Great British Racing Launches U18s Campaign

Great British Racing has launched an under 18s campaign to encourage more families to take advantage of free entry for children and young people at racecourses across the country.

There are more than 200 racing fixtures up and down the country over the school holidays, with under 18s admitted free to the vast majority of these, when accompanied by a paying adult. Amongst these are 58 special family days with additional activities put on for families and young people including pony rides, fairground attractions, bouncy castles and face painting.

As part of the campaign, Great British Racing has teamed up with BBC Radio 2 DJ, Sara Cox, an avid racing fan who has ridden in several charity races and has had a lifelong love of horses.

Great British Racing has already created stirrupsummer.com where visitors can not only find out about their nearest race fixture and access content.

Rod Street, chief executive of Great British Racing said: “Racing is a box office hit of colour and excitement and is such a brilliant day out for all the family. With accompanied under 18s admitted for free, the summer holidays are a great time to head to your local track.

“Great Britain is home to some of the world’s finest racing and it is one of the few sports where under 18s can come for free, making it a great value family day out. As well as the amazing sporting action and the chance to see some incredible horses competing up close, many courses also provide additional family activities at no extra cost meaning that there is loads of keep everyone entertained.

“With six weeks of the summer holidays stretching out ahead of us and parents scratching their heads on how to entertain their kids, a day at the races is a brilliant option with the chance for families to spend some time together and get outdoors.

“The fact that under 18s go free to the vast majority of fixtures is something that, as a sport, we should be proud of and we are very excited to be launching our StirrUpSummer campaign to encourage more young people and their families to head to the races.”

Sara Cox said, “Racing is such a brilliant day out and that fact that under 18s go free, not just during the summer holidays but throughout the year makes it even better. There is so much do – from seeing the amazing horses in the paddock before the race, to watching them thunder past you and enjoying all the other activities around the course. If you’ve never been before then I’d definitely encourage you to give it a go this summer.”

Gregg Taylor, head of marketing said, “We wanted to create a site that was relevant to the under 18 audience that we are targeting, so much of what is on it looks at racing from their perspective and how they interact with stuff in their day-to-day lives. So there is the chance to find out what your which famous horse you would be; some of racing’s funniest names; emoji quizzes and, of course, some hilarious videos including Sara Cox electrocuting some jockeys and the stars of the sport being grilled Paxman-esque by young people themselves.

“The campaign will be supported by a digital ads campaign which proved a highly effective way of reaching our audiences when we ran a smaller-scale campaign last year and will be supported by a number of PR activations as we head into the summer holidays.”