Racecourses should do more to counter illegal drug use and fighting, according to on-course bookmakers who are well placed to witness bad behaviour among the crowds at British tracks. The Guardian spoke to several bookmakers this week in the aftermath of a nasty incident at Haydock last Saturday, when a mother and child found themselves surrounded by men throwing punches at each other.
“The general consensus from bookmakers is that it is a drug issue. It is not alcohol,” said Adam Swann, who, in common with most bookmakers, takes bets at several tracks. He was at Haydock on Saturday. “Remember we are dealing with these people and we can tell if someone is a bit wired or not. I found a nearly empty bag of some substance behind my joint at York. One bookmaker found a bag in front of his joint at Aintree. They are just two examples out of many.”
Another bookmaker, Andy Geraghty, said: “I have witnessed, first-hand, men snorting cocaine in front of my pitch on the racecourse. I couldn’t believe my eyes.”
A third bookmaker, James Lovell, said: “I am hugely concerned about drug use at the races but it goes hand in hand with alcohol consumption for a large part of today’s society and isn’t a problem confined to racecourses. Whether it is indirectly and unwittingly encouraged by the racecourses’ model of club DJs [to entertain after racing] as well as their desire to drive profits through alcohol consumption is another matter.”
That message was echoed by another bookmaker, based in the north, who asked to remain anonymous. He spoke of the risks that tracks run in seeking to attract “people with little interest in racing but are going to spend money on alcohol. This coupled with cocaine leads to trouble.”
The Racecourse Association acknowledges that “the presence of illegal substances is a trend which continues to rise across all major spectator events” but insisted racecourses were being robust in applying a “zero-tolerance approach”. Sniffer dogs and amnesty boxes have been regular sights at busier fixtures in the past year.
According to the bookmakers, these measures have been insufficient to keep drugs out of racecourses and more intervention is needed. That is also the feeling about racecourse security when crowd trouble surfaces, though that remains rare.
“Fighting on racecourses is nothing new,” Geraghty said. “It’s being going on for many, many years. It’s only with the advent of social media and phones with cameras that it’s brought into public knowledge.”
“We’re on our way to Southwell now,” said Paul Johnson, another bookmaker, “and I can almost guarantee you we will not see any problems at Southwell.
“The vast, vast majority of meetings, you don’t see any problems whatsoever and what worries me about it is the perception that this is a common problem that happens all the time. It really doesn’t.”
But when it does happen, Johnson feels that racecourses do not cope as well as they should. “Their security has got to get better. It’s got to be more vigilant, it’s got to be a stronger presence, with better communications so they can review it quicker, if there is a hot spot then they can get there quicker and sort it out quicker.
“I’ve seen it a few times over the years. It starts off as next to nothing and then all of a sudden it escalates into something that’s a lot worse. You need to nip it in the bud. That’s the key. Some people are flying drones now for in-running betting; maybe they could fly drones over the crowd to see if there were any hot spots.” Swann would also like to see earlier action when trouble flares up, adding his own view that the security team at Haydock could have intervened more quickly.
Johnson and Geraghty would both favour a more regular police presence at the races, though the final decision on that remains with the forces themselves.
“One policeman can do what 100 security men can do,” said Geraghty. “Punters tend to take no notice of security guards. More police with sniffer dogs is probably the only answer.”
