OBE UNPLUGGED - EAGLE FARM, AN OLD GIRL DESPERATELY IN NEED OF A MAKEOVER
By Mark Oberhardt | Monday, January 7, 2013
Mark Oberhardt has been a racing and sports reporter for 40 years. He has written racing for the Courier Mail, Brisbane Telegraph, Sydney Sunday Telegraph, Sportsman, Australian Associated Press, etc. He has also written many sports columns including the Courier Mail’s The Ear. Mark has also been a regular on RadioTAB for 20 years. Mark’s personal blog, Obe Unplugged, will appear every Monday on HRO.
THE more things change the more things stay the same in racing.
I was very interested to hear the opinion of a couple of visitors to Eagle Farm last Saturday. The lads hadn't been at headquarters for about 10 years and were somewhat bemused.
While Eagle Farm now boasts an attractive mounting yard set up and new jockeys rooms there were still a few leftovers from the past.
"Eagle Farm has to be the only major racetrack in the world without an electronic infield semaphore board," one of the visitors mused. The current semaphore board at Eagle Farm is the best part of 40 years old and is probably heritage listed.
The other visitor was also taken aback to find the main public dining room was closed for the day.
The Brisbane Race Club has a multi-million dollar plan for the redevelopment of the Eagle Farm precinct. But at this stage Eagle Farm remains a tired old racetrack which is in urgent need of an injection of funds from the government.
Even the totalisator machines must be 20 years old. Then again the media spent most of the morning chasing a pack of flies out of their room.
I have spent years sticking up for Eagle Farm which was treated very poorly by previous regimes. But eventually something has to be done with the old girl.
Racing is desperate to attract new followers but it is hard when facilities are like something out of the ark.
Of course that has been the general complaint for well over 10 years and only one thing can change it - money.
But whether that money is forthcoming before 2090 is a moot point.
Governments are loath to put too much money into racing while the general economy is wobbly. But it doesn't stop them treating the sport like a cash cow.
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All of which brings me to the other big discussion point at Eagle Farm on Saturday - where will Queensland be left now the TVN deal in the south is finally okayed.
Queensland elected to go with Sky Channel instead of TVN for the next decade which I am assured was the right choice.
I found the assurance a bit hard to swallow when there were claims the TVN offer was actually $16 million higher than Sky's bid. However, like it or not that decision is in the past and we have to live with it.
Sky does do a good job on Queensland racing apart from the occasional hiccup such as only showing Toowoomba's New Year's Eve meeting on Sky 2 and not to all home viewers.
I certainly think the Sky team here does a tip top job. Allan Thomas, Larry Olsen, Bernadette Cooper and Steve Hewlett provide excellent insight into our TAB meetings.
I would love to see that Sky service combined with the TVN coverage to have a racing only channel.
The result would be a very in depth look at the three eastern state race meetings.
It has been suggested plenty of times. A channel for major racing - Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, - a channel for all racing, and a channel for dogs and harness racing.
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However, a lot now rests with what the new TVN board wants to do.
One suggestion is that TVN would only take major meetings from Brisbane and Adelaide. That would be a disaster for Queensland racing.
The good news is that John Hartigan is a strong tip to be the chairman of a new board. He is the former head of News Limited and a keen racing man.
He also has strong links to Brisbane where he was editor of the now defunct Sun newspapers back in the 1980s.
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Finally, for this week let’s keep our fingers crossed for Magic Millions day on the Gold Coast this Saturday.
Hopefully, the tote won't blow up and there will be no complaints about overcrowding.
And let’s hope the stewards report doesn't run to 20 pages.
And from a Queensland point of view let’s hope HRO co-columnist David Fowler is correct and Missy Longstocking can win the two-year-old race.
For what it is worth my tip is Assail.
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