Any faint hope British racing would follow the lead of its Irish counterpart and attempt to stage its Grand National in the autumn has been swiftly extinguished, leaving an estimated hole of up to £0.5bn in the balance sheet of the sport, betting industries and the local economy, only a fraction of which will be covered by insurance claims.
Jockey Club Racecourses, which owns Aintree, has not formally ruled out moving the race but it cancelled – rather than postponed – the 2020 race several weeks ago, shortly before new government restrictions on movement led to the current suspension of all British racing, and there is no expectation the situation will change.
Some of JCR’s costs – such as refunding tickets – will be covered by its insurance policy, but revenue generated during the three-day Aintree Festival, from on-course betting, bars, restaurants and so on, will be lost. The total estimated loss for the track, its owners and nearby businesses is expected to reach around £60m.
Bookmakers, meanwhile, will be missing out on around £400m in turnover, and their best annual opportunity to attract new customers. The Scottish Grand National, which was due to be staged at Ayr on 18 April, is also one of the most popular betting races of the year.
Ireland cancelled the remainder of its 2019-20 jumps season this week, including the Punchestown Festival at the end of this month, but will still aim to reschedule the Irish Grand National at Fairyhouse as part of an “enhanced” jumping programme later in the year.
The Grand National at Aintree, however, is a much bigger beast than its Irish counterpart by any measure, from its attendance (65,000 versus 12,500) to its traditional build-up over many months.
The 1997 Grand National was restaged as a standalone event two days later, in front of around 20,000 spectators, after it was postponed from its traditional Saturday slot following a bomb scare at the course.
Even that required immense effort, however, and a two-day delay when much infrastructure was already in place is different to a move to an as yet unspecified date in the autumn when restrictions on large gatherings could still be in place. The National is also the ultimate target for many horses at the outset of the jumps campaign and a shift to the opening weeks of the season could have knock-on effects on top-level National Hunt racing at other tracks for months afterwards.
As is the case for so many businesses, lost revenue will not be retrieved when the lockdown ends and it could be months, or even years, before the economy recovers from the effects of the current lockdown. The one cause for optimism, however, as racing counts the cost of losing the entire Grand National meeting for the first time since 1945, is that Tiger Roll, the race winner in 2018 and 2019, is expected to return in 2021 to attempt a third success.
