MY CALL: QUEENSLAND RACING IS ON AN UPWARD TRAJECTORY AND IS WELL PLACED FOR A HEALTHY 2020

By David Fowler | Tuesday, December 31, 2019

David Fowler is the principal thoroughbred caller for Radio TAB. David, who is a keen form student and punter, has enjoyed a lifetime involvement in the racing media. His personal blog, ‘My Call’, appears exclusively on HRO.

The Queensland racing industry ends 2019 in a very robust state.

State Governments and controlling bodies are easy targets to fire barbs at but the Labor State Government and Racing Queensland have consistently achieved in the past 12 months for the industry’s benefit.

There is a cynical clique who will disagree with this. They prefer the industry to be at loggerheads with the power groups for some warped reason.

Many are bitter and failures. Others can’t get their own way. Their unity ticket is a negative agenda.

But they have become largely irrelevant over the past 12 months, whistling in the breeze, to use a kinder term than the one I would like to pen.

It has been the ability of Racing Queensland to secure results and think creatively, coupled with State Government support, which has seen the industry travel on an upward trajectory.

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The Eagle Farm makeover mark two has been a success.

The failure of the first makeover robs some of the polish off this achievement but looking in the rear vision mirror serves no one well.

Eagle Farm is the state’s most powerful brand and punters have reacted enthusiastically to its return just over 12 months ago.

Participants have also embraced its long straights and sweeping turns with strong acceptances whether carnival days or bread and butter meets.

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The Brisbane Racing Club continues to blaze a trail with its on-going precinct development and will be a legacy long remembered and acknowledged in the years ahead.

The Ipswich club, so long denied justice, is currently undergoing a makeover on and off the track and their return next year will be welcomed.

The business case for lights and new training facilities at Aquis Park Gold Coast is now before government.

This complex is a sleeping giant and is ready to boom in the next decade.

Sunshine Coast continues to bat well above its weight providing a consistently good racing surface for the extraordinary amount of meetings it hosts.

And Toowoomba continues to fulfil its role in the Saturday twilight timeslot embarking on a revamped Spring Carnival in 2020.

Northern provincial TAB tracks play a key role in the overall turnover churn and their racing is visually impressive on the Sky screens.

And the state’s unique country racing model continues to be protected financially by the Government and Racing Queensland.

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Racing Queensland has observed the New South Wales-Victoria turf wars and understood it could not watch them bash each other yet still surge further ahead of this state.

New races such as The Gateway and The Wave in the summer and the Q22 next winter are clear signs of thinking outside the square and not losing ground to south of the border.

The Future Champion series, a pay-up concept for two-year-olds, is another innovation for the Winter Carnival.

The Winter Carnival will now host five $1 million plus races. Who would have thought?

For too long, Racing Queensland, a tri-code model, was accused of favouring the thoroughbred code over harness and greyhound racing and the accusation had some validity.

Yet the greyhound code now has a $40 million world class facility locked in and harness racing is now examining a short-list of alternative sites to Albion Park with a view to a similar deal being announced.

There will always be challenges and the current media rights negotiations and the on-going animal welfare concerns have high priority in the weeks and months ahead.

But it’s impossible to argue the industry has not gone ahead in the last 12 months and positioned for an even healthier 2020.

Happy New Year.

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