THE SUNSHINE COAST NEWSPAPER COLUMN - SIGNS OF PROGRESS INITIATES A MORE MEANINGFUL DEBATE

By Graham Potter | Sunday, September 7, 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

There was a time, not so long ago, where I would be approached on occasions on any given race-day by racegoers asking me what it was exactly that racing officials … particularly the hierarchy … were doing to earn their pay-cheques.

There was always a very explicit implication in that question, however it was framed, namely that those racegoers believed that racing’s administrators, in general, were either doing very little or were not doing enough … two different descriptions underlining the same perception.

Whether there was indeed a surrender to apathy in the corridors of power or whether, in fact, concerted attempts were made to move forward only for good ideas to be strangled by red tape and projects forced to be shelved because of financial constraints … who knows what happened behind closed doors at that time.

But now there has been a shift in the wind.

These days the questions posed to me are not about trying to ascertain what racing’s hierarchy are doing, but rather they are all related to debating the value of the important decisions that have now been made by that self-same hierarchy that previously were thought, by some, to be missing in action.

From the wagering product agreement successfully negotiated between Racing Queensland and the Tatts Group … to the announcement of prize money increases across the board over all three racing codes … to the securing of government funding for the Eagle Farm revamp … to the announcement of important changes to the QTIS setup … … to the new, improved payment structure for riding fees and jockey’s superannuation … clearly things are now on the move and those officials previously called to account are doing most of the heavy lifting.

But as far as being proactive is concerned, some officials will probably feel they are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

Predictably, most of the actions mentioned above have been cause for debate and rightly so. So much of it has been so long in coming that a keen check of the details is not out of place but everyone should go into that process knowing that there is no way that every detail of every deal will be to everybody’s taste.

For example, for somebody to enter into a contract for a period of thirty years (the wagering product agreement) in this swiftly changing world, to me, beggars belief. Others have taking out their calculators and extrapolated the prize-money increases to the n’th degree to show their believed deficiencies in both the allocation spread and the actual numbers quoted. Why should breeders always be looked after is the counter-QTIS argument etc etc.

Some of the more provocative issues might have to worked on and refined and we might just have to live with the lesser concerns, but the most important point is that racing in Queensland is suddenly awake and moving.

Is the compass set correctly yet? Probably not. There will be more twists and turns to negotiate.

But at least now racegoers are talking about the different decisions being taken moving forward as opposed to questioning why racing is standing still.

Some might disagree but I’m happy to call that progress.

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