For proof of the ability to change public opinion when it comes to sport you have to look no further than AFL. Back when the "Swans" were South Melbourne apparantly nobody in Sydney had even heard of AFL (or VFL as it was then!) and you would have been lucky to attract a crowd of a few thousand people to a match (and all probably would have been ex-Melbourne residents). A few weeks ago there was a crowd of 80,000+ at a Swans match in Sydney - probably more than attended ALL the NRL games played in Sydney that weekend!

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"Computers can do that????" - Homer Simpson

BC, the class system amazes me - how the industry puts up with it is beyond belief.

not only do consistent classes make for fairer racing but having distinct classes allows people to develop a following for horses and understand the sport.

as for State and national championships - imagine what it would do for racing if every horse entering the one million dollar national sprint championship must first qualify through a heat at a country track.All the stars around the country would have to make the pilgrimage to small regional tracks bringing elite racing, for a day to Wagga, and Bunbury, and Mildura etc..
and then you have semi finals in the city before a State final and then a rotating national final.

if this was repeated for every major national championship, of which there could be many given the different ages, distance and sex combinations you suddenly have injected some pretty exciting racing into the calendar Australia wide.

as for interstate rivalry - South Australians love to beat Victorians at sport, any sport.
How many brain cells does an administrator need to have to recognise this and arrange for special interstate meets - you get a sponsor to put up a trophy, name it after some common and famous identity and once a year get all the Vics to come to Adelaide for a State vs State epic and then next year you return the favour in Melbourne so that you create a Bledisloe Cup like fixture with the winning State enjoying bragging rights for 12 months.
Surely thats better than having an anonymous 8 race card at Cheltenham this weekend!?!?!
You could even tie in the harness and greyhound people for a massive promotion over the weekend.

The other point to all of this is, at the moment racing makes its money from punters.
If it provided racing with more meaning for the spectator it could turn racing into a TV event and then you are talking big dollars.

not nuclear science, but beyond the reach of the air heads who run the sport.

see ya
Every Topic

it doesnt have the stigma of gambling though.

i agree that public opinion can be swayed but
can racing attract a crowd. i dont know.

Though if you look at spring carnival - over 100 000 people every day of the carnival. that's a big interest isn't it?

[ This Message was edited by: puntz on 2003-09-15 22:13 ]

as for State and national championships - imagine what it would do for racing if every horse entering the one million dollar national sprint championship must first qualify through a heat at a country track.All the stars around the country would have to make the pilgrimage to small regional tracks bringing elite racing, for a day to Wagga, and Bunbury, and Mildura etc..
and then you have semi finals in the city

....

prize money doesnt mean good horses will go.

look at the perth cup when it was a 1 million dollar racxe also the railway stakes is worth the same amount as the emirates mile and i dare say is an easier race yet attracts few if any inter state entries

umrum, allow me to explain further.

imagine we are to hold a 1 million dollar 1000m national sprint title. its an open event, the fastest horse wins.

every state gets to send two runners, expenses paid, for a field of 12 horses.

if you are in Perth and you want your horse to enter, the only way you can do so is by entering a heat in Northam or York or Bunbury etc..
from those heats the top 3 or 4 would go to semi finals in Perth followed by a final in Perth. Then the top two go off to the national final.

and, by using this method, you bring the best horses in Perth to Northam etc...
which helps attract people on those days to country racing.

of course every state would enter because you have a free ticket into the final for two horses !

the other advantage of working like this is that people in Tassie, WA ,SA etc all have an interest in the national title from an interstate rivalry point of view. you suddenly increase dramatically your potential audience, what might have been a local Sydney or Melbourne event becomes a nationwide event with the Perth media reporting X and Y's chances, the Adelaide media reporting Z and A's etc...

see ya
Every Topic

right. makes a bit more sense.

not a bad idea! would need to be marketed but could work on tv.

having said that i like having carnivals with all the best horses racing each other.
i wouldnt mind seeing triple crowns being re introduced and bonuses offered for winners.

As for making it appeal to a tv audience i have no idea. Bring back phar lap!

you ponder how to make racing more interesting to the general public i contend its near impossible no matter how inovative you might try to be you compare it to swimming as an example ok on the telly a couple of times a year the viewers know thorpe perkins and the other guns at the end of a race will be right in the finnish every time just about no exception real nail bitting stuff exciting to watch same for tennis but who wants to watch the maidens play the rest of the year? icontend nobody same thing for racing the melb cup on telly very sucsessful why? everybody in oz has a nag running for them not because racing interests them its the hype the thing you do race over no more interest till the hype next year you tell me a horse that will win or be in a photo finish race after race like thorpe to keep your interest there aint none most punters dont give a stuff about the races they treat it like lotto put their bets on then go fishing or the footy every now and then you get a nag like northerly to spark some interest but the only good it does is give the lotto players a banker for their quadies

Every Topic,

There is no way a top line horse worth a million or more dollars would step foot on a lesser track in order to qualify for a national race,the connections would not allow it.

Look at todays Murray Bridge track and the near fatal accident a patch of clover almost caused,who would risk their expensive horse on a track like that.

I like the idea of straight track indoor racing though and if you could have distance upto 1600m it might be a winner.

Well this is thought provoking ideas ET Ive had a job taking it all in, to much to digest in one go,however did you manage to type so much would have taken me days? you have certainly created a lot of responces!At the end of the day horse racing is just a group of trainers/owners who think there horse is quicker than anybody elses over a set distance,we just bet on the expected outcome??? The buzz for me in racing comes when you pick an outside horse thats wins when all these so called experts tell you it cant,present company excepted.Yes we can glamorise the sport with your ideas but the basics still remain making money for all concerned.

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