THE SUNSHINE COAST NEWSPAPER COLUMN - IT DOES NOT ALWAYS HAVE TO BE ABOUT MONEY

By Graham Potter | Sunday, April 27, 2014

Graham Potter writes a weekly column for the Sunshine Coast daily. Due to demand from those having trouble accessing the paper these columns are now also published on HRO courtesy of the Sunshine Coast daily

Every day of every year racing authorities worry about betting turnover … the lifeblood of racing.

From the scheduling of race meetings right down to individual race-times, decisions are made by the powers that be with only one maxim in mind. That is to maximise turnover without necessarily letting sentiment or consideration of any particular group of participants or punters needs get in the way of making a dollar.

Smaller race-clubs have all too often borne the brunt of ‘rationalisation’ (I can give you several different interpretations of the word … some choice ones from punters … not all of which are printable). Some of these clubs have lost their racing status altogether. Others have been relegated to the fourth division yet there are those who still decry the situation when those small clubs who have survived host a race-day.

Well, here’s a shock for those naysayers. Sometimes everything does not have to be about money as this week’s back to back race-meetings at Kilcoy (on Thursday) and Beaudesert (on Anzac day) so adequately displayed.

Racing at near grass roots level has its own character, forged through both good and bad times, which essentially contains a level of relaxed friendliness … a trait which has somehow evaporated from the city ‘racing business’ scene … and the action built around that friendliness has its own specific flavour.

Horses are generally not as well schooled as their city counterparts. Jockeys are not as experienced and therefore punters are not as demanding. It is a throwback, in part at least, to a time when gambling was gambling (where nobody expected to be spoon-fed winners) and to a place where trainers and jockeys learnt their trade, mostly the hard way in an environment where nobody took themselves too seriously.

So those who take a stand against this level of race-club activity can talk all they want about the financial bottom line but the value of such a nursery for developing talent, camaraderie and teaching life lessons far outweighs the financial hiccup that might occur on the relatively small number of days that these clubs, and others like them, are allocated race-days.

I’m not saying it is a perfect picture. I am saying it is one that needs to be sustained if racing is to have an adequate talent supply for the future. In fact it is an essential ingredient to any of those lucky enough to follow the road right through to racing stardom.

Ask Glen Boss, the triple Melbourne Cup winning jockey, who started out in Gympie. Ask Peter Moody.

So if the bean-counters don’t like it they can either take the day off or actually come out to such a meeting next time to see what they are complaining about.
They might find it quite educational.

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When last has a Racing Queensland CEO been a regular racegoer?

Darren Condon, who holds that position, was in attendance at both the Kilcoy and Beaudesert meetings and he is also a regular at city meetings. His accessibility at the track to anybody who wants to approach him is, quite simply, in stark contrast to that which went before.

In a world where negative comments rule, that positive change, as small a step as it might be, is worthy of acknowledgement.

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