THE SUNSHINE COAST NEWSPAPER COLUMN: IT IS TIME TO COME TOGETHER AND FACE UP TO REALITY

By Graham Potter | Saturday, April 29, 2017

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.

The national racing spotlight seldom swings Queensland’s way so, when it does, it is important that the local industry is showcased to its best advantage both in terms of its management infrastructure, its professionalism and its product.

Yet somehow, at these critical times, Queensland racing often seems hell bent on creating and casting a shadow across the focus of those bright lights without seemingly having a full understanding of how that negativity impacts so unfavourably on the view that its audience has on its offering
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Today the bone of contention is the condition of the Eagle Farm track where arguments put forward by those who actually have first-hand experience of riding horses or sending out runners on the surface and the counter arguments of those charged with managing and preparing the track, for starters, hardly projects any sense of unity.

In fact, if you believe what has been reported, these two groups are poles apart in their assessment of the Eagle Farm track situation.

Surely if you pull in different directions something has to give ... and perhaps that mantra, in general, has played a large part in Queensland racing arriving at its current overall position in the greater industry.

Fragmentation means just that. There is no whole, no oneness of mind or goal setting and certainly no harmony.

That deficiency is there for all to see and the future therefore revolves on a delicate balance.

Racing takes place at Eagle Farm today for the first time following an extended break so we will know a lot more about the scope of the track problem, under race conditions, by the end of the day.

Maybe it won’t be as bad as anticipated. Maybe there will be a flood of late scratchings later in the card if the clods do fly in the early races.

Either way, what happens next will be the most important outcome of all.

If ever there was time for an honest, no-spin, unified assessment of the situation, now is the time.

If we get that there is hope. If not, expect more of the same.