Racing Victoria has released the figures for the spring carnival

The turnover with the horse racing bookmakers on the spring carnival in Victoria might have been down but the other figures that were released by Racing Victoria this week suggest that it was a strong carnival overall with attendance up.

Fans of horse racing will have been looking over the figures that were released by Racing Victoria this week. The spring carnival is the most important stretch of fixtures in the horse racing calendar and the action on the track did not disappoint. There were some ups and downs across the other figures but there is enough in there to be positive about.

Spring carnival attendance was up

In excess of 285,000 people attended the four days of the Melbourne Cup Carnival at Flemington. A total of 589,272 attended across the entirety of the spring carnival in Victoria which was up on the 2023 figure of 566,402.

These figures would have been stronger still but for the developments that are being made at The Valley at present. 20% has been taken off the maximum capacity of the track which makes a difference on Cox Plate day, though perhaps less for the Friday night under the lights meetings.
 
The numbers were especially strong when it came to the Country Cup cards. Figures were up 37.4% at the Horsham Cup which stood out as the biggest increase in these meetings. There was also good news for the meetings at Benalla, Coleraine, Hamilton, Kyneton and Wodonga which all had figures up 20% or more.

Melbourne Cup betting strong but turnover was down overall

As always, the Melbourne Cup stands out as the biggest betting race of the year. For the fifth straight year, the betting topped the $200 million mark across the country at $214 million overall. That total is more than five times what is wagered on any other race during the year. The importance of the Melbourne Cup to racing can certainly never be understated.

Overall, the entire domestic figures were down 7% which might not sound much but when the total turnover was 2.73 billion dollars, it is a large deficit. It was not all bad news, however, as Saturdays in particular through November saw strong numbers.

There are a number of factors in play but in general, the betting sites reported decent figures despite the pressure on the leisure dollar. Champions Day at Flemington was reported to be a success as were the cards for the Cranbourne Cup as well as a couple of the big days at Caulfield which saw good money being placed.

Strong viewing figures for Flemington’s major contest

The figures show that more than 2.5 million tuned in to watch the Melbourne Cup. At a time when the pressure is on the sport from a number of angles, it is great to see that the number one race in the nation is still so popular.

It was also impressive that both the Cox Plate and the Caulfield Cup cards attracted viewers north of seven figures as well. The demand for quality horse racing action is very much still there.

Given that the attendance at the tracks was up across Victoria during the spring carnival, it is almost a surprise to see the audience at home was still strong. However, a lot of racing is consumed in different ways, with digital now one of the most popular. Having these options open to all of the fans of the sport is clearly an important step in maintaining the current audience that horse racing has.

The loss of betting turnover compared to past years is a bit of a concern but the figures for Saturdays post the Melbourne Cup read well. Added people on track is never a bad thing with the atmosphere for the big days amongst the best seen anywhere in the world.