MY CALL - NOTHING CAN REVIVE THIS AILING VICTIM
By David Fowler | Tuesday, October 2, 2012
David Fowler is the principal thoroughbred caller for Radio TAB. David, who is a keen form student and punter, has enjoyed a lifetime involvement in the racing media. His personal blog, ‘My Call’, appears exclusively on HRO.
Public holiday metropolitan racing is dead. Long may it rest in peace.
And I'm the first to put my hand up to say I vigorously defended racing in the city on public holidays.
But nothing can revive this ailing victim.
In fact Easter Monday is the only date left on the calendar that boasts all metropolitan racing and that includes the "quasi" metro meeting of Oakbank in South Australia.
The dismantling of the public holiday racing structure has happened for two primary reasons.
Clubs lose money on these days with inflated wages and, frankly, don't want to run them. Controlling bodies have obliged in recent years and delivered the meetings elsewhere.
So you have a situation where Doomben might be matched up with Cootamundra … or Flemington will race on the same day as Toowoomba.
And so many of our public holidays are not national … like the states' Labour days.
Sure, the weather was average and the class of the meeting wasn't striking, but Doomben's Monday attendance was an embarrassment.
Administrators must look to maximise these public holidays in other ways.
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I'm sure many racegoers headed to Kilcoy instead of Doomben on Monday.
Racing Queensland and the Kilcoy club put plenty of effort into promoting the one-off TAB meeting and by all reports the crowd was healthy.
Did we need to have the two meetings? Could this instead be Kilcoy's 15 minutes of fame each year?
We need to think outside the square and how to maximise attendances and turnover on these public holidays.
And let's not be too negative. Ipswich on Labour Day, Eagle Farm on Exhibition Wednesday and Gold Coast on New Year's Day are winners.
But BRC racing on some of the others should be a thing of the past.
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We live in unusual circumstances in Queensland when it comes to race dates.
We EXPECT Gold Coast to race every Saturday. We EXPECT Toowoomba to race every Saturday night and we EXPECT Sunshine Coast to race every Sunday.
Why should we expect this?
Again some outside the square thinking needs to come into play rather than rubber stamping race dates.
Why couldn't Doomben have raced on Sunday in association with the Caulfield meeting and, as such, given Kilcoy a one-out go on Monday?
Further, why do these clubs have to race around 52 times a year? Throw in Ipswich to what I mentioned above.
I understand there is a turnover contract to be honored but rigidly sticking to the same timetable week in and week out doesn't make total sense to me.
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As a committeeman of the Albion Park Harness Racing Club for the last decade, I am often amazed that the understanding of the racing product is sometimes not a high priority.
In fact I have often threatened to give some of them an exam paper on racing and shudder to think what mark out of 10 they would get.
But my mate David Dawson, a BRC director, is a shining exception to this general rule.
An enthusiastic form analyst and a keen punter, David has his finger on the racing pulse every Wednesday and Saturday. And most other days for that matter!
And he is the most regular face at both Saturday and midweek meetings looking after winning owners.
But David's excitement about the BRC's Master Plan might even rival his enthusiastic daily form study.
"It's been a long road but we are hopeful of Brisbane City Council approval in the short term. This is the greatest opportunity metropolitan racing in Brisbane has had in my time," he said.
"Double Dee" won't be backing a loser here.
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