Goodwood executives 'gutted' after Saturday's crowd trials are scrapped

Goodwood racecourse said on Friday that it was “gutted” to be forced to abandon plans to allow 5,000 of its annual members to attend the final day of Glorious Goodwood on Saturday afternoon, despite many weeks of planning and a “six-figure” investment in adapting its facilities to comply with guidelines set by government and Public Health England.

Goodwood would normally welcome between 15,000 and 25,000 spectators to each day of its biggest meeting and Adam Waterworth, the course’s managing director, said this week that it had been “harder work planning to get 5,000 people on Saturday than it usually is for 100,000 over the week”.

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The track planned to divide its course and facilities into eight zones, with racegoers “bubbled” with others their zone from their arrival in the car park to their departure at the end of the day. No zone would have allowed access to both the racecourse and the paddock, to prevent front-to-back movement, and one would even have required racegoers to remain in or around their cars.

“I’m gutted, to be honest, especially for the team,” Waterworth said on Friday. “Sarah Bullen, our ops manager, is eight-and-a-half months pregnant and she’s been an utter star, putting in all the hours in the world, and we were all ready to go.

“DCMS mentioned that it should be no reflection on Goodwood. Local and nationally, the plans had been signed off and they were all delighted with the work the team here did to put on an event safety. We were always aware that a local flare-up could have an impact and we’ve all been watching the news, but we were hopeful that because the West Sussex and local [infection] rates are relatively low and remain relatively low, we might be able to carry on.”

Annual members wanting to attend Saturday’s meeting had been given the chance to pick which zone they wanted to be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis and all 5,000 tickets available were claimed in a matter of days this month.

No direct refunds are necessary for annual members who were planning to attend, although some had paid for a hamper or other hospitality in advance. Goodwood’s expenses of at least £100,000 in preparing for the trial, however, are an added blow for a business already reeling from the ban on spectators.

“It was never about the money and we weren’t going for massive revenue,” Waterworth said. “We didn’t mind spending the money if it advanced our cause and meant that we could get a crowd sooner by showing we could do it safely. It was about trying to help out.

“It’s [a] huge [sum], in what is already a year when the P&L figures have no “P” involved and the “L” is getting bigger and bigger. For us, crowds are what we’re all about, between 70% and 80% of our revenue is directly attributable to people coming through the gates, that’s our business model.

“Yes, there’s media money, but for us it’s a much lower percentage of our revenues and our overheads are much higher. The media revenue for us in a year doesn’t touch the sides in terms of our overheads. We’re dependent on crowds.”

Waterworth suggested that Goodwood will seek some reimbursement of its expenses from DCMS, although the final figure has yet to be determined.

“It’s cost us six figures, but we haven’t finished adding everything up yet,” he said. “If think there’s a conversation to be had with DCMS probably, around the costs that were incurred to carry this pilot and now not being able to deliver it, but I think that’s probably one for next week.”

The Stewards’ Cup, one of the biggest betting races of the summer, will now take place behind closed doors on Saturday, with only the owners of horses running on the card allowed to attend.

“It’s a big kick,” Waterworth said. “There was a bit of light there, and we thought we’d actually done it. All this week, I’ve been thinking when horses like Stradivarius and Battaash have come in, what I’ve missed most is them getting the reception they deserved. Now the Stewards’ Cup winner is going to go the same way.

“We knew that with the team we’ve got here, we could have delivered tomorrow exactly within all the guidelines that DCMS and Public Health England have given to us. I know it would have been a success, but hopefully there will be the opportunity for racing to show that we can do this.”

Brilliant Battaash smashes track record

Battaash joined Stradivarius as a four-time winner of the same race at Glorious Goodwood with a typically brutal demolition of his field in the King George Stakes here on Friday.

Charlie Hills’s gelding hit the front about two-and-a-half furlongs out and powered away to beat Glass Slippers by two-and-a-quarter lengths in a new course record time of 55.62sec, nearly half a second inside the previous record set by Rudi’s Pet in 1999.

The six-year-old is expected to make two more starts this year, in the Nunthorpe Stakes at York next month and the Prix de l’Abbaye at Longchamp in October. He is top-priced at 10-11 with Hills for the former contest, which he won for the first time last year at the third attempt.