People don’t visit betting shops as they once did, and plenty of younger people have little exposure to horse racing. Here they were, through the gates, watching the races and clearly enjoying themselves.
That should count as a success.
Their social media feeds will have been full of the day too. Every photo and video shared with friends puts racing in front of someone who might otherwise never think about going. It’s the buttefly affect in action – just think of the reach created and the benefit that gains the sport.
There’s no better recommendation than one from someone you know, and no better introduction to racing than a day at the races.
They won’t all become regulars. But some might, and the first step is giving them an afternoon they’d like to repeat.
There was also £1,000 raised for Tŷ Hafan, the children’s charity, through our joint effort with Chepstow, donating each time a Welsh-trained or Welsh-ridden winner came home.
That is a result we can measure immediately, and one we’re proud of.
On a personal level, seeing DragonBet come to life at Chepstow will always mean something to me. This is a place woven into our family’s history. To build a business with my brother and see it supporting a meeting here brings a mixture of pride, nostalgia and a fairly strong desire for the favourite to get beaten.
But the importance of the weekend reaches well beyond our own betting book.
It brought people together. It provided quality sport, gave visitors a reason to come to Wales and generated business through racing and the activity around it. It introduced new people to the racecourse and gave established racing fans plenty to enjoy.
Those things should matter to the people making decisions about the sport’s future, in Wales and beyond.
Racing matters to the people who work in it, the communities around it and the people who love it. It matters as a sport and as an economic contributor to the country. At a time when its future faces growing pressures, it matters more than ever.
The DragonBet Welsh Racing Festival showed that over three days.
So, was it a success?
For us on course, yes, despite a few expensive reminders that the customers get their turn too. Online, we’ll have a clearer answer when we see how those relationships develop.
As an event, and as a demonstration of what Welsh racing has to offer, I think it was a huge success.
Thank you to everyone who came, had a bet, watched, shared or helped make it happen, and to the Chepstow team and the racing professionals whose work made the three days possible.
Long live Welsh racing.
Diolch!
