CIt was the horse festival on the weekend of October 5 and 6. The Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe set the stands at Longchamp in Paris ablaze on Sunday with the unexpected victory of the mare Bluestocking, while the stallion Smart Star won the Gold Cup hands down on Saturday at the Turf Singapore Club. But a party with a bitter taste. In Paris, the horse Haya Zark, well placed in the peloton, was suddenly exfiltrated from the race before dying a few minutes later. On the other side of the planet, it was the Turf Club’s last race after one hundred and eighty years of existence. The racecourse will soon be destroyed to make way, in 2027, for a large-scale real estate project.
With a continuously growing population, which for the first time exceeded 6 million inhabitants, the city-state, half the size of Ile-de-France, had no choice. The one hundred and twenty hectares of the stadium will ease the land pressure a little. “We must ensure enough land for future generations”the government justified itself. Local golf has already paid the price for this policy.
But there is another reason, more sociological. Horse racing is in decline around the world. Other leisure activities, other sports and even other games now attract populations. According to the Bloomberg agency, the Turf Club was only a third full this Saturday, with 10,000 spectators, while nearly 270,000 people had flocked to the Singapore Formula 1 Grand Prix two weeks earlier.
Like a survival of the Ancien Régime
Not far from there, the Macau racecourse also closed its doors on 1er april. Only the mythical site of Hong Kong survives, in Happy Valley, the last refuge and legacy of British colonization. But elsewhere, in Australia, the United States and Europe, professionals lament the disaffection of the public and bettors.
Attention to the animal condition and the explosion of betting on football have reduced the importance of this activity with its outdated image. Like the abandonment of a survival of the Ancien Régime where the bets of amateurs, often very modest, finance an elitist sport managed by billionaires. France is not there yet but its approximately 230 racecourses are struggling to fill up.
Long the only popular gambling game authorized with Loto, it is managed by the PMU, a monopoly controlled by the racing companies. Its net revenues, a little over 800 million euros, finance the sector. It is pleased to have halted a continuous decline since 2015 in 2023 and has diversified into sports betting and poker. For him too keep up with the times.