I have promised to do this for a while so here goes, my thoughts on what the racing industry could do to become more attractive...

firstly, I am no expert on the horse racing, but I have been involved in many ways in quite a few sports.
Every time I turn on Sky Racing or pick up a racing newspaper the stories are about problems in the industry - I include trots and greyhounds in these general comments where applicable but am primarily focusing on thoroughbred racing.

Every day there are races, and they go unnoticed by all except a few thousand punters.
If you walked down the street and asked a cross section of our community to name a current race horse, or pacer, or g'hound you would get blank stares. Yet the same people could name a football player or swimmer.

Racing is a lot like one day cricket - there is just an endless procession of meaningless races, put together using a hopelessly inept class system.

who is the fastest race horse in Australia, who holds the 1000metre record??
who is the 1600m champion in Australia??
whats the world record for the two mile??

sport is about achievement, its about having a target that you aim at and try to achieve. we all follow football because it has an understandable structure. the same teams play each other and there is an overall winner at the end of the year.

racing doesnt do this.

we all get excited by the swimming, we sit on the edge of our seats watching "Thorpy" attack an imaginary world record line across our screens.
racing doesnt do this either.

the winner of race one at Sandown today just wins a race - they dont win points towards a premiership, they dont progess towards a semi final, they are not trying to break a record.
the race isnt part of an Australian steeplechase championship, or an interstate battle, its just a race.

and this is what racing is like week after week except for a few feature races all owned and operated by seperate entities with no consistent approach.

Most race clubs around Australia are struggling, yet in part the problem is the way they put together their race cards.

Here is a list of things I would hope the race clubs would consider in order to attract greater interest, not all of them may be viable, some might seem off the planet. But its worth a try rather than an endless procession of maiden races.

1. the class system is a shambles. Today there is a horse running its second race in a class 3 race after winning a maiden. Why on earth should that be allowed happen? The commentators mentioned another horse that had made its debut in a listed race. Every horse should have to start in a country maiden and I would suggest that the first three in any maiden automatically graduate to class 1 races ONLY and that they can only run in a class 2 race after 6 places in the lower class and then use this system to work through the grades.
You should not be able to run out of your class and if there are not enough class 1's in the area then a combined class 1/2 race could be held.
Other than this the only time the classes should be mixed are for age races but you should have to start as a maiden and work out of that grade before running age races.

2. thoroughbred racing uses weights to handicap which is a little meaningless to the public - you cant see weight. I would like to see some races run with a distance handicap.
This might mean you cant run from barriers, but I assume that once upon a time all races commenced without barriers anyhow, so its nothing new. It would be visually more exciting to see a horse have to chase the others from 100 metres behind - as it is in harness racing.

3.records
I'd like to see more emphasis on records, even have record attempts with just two or three runners. Im sure an innovative TAB could handle this with bets placed on the time rather than the winner.
there are track records, state records, national and world records - why dont our best horses try to beat these marks?
Record breaking creates excitement.

4. state and national championships -
racing does not appear to have such events.
why arent there points championships with each race counting towards an annual title?
why arent there heats for the State 1000m championship with the State winners racing for a national title.
why arent there national 3yo, 4yo etc championships with regional and state heats and semi finals etc??

5. I would also like to see the racing industry as a whole, not just some rich pr**k in Sydney or Melbourne, construct and own a national sprint raceway - a 1000 metre straight track, indoors with a non grass surface so it can be used three or four times a week, can provide the fans with comfort in all seasons, can operate day or night and provide a consistent world class, totally dry and completely flat surface for sprint racing.
Imagine the public interest if tonight a group of horses were making a run at the world record for the 1000metres and you could watch the imaginary line just ahead or behind them??

6. interstate rivalry - Australians thrive on interstate rivalry yet the racing industry generally ignores this rich hotbed of interest.Why arent there races to win a place on the State team to do battle with another State??
Why isnt there a State teams championship each year with a 10 race card, 2 competitors from each State in every race and points that go to finding a winner for the day.

7. finally, if the average country card is going to be stacked with meaningless races then I would prefer to see races that are at least fun and exciting.
Lets see some real innovation and fun at the races.
Why not get rid of the barriers sometimes and have standing starts? Why not get the jockeys to try an old fashioned "grand prix" style start where they run across the track and jump onto their mount and race off??
Why not have shorter sprints of, lets say, 500m with heats and finals on the same day??

There is plenty that the racing industry could be doing to attract the public attention, rather than just relying on a couple of big feature races once a year.

The racing industry makes its money by getting us to bet on races. I believe we would bet on more races if there was greater consistency in the classes, and more fun in the races and if more races had meaning because they were part of a bigger picture we would follow the action, the media would report it.

anyhow, just a few thoughts :smile:

see ya
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