'We've not ticked the box of competitiveness' - Leicester concerned by small fields after card begins with walkover

Leicester was left "extremely disappointed" after its six-race card on Friday began with a walkover, gifting the title-chasing jockey Sean Bowen a winner.

The £12,500 novice handicap chase had already been brought forward to the start of the meeting by the BHA after only two were declared for the feature 2m6½f event. However, Marble Sands, who ran on the Flat at Southwell on Tuesday, was taken out on Friday morning after not eating up.

The absence of Marble Sands meant the Olly Murphy-trained Lord Of Kerak merely had to walk across the line under Bowen to be declared the winner.

The automatic success helped Bowen close the gap on Harry Cobden to ten winners, before the championship leader restored his lead when riding his 140th winner of the season on the David Pipe-trained Royal Mer in the 2m handicap chase that followed.

"I can't think of a time we've had a walkover," said Leicester general manager David Maykels. "We had the issue probably ten-plus years ago on prize-money when we had a bit of a boycott.

"The reason Marble Sands was withdrawn is he didn't eat up in the morning, that's the official line. We're extremely disappointed. It's a disappointing number of runners on the whole card."

Just 26 runners participated on the all-chase card, which attracted 28 runners at the declaration stage, with no race paying three places each-way under standard bookmaking terms. Three contests featured four runners and were subject to win-only betting.

More valuable novice chases at Wetherby and Warwick were won by Any News and Pembroke in walkovers in October and November respectively, but the general lack of runners at Leicester's jumps fixtures is a growing concern. Just 29 runners ran at the East Midlands track's previous meeting last month after five of the 34 declared were non-runners.

"This has been one of the smallest cards that we've had for a long time," Maykels said of Leicester's final jumps fixture of the season. "It's not good enough just to race. You need to race with reasonable betting turnover. When you have a card like today when six reduces to five, it hits us financially and then we've got 26 runners left on the card.

"You're going up against Exeter and Ayr today. If we're racing on a Tuesday when there's only us and Carlisle, then pound for pound there's more chance of getting reasonable betting turnover but when people have more choice and they look at a card like Leicester today, then they're probably going to be spending more effort betting elsewhere.

"I know back from my days running a greyhound stadium that in order to stimulate betting turnover you need a certain number of runners but more importantly, you need it to be competitive. The quality helps but what's more important is to have choice and competitiveness than quality. Unfortunately today, we’ve not ticked the box of competitiveness."

The lack of competitiveness is particularly concerning to Maykels, given the increased importance of betting turnover to the racecourse's revenue as a result of a new five-year television deal agreed last April.

"This is what trainers and the public don't understand with these TV deals," he said. "It is possible and has been a fact that we've raced and made no money because the new deal is linked to television and betting turnover.

"When you look at Southwell, Lingfield and Wolverhampton and you look at the field sizes they get and you look at the competitiveness of the card from a betting angle, it's far more attractive now to have a bet on an all-weather meeting, which wasn't what they were designed for but it's kind of where we've ended up.

"With all of our fixed costs it means on a day like today, I would be doubtful that we'll make any money."

Leicester next race on April 12, when it stages its first Flat meeting of the season.

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