THE SUNSHINE COAST NEWSPAPER COLUMN - THOSE SUPER SALESMAN AND THEIR MAGIC MILLIONS BRAND

By Graham Potter | Sunday, January 11, 2015

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.

I’m all for the promotion of horse-racing and when any particular racing event becomes big enough to provide a significant boost to the local economy, well ... so much the better.

So Magic Millions can take a bow in that respect.

But after the final curtain call on the sales and race-day, when the MM executives disappear back-stage, they must have a little bit of a giggle to themselves at just what they have been able to sell and how they have made their product so successful.

Make no mistake about it. Gerry Harvey and his team are super-salesman ... and good luck to them.

A race-day which is only open to graduates of the MM sales ring, ie for those owners who had pockets deep enough to meet MM sale purchase prices, will never meet with universal approval as its final exclusion rate is far greater than those who can participate.

A similar restriction would arguably be a road-block in other forms of business but, over the years, MM has sought and gained the rubber-stamp of approval from the best stud farms and the most high profile of buyers, owners and trainers in the country, not to mention a host of international racing identities, who come to dabble in bloodstock business and play in the week-long party in paradise.

And with the growing celebrity profile comes increased hype. Not quite brain-washing, but certainly a flood of overwhelmingly positive exposure which almost has most people believing the week is all things to all people.

Amazingly, MM have even managed to bring in a second restricted ‘race within a race’ concept.

That is the ‘Racing Woman’s Bonus where $500 000 is paid out (on top of the normal prize-money) for the first four all-female owned horses to finish in the MM 2yo Classic ... irrespective of where they finish.

MM trumpet the Woman’s Bonus as a success claiming it brings more woman into racing.

I’m not so sure about that.

I know in essence it is probably putting more women’s names of the ownership forms. In fact anybody who had a runner in the MM 2yo Classic yesterday who was not listed under an all-woman ownership should have a good re-think about how they play the MM’s game and try to do it as cleverly as they do ... but the point is this ‘gender based’ concept could easily have been a contentious one.

Not so! The MM Woman’s Bonus did a sales ring jig and the idea was quickly ... going, going ...SOLD!

I guess if you own a company you are entitled to make your own rules and if you have a sales-team that can deliver you can even persuade the local ruling racing authority to throw in some money and sign a seven-year-deal to help make the 2016 MM race-day the tenth biggest in the world in terms of prize-money.

But, is everything that is good for MM good for racing in the broader industry sense?

Like I said, Gerry Harvey and his team are super-salesman ... and good luck to them.

You just have to be aware of what you are buying!

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