THE SUNSHINE COAST NEWSPAPER COLUMN: THE NEED TO PUT THE FOCUS BACK ONTO THE HORSE IN HORSE RACING

By Graham Potter | Sunday, December 13, 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.

It would be good if we were able to get the focus back on the horse in horse racing, but that simple task continues to be compounded by the severe turbulence within the industry itself.

I certainly don’t want to be writing about racing politics every week, and the conflict that it provokes, but the blanket coverage of this aspect of the game has been a necessary evil in recent times.

The release of Racing Queensland’s controversial and poorly named “Tracking to Sustainability Report’ was a major moment in Queensland’s racing history ... not because of the plan itself, but because of the previously unprecedented, united uprising it prompted from racing’s long suffering stakeholders.

This was different. This was personal and stakeholders made it clear they were no longer going accept decisions which would adversely impact on their future livelihood, such as a reduction in prize-money, lying down.

That is a continuing story.

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The jockeys went one better. They took their campaign against the forced introduction of new helmets to facebook ... and won ... as the Australian Racing Board emerged from that social media battlefield battered and bruised and promising to put the introduction of the new helmet on hold.

Before that there was the whip issue, which is always an aggravated debate.

Then last week a new Racing Minister was installed.

Another new start. No, in fact it wasn’t even going back to square one. It was worse than that.

If you add in all the minus scores racing is in negative territory where any further wrong move can have the most serious of consequences.

That is why these important matters have been so closely scrutinised at this time, sadly at the expense of the horse and the fabulous sport whose coverage should be dominated by the equine athlete and all of the men and woman who provide a positive contribution to the industry, sometimes against the odds ... most times for little reward.

There are plenty of great stories to tell when the infighting stops.

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But that might take a while.

You see the next racing bonanza we have in Queensland is the Magic Millions Carnival which also has a contentious component part.

In December 2014, it was announced that Racing Queensland, then under different management than it is today, and Magic Millions, an independent sales company, had entered into a seven year partnership.

That partnership kicks off on January 9 with the $10 million Magic Millions race-day, now the richest race-meeting in Australia.

And that contentious component part?

How much money has Racing Queensland committed to the Magic Millions partnership?

In the current ‘cut-back’ climate, this ‘unknown’ ranks as serious bone of contention.

Unfortunately neither the previous board nor the current ruling authority have seen fit to disclose any details of the deal. That is their business prerogative of course, but it flies in the face of the ‘transparancy’ that they have said they would bring to the table.

Perhaps if they looked up the actual meaning of the word and applied it in their dealings with stakeholders things would go so much better.

Then we could get back to the horse in horse racing!

Now there's a challenge for the new Racing Minister.