Gold Cup poor crowd attendance

Most of the food vendors were disappointed at the poor crowd attendance for this years Gold Cup.

Could you tell there was a poor crowd ?

I was at the track, compared to previous years there were fewer people.After Return Flight won the 5the race, Chris van Niekerk during his interview also mentioned about the poor attendance on this prestigious day.

Without the VODACOM JULY... KZN has no crowd puller......no race in SA can ever match the July.....

the duke wrote: Without the VODACOM JULY... KZN has no crowd puller......no race in SA can ever match the July.....

be thankful Gauteng has nothing to attract a crowd at least you have a major day and a half - we only have the Summer cup non-event and maybe the November Handicap -

mr hawaii wrote:

the duke wrote: Without the VODACOM JULY... KZN has no crowd puller......no race in SA can ever match the July.....

be thankful Gauteng has nothing to attract a crowd at least you have a major day and a half - we only have the Summer cup non-event and maybe the November Handicap -

I remember when the "House Full" sign was displayed at a Holiday Inns meeting at Turffontein sometime in the early 80's. Yip, those were the days.

To be fair Greyville sucks. Always has done, but the traditions of old have gone and with them the cover up of this fact is not achieved .

drdom, why does Greyville suck?

crowds came out to watch the main race, but my mate reckons about 500 in the cheap seats

The Charity tents struggled to get them in this year!

To me, by far and large, the poorest crowd?

Craig Eudey wrote: drdom, why does Greyville suck?

Just my opinion Craig.
Even 25 years ago when I was a regular attendee at all the KZN tracks, it was the least pleasant course to attend of the 3. The whole setup of the track and facilities on big racedays , the visibility of the races themselves, even from the owners facilities was inferior to the other courses. I remember trying to watch a number of big races, including the July, battling to get a decent view even though was connected to a runner.

The track even back then was more of a lottery than the other 2 . Ok, I may be biased due to some bad luck with runners in said races as well

The success of Greyville and our fond memories of the traditions is based on way back.
Its location and accessibility to the much larger race going population than today, as well as the influx of the best horses in the season, allowed it to be the centre point of the race calendar.

The tradition and sentiment build through history, does now not exist in the same way, and the location is of less consequence than the facilities and experience, of an audience with different and higher expectation. Back in the day it was the best show going and all that mattered was the racing .

Now with fewer people going racing as a rule, tracks that are undesirable, smaller fields, with some of the best horses giving the big races a miss as a result of the track conditions, the patchwork nature of the attempt to improve experience just doesnt cut it.
Lets face it if you were going to build a facility from the ground up it would look nothing like Greyville, and it would start from the premise of offering the best racing, and the best ways of the public enjoying that racing . Instead its a patchwork of squeezing in tracks to facilitate the looting of punters, and the distraction from the racing with entertainments and hospitalities. People can get a better deal and entertainment elsewhere every day, if they are not obsessed with the horses.

The racecourses in general are, not all that, to the occasional racegoer, and seemingly, especially at Greyville, the desire to bring in new, and more audience has been at the expense of the racing , and the audience already involved. And it shows . Gold circle seems to try really hard, but if your mission starts with "getting people to races " rather than letting the racing attract people, then its a long term fail. to me Greyville explifies this fail.

Again, just my personal opinion.

Too many thieves there on big days! Cell phones, wallets stolen like crazy. a stay away venue!!!Over 100 cell phones reported stolen at the July Handicap 2 years ago.