Free membership for racegoers and the racing-curious.

What you get

• A quarterly prize draw entry for racecourse hospitality. Vouchers are donated by partner courses each quarter. One entry per survey completed. No purchase necessary.
• A chance to become a Mystery Racegoer. Selected members receive a complimentary race-day visit in exchange for a short structured review.
• A copy of the Courseside quarterly report: three named, falsifiable findings drawn from that quarter's survey, sent to every member who completed it.
• A short monthly newsletter: one winner story, one finding, one upcoming opportunity. Under five minutes to read.

Why do we want your opinion?

Racecourses spend millions on the race-day experience every year. New hospitality buildings, revamped fixtures, ticket experiments. Most of it is designed using internal assumptions, industry instinct, and the occasional commissioned study from a consultancy that has never watched a race. The customer's voice — your voice — rarely reaches the room where the decisions are made.

Courseside exists to change that. We take the patterns from your answers — your individual responses are anonymised and aggregated, never attributed to you personally — and turn them into a published quarterly report that goes directly to racecourse operators and the racing trade press. Your opinion reaches the boardroom table. Not watered down. Not filtered through someone else's agenda.

Whether that is telling a racecourse their food offer doesn't work for families, or that first-time visitors feel lost without a guide, or that the hospitality pricing at a particular fixture is exactly right — that feedback shapes what gets built next. We are your voice in a conversation that has been happening without you for a long time.

What we ask

• One short quarterly survey. Five to eight minutes. Mostly tap. Four times a year.
• Honest answers. We publish the patterns, never your personal data.
• That you read the Privacy Policy before joining.

How it works

1. Fill in the application form below. Under two minutes. Nine fields.
2. We send a short entry survey to learn what kind of racegoer you are, or aren't yet. Every technical question has an "I don't know what this means" option.
3. Each quarter, one survey arrives. Complete it and you're in the prize draw, you receive the report, and your name goes in the member roll.

Why it works

Your answers are anonymised. Your participation is acknowledged. Racing has run customer surveys for decades. The answers went to a marketing director's desk and the loop closed there. Courseside publishes the findings back to the people who gave them — three named, falsifiable findings per quarter, with the methodology note and the sample size. Your individual answers are never attributed to you. Your name appears in the member roll at the back of each report only if you consent to it — the two are kept separate deliberately. That loop has not existed before in UK and Irish racing.

The prizes come from the courses themselves. Partner racecourses donate one hospitality voucher per quarter. No advertising. No sponsored questions. The arrangement keeps Courseside unconflicted: you get prizes, the courses get evidence, the report tells the truth either way.

You can leave anytime. One link in any email. No dark patterns. Your data deleted on request within 30 days.

Join the Collective

Opens in a new tab. Problems? Email [email protected] and we'll add you manually, same day.

Questions

Is it really free?

Yes. Courseside is funded by its paid operator work, not by members. No premium tier, no upsell, no catch.

What does "credited by first name and region" mean?

If you consent at sign-up, the member roll in each quarterly report lists you as something like James T. — Yorkshire. Your surname never appears publicly. You can withdraw consent at any time and we'll remove the credit from future reports.

Will my name appear anywhere?

Only if you want it to. Members can opt in at sign-up to be listed by first name and region in the quarterly report (e.g. James T. — Yorkshire). It is entirely optional and you can change your mind at any time.

What do you do with my data?

Run the prize draws and publish anonymous quarterly findings. Nothing else. We never sell it, share it, or use it for advertising. Full detail at /privacy.

Is this gambling?

No. It is a free prize draw under UK Gambling Commission free-draw rules. No purchase is necessary to enter or to win.

Do I have to know about racing?

No. The Collective is built across five literacy tiers from "never been" to "industry-fluent." Every technical question has an opt-out option.

How are winners chosen?

Randomly, from every valid survey entry received before the closing date, recorded with an auditable random seed.

Can I leave?

Anytime. One unsubscribe link in any email removes you from the survey list. Email us to request full data deletion; we complete it within 30 days under UK GDPR.