Everyone likes to believe their own sport is the most important thing in the world and racing folk are frequently guilty of such self-delusion. For instance, the idea that a vast public would flock to watch the bravely rescheduled races from York, last week, was sadly misguided.

Fewer than 2,000 paying spectators attended Newmarket for a Friday card bolstered by two group ones, and Saturday's crowd was no bigger than the previous year despite the addition of the Juddmonte International. Most people only go racing if they have had the outing in the diary for months ahead, as proved by the latest statistics from the British Horseracing Authority (BHA).

A series of omnibus surveys, conducted for the BHA, show that 65 per cent of racegoers attend only once a year - a problem it has pledged to prioritise.

Far rosier figures also emerged. For instance, 7.5 per cent of the population attended racing in the past 12 months, a steep rise from the 5.2 per cent reported in 2003. The same period saw the proportion of racegoing 16 to 34-year-olds increase from 4.1 per cent to 7.5 per cent.

It will be this last set of statistics that the sport will try to impress on TV companies pondering whether, or how much, to bid for one of three terrestrial packages on the table.

September is a key month in this process and racing's case has not been helped by Channel 4's disclosure that only 500,000 viewers tuned in for the duel between Duke Of Marmalade and New Approach last Saturday.

Josh Apiafi, the industrious chief executive of the Professional Jockeys' Association, is an anxious man. One of his first successes in the post was securing a free Spanish holiday for every jockey in the country. It came courtesy of Stephen Hitchens, son of the racehorse owner Robert and operator of the Desert Springs golf resort in Almeria.

Apiafi hopes the link can be extended and the resort becomes a recuperation centre for injured riders. So why is he worried? “Eight jump jockeys, including Sam Thomas, have headed out there this week,” he said. “I'm wondering if the deal will survive their holiday.”

Newton Abbot's weighing-room will resound to tales of the trip

when the Almeria Eight return this weekend. The two-day festival meeting, with more than £125,000 prize-money, ends the track's summer season at about the time National Hunt racing used to

return from its two-month recess. It also heralds a fallow spell for the code, with only seven days of jumps action in the first three weeks of September.

Pat Masterson, managing director at Newton Abbot, believes a rethink of summer schedules is overdue. “We went into this business to attract crowds through better weather but the climate patterns have changed,” he said. “September now generally brings very good weather and we'd love to race through that month, with fewer fixtures squashed together earlier in the summer.”

Geoff Wragg has been winding down his distinguished training career for some time now, and news of his retirement, at a venerable 78, is no surprise. It has its benefits, however, for the globetrotting South African, Mike De Kock. Having used Wragg's Newmarket yard as a staging post for his British runners, he is now expected to take it over next summer.

Diary readers were first to hear that the Women's Institute is taking responsibility for Ladies' Day during the Cheltenham Festival next March. A clue to their interest may come from the name of their national headquarters in Oxfordshire. It is called Denman House.

Great Leighs has been trying to interest neighbouring villages by naming races after them. One doubts, however, if the residents of Hatfield Peverel were impressed by the staging, last week, of the Hatfield Perveral Maiden Fillies' Stakes.