THE SUNSHINE COAST NEWSPAPER COLUMN: THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GOOD TIMING AND BAD TIMING

By Graham Potter | Sunday, October 16, 2016

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.

NB The column has moved from its previous Sunday position to the Saturday newspaper and therefore will also now be published earlier on HRO.

More often than not the success of a new venture or a new idea comes down to timing.

Admittedly there has to be some leap of faith but that generally comes after time and trouble has been taken to carefully risk manage the project all the way to the starting line.

Which is why it is surprising that Racing Queensland has opted to kick off their trial twelve race meeting schedule when they have ... on October 28 at the Sunshine Coast with a meeting that will run from 2pm to 9pm.

To their credit they are trying something new but there is one not-so-small point they seem to have missed.

This relates to an unusual rush of fixtures ... fixture congestion if you like ... that takes place in the five days from October 28 until Melbourne Cup day on November 1.

During that period South East Queensland will host no less than eleven race meetings. This means the horse pool will be stretched to accommodate the fixtures and rider availability will similarly come under some pressure.

With this twelve race meeting ‘experiment’ being thrown into the deep end it could have to deal with some negative fallout which might not have been the case had the meeting been positioned differently.

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I don’t mind where they race or how many races they have but I do have a distinct view of what time they should race.

That view is based on showing respect for participants and the responsibility they have for horses in their care.

Race meetings should not be finishing as late as some of them are.

Transporting horses after the last race on a sometimes two hour plus journey home ... settling them in to their stables and then starting the day’s routine all over again at 3am in the morning just isn’t fair to those who are actually putting on the show.

To me, there is a health and safety issue in there somewhere.

But then again I wouldn’t want to disturb the good night’s sleep of the person who signed off on the current fixture list!