British Horseracing

Top stuff Nick, thanks for sharing that.

I agree with Geoff, the public come to know and love the National Hunt superstars. The biggest profile races on the flat are the classics and they only deal with one generation. No horse to be a stallion until 5 years old, would help.
Newcomers to racing I've been with can easily understand fractional odds and they don't usually care what the odds... See More are, they just want to back something and cheer it home. I suspect there is a different agenda here, making it easier for regular punters to compare Tote, Betfair and Bookmaker prices for instance.
The thing that makes something like football so much more popular than racing is the belonging. I have had shares in horses with a few stables but really I'm happy to move around, and I really like certain horses and some trainers but I'm not bound to them. If someone was to suggest I swap my football affiliation like 99% of football fans I'd tell them that could never happen. Organisations like the Elite Racing Club are the most likely way to get people really engaged, but ironically it is still quite an Elite sport for people to get involved with.
The handicap system is also a bit of a joke, its like amateur golfers hacking up the course for a couple of months before the clubs annual competition. I pretty much ignore handicaps because of this. Stakes races where all the horses are in there to do there best are far more appealling as a side to racing. There should be a way to make the races more meaningful too, the order of merit is a good idea but very poorly organised. There should be more made of becoming the best in a particular type of race. I'm sure people would be interested to know who is the best 5 furlong sprinter in the country or the best 2 mile chaser, and this could be done in divisions. It really is quite surprising that Racing for Change can make so much bluster and come up with something so insignificant and banal. Sorry I don't want to be disparaging about the efforts made. I really love racing and I'm not bothered whether it changes, but if they want to make changes then someone needs to think a bit harder.