MOVING ALONG - WHAT IS YOUR PLEASURE, PROMOTING OR DEMEANING THE INDUSTRY?

By Graham Potter | Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Graham Potter is the managing editor and founder of horseracingonly.com.au. Calling on thirty-one years of international experience as a racing journalist and racing photographer, Graham’s personal blog, ‘Moving Along’ will appear every Wednesday on HRO.

You don’t have to look too far to find out how racing gets a bad name amongst the greater, non-racing, general public.

There has to be very few industries whose participants are happy to shoot their industry in the foot to score a point of marginal consequence in a public stouch, where putting one over another individual person or another sector of the industry is erroneously thought to be worth the wound it causes to the industry at large.

It’s not!

Any fool can see that if you shoot yourself in the foot often enough all you will become is a cripple. Given the recent history of racing in Queensland it is little wonder then that racing is now limping along.

Now let’s be clear about one thing. Racing is riddled with problems and faces serious challenges in the immediate present and future if it is to move forward with any vigour. There can be no argument there and racing stakeholders have every right to feel vulnerable about their present well-being and their capacity to survive into the future.

Now comes the ‘but’… but, things can only get worse if the level of habitual whining, that has now become second nature to many, is allowed to run rampant and continue to present itself to non-racegoers as a barometer of the racing industry.

This is not to say that everyone is not entitled to an opinion. Of course they are, but facts often tend to run a poor second in some of the commentary that is put in play. Intrigue and innuendo are used as tools to imply information, some of which, at the time, might be, at best, a half-truth.

A lot of these damaging comments are presented as second hand or third hand comments which have possible tampered with the original, either through exaggeration or omission. Some people don’t even come to the track yet proclaim themselves as experts to what happens there.

Basically, to some in racing, it’s become a sport to snipe at whoever puts their head above the embankment in the name ‘keeping the bastards honest’, an old phrase that some continue to hide behind when lobbying for their own interests while stroking their own egos.

In the era of information … with personal websites, website forums and the multitude of social media … to a large degree, good, old fashioned discipline, respect and morals have gone out of the window. More’s the pity!

Free speech is a fantastic concept and I’m all for it … but it is hardly ‘free’ is someone has to pay for it.

In racing, the industry pays big-time for those random shots that those snipers are firing.

Some apparently can’t control themselves. Some might have an axe to grind that is steeped in personal history. For the industry to return fire is exactly what these snipers want … a chance to fuel their mission and turn it into a firestrorm which will give more coverage to their activities.

But … and this really needs to be acknowledged … the over-riding point is the credibility of these snipers, as far as being racing ‘citizens’ is concerned, flounders as they arguably provide little other than dissent which only contrives to harm the image of racing, more to the outside world than to informed race-goers themselves who generally understand where the bile is coming from.

So racing suffers.

People arrogantly pushing their views onto others and then resorting to unseemly name-calling when someone dares to disagree with them. Sound familiar?

And does it not sound hypocritical given that these people are acting out the very actions of others they have criticized in the past?

Too right it does!

There is a huge difference between well-meaning constructive criticism, where opinions must be welcomed as a vital piece in solving the puzzle that racing is trying to put together, and mean-spirited, random attacks, which only serve to undermine the efforts of those trying to get racing back on track.

That is an important distinction and, while I fully understand that difference is not as clearcut as black and white, the options moving forward are quite simple.

Genuine racing enthusiasts know that the racing product has to rise to a new level of promotion if it is to survive in the battle for the gambling dollar. Promotion means putting forward positive ideas and implementing them as far as possible.

Demeaning the industry defeats that objective. That doesn’t mean that racing should hide their problems away or not address them. It just means that putting them on center-stage when it should instead be showcasing the positives of the industry to its potential new clientele is absolutely counter-productive to the cause.

No, things are certainly far from perfect and a lot of hard work has to be done. There are many genuine causes for complaint. The task for officials is enormous. Their positions are fragile and fraught with possibilities of failure even without their efforts being sabotaged at every turn by those self-appointed keepers of what they see as right and wrong.

It is always good to have a watchdog in place.

One day maybe racing will in fact get a watchdog where responsible, reasoned assertions are made and an appropriate attitude is adopted which will bring some decorum back to proceedings.

Until then it will have to put up with the imposters!

Again, more’s the pity!

I honestly believe that the importance of the next twelve months cannot be exaggerated in terms of its impact it will have on the long term future of racing in Queensland.

I don’t care one iota about the identities of the administrators involved. Everybody in racing is in this together and the part you play can either be that of a positive force (promoting the industry) or a negative force (demeaning the industry).

So tell me, what is your pleasure?

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