It’s a business and not exactly where one giveth and the other taketh away though it can be. It’s also where one side can win and the other loses, and if one were to really think about it, it’s really no different to the days of Neanderthal life and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves or the days of Al Capone and the Prohibition Years.
It’s about Supply and Demand, and without unnecessarily over complicating things, which is what wagering on horse racing is all about.
Of course, the pastime has sometimes dissolved and, perhaps, evolved, and even been romanticised, but like beauty is in the eye of the beholder, those who don’t want to play are not being forced to join the Big Dance.
I have watched this game being played out in its many different ways for over forty years by those better at winning, because of better skill sets than their opponents or whatever they’re called.
Of course, the riders are part of the main act- a handful better than the others, though not all the time- and those with far more persuasive powers to attract different sides into buying what they’re selling being financially rewarded the most.
Seeing them work a room or the Members Area of a racecourse is something to behold. It’s an art. It’s a beautiful thing.
As mentioned, it’s all about supply and demand, and a business where both sides go into a partnership as adults with their eyes wide open.
It’s really no different to Oceans Eleven, perhaps Goodfellas, and maybe even the Marx Brothers.
It really depends on how one wishes to see it- and where.
Horse racing is no different, at least to me, to playing the stock market or real estate.
I enjoy having a bet on a horse, but not as much as before, because times change and new opportunities and priorities come into view.
It’s about being selective and not taking in the strays, because one is judged by the company they keep and which even applies to marriage.
There are marriages of convenience and marriages for love with no sure things.
Like life itself, it’s a crapshoot and a game of chance.
When I think of horse racing trying to attract new people to what is an old game, it often goes off the tracks when do-gooders start to clash with the product suppliers, when both parties are meant to be on the same side.
This is why, more often than not, the greatest enemy to horse racing are those actually already heavily invested in the game- the usual suspects believing their own self promotional hype.
When these people see themselves as “saviours” of the game, what usually happens is that there’s the prodding of the bear and which wakes up the sleeping giant or the bored gnat.
Suddenly, it’s those wearing the white hats versus those wearing the black hats, and everything becoming a confusing shade of grey.
It becomes an unnecessary second game within the game that brings too much attention to something riding along quite comfortably and now has to defend itself- from itself.
The strange thing is that it’s forced into this course of action because of the do-gooders who have decided to come up with things like “kicking up” for racing.
What happens next is that those who never looked at horse racing before get involved because they see an opportunity to be seen as saviours for the OTHER side.
This is when to someone like myself, everything dissipates into something not dissimilar to the Keystone Cops replete with corny pratfalls et al.
Having spent decades in the advertising and marketing and entertainment/music industries, and worked with the some in racing clubs and created the very successful Happy Wednesday brand for the HKJC, more often than not, the horse racing game attracts some pretty mediocre “talent”.
Of course, this hit or miss hiring process happens in every industry, but in advertising and the music industry, we learned from having brilliant mentors, and, if fortunate enough, we worked with those with great portfolios and a media who we didn’t need to pay or buy.
This media were fans of what we were marketing and supported our advertising campaigns and our artists- and, in turn, our artists attracted sponsors and advertisers.
It was and still is a win-win situation.
This doesn’t happen in horse racing.
Why?
Hires recommended by the often redundant Human Resources Department is one major reason, the other being weak leadership who buys into what’s being sold, and, all too often, the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.
This is until those annual pilgrimages to wherever for a Kumbaya moment where things to do with horse racing are discussed by those leading the charge- things like dress codes and everyone returns home none the wiser.
Look at the embarrassing turnover of staff at a certain racing club in Victoria, a hard rain that looks like falling in New South Wales and the lessons to be learned from the closure of horse racing in Macau and Singapore.
Knowing all about the Singapore Turf Club from the days when adman Ian Batey brought the Singapore Airlines account that he controlled into horse racing in the Lion City to being told that the end was nigh 5-6 years before it became official, the running of the horse racing business has always seemed to be slow off the blocks, especially in recent years.
Though the world has changed, and with it, consumer behaviour, this doesn’t appear to have registered with many in horse racing.
Instead, it’s the same old game of order takers playing for time, and almost scared to bring something new to the table whereas there’s the usual patting on the back for coming up with “initiatives” heard decades before.
This is when I see not very smart people in the business of horse racing, and a game in a holding pattern or in limbo.
None of anything read about horse racing and almost always on X/Twitter means anything to that mainstream audience, and does nothing to broaden the existing customer base.
It makes horse racing look withered and past its prime.
This means going around in circles and horse racing talking to itself- again- by making ARF-ing sounds and shining a bright light on gawd awful sports and racing radio stations, oddball podcasts and gimmicks and interviews with horse owners after a win who seem to believe that having a hangover is “cool”.
It’s not “cool”. It’s naive thinking and part of an old boys club that brings down the entire image of a pastime still trying to be seen as a sport.
Until horse racing starts to work with partners from different business sectors with their own marketing teams and products and brands with THEIR own teams, horse racing will remain in its own cubbyhole.
There will be no Drive To Survive nor the phenomenal attendance figures and coverage received for especially the last two absolutely riveting Test cricket matches between India and Australia.
If CRICKET can reinvent itself…
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