ROB'S SHOUT - WHAT WAS THAT WORD I WAS LOOKING FOR AGAIN? OH YES ... STUPIDITY
By Robert Heathcote | Thursday, June 4, 2015
Robert Heathcote is one of the leading racehorse trainers in Brisbane. 'Rob's Shout', the personal blog of the multi-premiership and multi Group 1 winning trainer appears weekly, exclusively on HRO.
The sacking of every racing board in Queensland on Monday and the recommendations put forward by the MacSporran commission for future governance of the industry are two separate issues.
I’ve been looking for one word to describe my response to both issues ... and I think the word is STUPIDITY.
I really do!
To me it looks like a good, old, political hatchet job. It smacks of ‘across the board’ payback, without any consideration being given to the good work being done by any individual board, for example, the Thoroughbred Racing Board who were doing a good job.
I say that as a trainer, but I’m not only one of the state’s leading trainers in terms of numbers, but my wife owns a lot of racehorses ... so we are heavily invested in this industry.
We go to the sales and we buy horses. This year we’ve spent just under a $1 million buying yearlings to entice new owners into racing.
The fact that we’ve been able to do that successfully shows that this has been a good year and that there was a buoyancy in thoroughbred racing that I have not experienced for quite some time.
Prize money levels are good. The QTIS system is attractive and that certainly has made it easier for us to sell shares in the new horses in which we have invested.
And I’m talking from the coal-face here so, contrary to what a few would have you believe, I can vouch for the fact that, up until Monday, the level of confidence within the thoroughbred industry had been pretty good going forward.
Not a perfect industry by any means, but it was moving in the right direction.
That was then. Everything changed on Monday.
Nobody knows for sure what is going to happen next and that has to be huge concern to everybody involved in the thoroughbred racing industry.
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Now there is no denying that Racing Queensland dropped the ball with the greyhound live-baiting issue but I, like many, have always believed it was wrong to bring all codes together under one roof.
As my learned friend Mark Oberhart said on the radio ... and it’s a wonderful parallel ...it’s like bringing AFL, rugby union and rugby league together and saying, it’s all football ... let’s give them one administration body and let’s govern the three codes out of one building.
Never mind that there are a completely separate set of demographics involved ... not only with the individual target markets, the people that participate but also the people who support it ... the fans, in our case the punters.
I feel sorry, not only for the thoroughbred and the harness codes who had nothing to do with the greyhound scandal, but also for the many honest people associated with the greyhounds who have done the right thing, but who now find themselves involved in an industry under threat.
So, no, I can’t even get close to agreeing with the mass sacking of all racing boards when a separation of duties and responsibilities between the respective boards should clearly be acknowledged.
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With regard to the Commissioner’s recommendations ... this is what concerns me.
I find it absolutely ludicrous that it is mooted that we have four, cleanskin, independents who will supposedly have the knowledge to run racing effectively in a power arrangement that can give them, collectively, a ruling vote over thoroughbred racing.
Let me just reiterate ... and you don’t have to be Einstein to figure out the wrongful imbalance in this ... the thoroughbred code contributes over seventy-five percent of the punting revenue, the turnover, the investment in the industry and we have one lone voice in the proposed new seven member board.
I can only hope that Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and the new Minister Of Racing, Bill Byrne, can digest what has happened since they’ve come out with this announcement.
I agree with the report on the greyhound industry and its shortcomings. Yes, integrity issues must be at the forefront moving forward, as it should always have been.
Nobody disagrees with that, but the message beyond that is clear.
Don’t take the failings of the greyhound industry out on the thoroughbred industry and harness industry. Don’t punish the two codes that have been heading in a positive direction and who have done nothing to deserve such a negative outcome.
If that does happen, once again, we will see a familiar example in which politics and egos drive good people out of racing. We’ll say goodbye to them.
I’ll be polite.
The recommendations should themselves come under serious review.
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I said I can only hope the government recognises the obvious ... but do I have any confidence that they will?
Well let me put it to you this way.
The fact that this mass sacking of racing boards has happened in the week leading up to the Stradbroke indicates, to me, the total lack of respect that this present government has shown to the racing industry.
For me this a pertinent point.
In our biggest week of racing in the year, they want to drop a ‘nuclear bomb’ on Racing Queensland.
What does that say about their commitment to the well-being of the racing industry?
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When my blog doesn’t appear next week on HRO and you can’t find me, don’t be concerned.
No conspirathy theories please.
The truth of the matter is that on Monday evening I will take off on a big Airbus A380 heading for a European holiday.
As the Airbus rises in the sky I will figuratively imagine the dust-cloud from that nuclear bomb below me and I’ll wonder briefly if there is any chance of sanity returning to my industry by the time I arrive back home.
Till then,
Robert
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