Why Visitor Experience is Horse Racing’s Biggest Opportunity

Britain’s racecourses are losing visitors before the first race – and the journey experience is the key to turning it around.

The hat is chosen. The outfit is planned. For millions of racegoers, Royal Ascot, the Cheltenham Festival, the Grand National, or a summer day at Doncaster, isn’t just a sporting event – it’s an occasion. An entire day, or even a whole weekend, built around an atmosphere that no other sport quite replicates. But, there’s an uncomfortable truth hiding behind the fascinators and the champagne: Britain’s racecourses are losing people before the first horse leaves the starting gate. And the culprit isn’t ticket prices, the fear of betting on the slowest horse, or the racing itself – it’s the journey there and back.

At ‘You. Smart. Thing.’ (YST) we believe the visitor travel experience may be horse racing’s single biggest untapped opportunity. Get it right, and you don’t just sell more tickets, you protect the economic at the heart of the equestrian community.

(Image: GETTY IMAGES, The Standard)

It’s Not Just a Race Day – It’s a Destination

Here’s what racecourse event organisers already know but perhaps underestimate: a significant proportion of their visitors don’t just come for the racing. They come and they stay. Around a third of Cheltenham festival visitors arrive at least a day before the event [5] and stay on afterwards. Attendees sleep in local accommodation, eat in local restaurants, spend money in local shops. The racecourse is the anchor, but the destination is the whole region.

This is destination tourism in live action, and it creates a powerful argument for a different kind of partnership. When a racecourse works collaboratively with local councils, transport operators, hotels, and local businesses to create a seamless, integrated visitor journey, everyone wins, more people come, more people stay, and more people come back.

The challenge (and the opportunity) is coordination. Getting all those stakeholders on the same page to better understand how visitors are travelling, where the pinch points are, and what would make the journey better. That’s exactly what the YST platform helps event organisers to do.

The London Marathon Events Parallel: What Running Figured Out

London Marathon Events, including the Brighton Marathon and Bath Half, have demonstrated how major sporting events can use travel planning and visitor experience management to enhance both the participant and spectator experience, alongside the environmental sustainability credentials of the event – a key consideration for host destination residents and councils as well as event organisers. Coordinated bespoke shuttle-bus services, pre-event travel information directly from the London Marathon Events communications team, and tailored multi-modal travel planning don’t just reduce congestion – they reduce emissions, stress, and they make a first-time visitor feel like a welcome guest.

Horse racing has an even richer engagement opportunity. The social fabric of race days, from the fashion to the tradition and shared excitement means visitors want to be part of something from the moment they consider attending, through the build-up, en route, to the journey back home and sharing their experience post-event.

(Image: London Marathon Events)

Redefining Race Day

Horse racing has no shortage of reputational challenges, often countered through state-of-the-art animal welfare standards and a regulatory framework that has helped shape responsible betting policy. An aging fanbase, however, means that the sport cannot rely on tradition alone to recruit the next generation of racegoers. Gen Z, a sustainability-aware generation that racecourses are eager to attract, is increasingly drawn to events that show clear environmental and social responsibility.

As a Gen Z myself, my first exposure to horse racing wasn’t through my lifelong passion for the sport, it was a day out with friends tied to a social occasion and live music. Concerts at the races are fantastic at drawing in younger crowds who might not otherwise attend a race meeting, combining live sport with the atmosphere of a festival. This is ‘sportainment’, and it’s quietly reshaping what race day looks and feels like.

The commercial logic makes sense: a broader, more diverse audience means more tickets sold, stronger sponsorship value, and a long-term fanbase. But along with this comes a transport dimension that is rarely discussed yet is just as important. When entertainment spans across the event day or people stay for a concert after the last race, peak travel demand is spread across a longer window. That easing of the egress spike is not just a better, smoother experience for racegoers. It also reduces pressure on roads, rail services and shuttle infrastructure, lowering the cost and complexity of transport operations for the organsier. Done well, sportainment doesn’t just sell more tickets, it addresses event egress bottlenecks, reduces peak demand and eases pressure on infrastructure.

The Racecourse Association has noted that 40% of racing fans are women, which is twice the average across other sports. Audience diversification is already happening. The opportunity to serve new audiences better, from the moment they decide to come along to the moment they get home, is what will define the future of the sport.

What Better Looks Like:

Imagine a racegoer who buys their ticket and immediately receives a personalised low-carbon travel plan from the exact location they’re coming from. They book their train and reserve their shuttle bus from the station via the officially recommended and integrated services. On the morning of the race, they receive a push notification confirming their transport is set and letting them know which gate to use for their specific ticket type. On the way home, they know exactly which gate to depart from, and the event organiser is able to look at the data, and manage a departure system that has people moving in line with their itinerary, rather than frustratedly queueing to get away.

The racegoer doesn’t just have a better day and a better mood; they tell people about it, they come back next year, and most importantly, they bring someone new.

(Image: Holiday Ireland Tours)

The Role of YST:

‘You. Smart. Thing.’ (YST) is a travel demand management platform built for exactly this kind of challenge. We work with event organisers, venues, and destinations in planning how visitors travel to and from the venue – by including bespoke transport options that aren’t shown in standard journey planners and capturing data that would otherwise be lost to third parties.

For horse racing event organisers that means:

• Pre-event travel planning tools tailored for racegoers that help visitors understand each journey option and nudge towards the lowest-carbon route
• Operational insight and demand forecasting, giving racecourses the data they need to optimise transport, crowd flow, and accessibility
• Sustainability reporting that enables racecourses to evidence progress towards environmental commitments and strengthens reputation with stakeholders
• Real time communication that keeps racegoers informed about delays, shuttle capacity, road congestion, and wayfinding to reduce stress and improve the overall visitor experience.

A new channel for sponsorship and revenue – racecourses can promote hospitality upgrades, transport partners, accommodation partners and more at the exact moment that racegoers are planning their journey

(YST Travel Assistant showing personalised journey planning, sustainable options, enhanced 3D maps, parking areas, and gate-specific wayfinding)