David Bowie – Where Are We Now
The success of the revival is a willingness to look back without lapsing into maudlin nostalgia or a rote rehashing of past glories. A reference to the excitement and hype around the marketing genius of the release of David Bowie’s first album in ten years. Maybe there is a lesson in there somewhere for the sport of kings.
The music of the iconic genius of David Bowie was the anthem of the carefree days of the 1970’s for those of us trying to grow up and find ourselves, in a world that had not yet discovered New Wave and Punk, and where computers, ATM’s and Facebook, were unknown, and jackpot straight lines at the Big Four in Loop Street cost just ten cents.
Stanley Amos and Theo De Klerk and Dana Siegenberg and Garth Puller, along with Bowie, were our Star Men. Like them, Bowie was an innovator and a showman. His plays – or were they ploys? – on the themes of bisexuality and homosexuality, had us all bluffed, but highly entertained.
I was in my early teens, and those subjects were taboo. But while they banned Pink Floyd, and my mother threw my Frank Zappa LP’s into the bin, Bowie was inordinately decent in a twisted way.
He makes Lady Gaga look like a cheap plastic cell phone cover and, and one can only wonder and speculate as to the chances of us seeing her releasing an album forty years from now? But then, who ever thought Milnerton would ever be a half dead shopping centre and masses of townhouses?
Bowie turned 66 on 8 January when releasing the first of the tracks at midnight believe it or not, through Itunes. With no warning and without having performed or spoken in public for many years, the rocker released the song “Where Are We Now?”.
Having disappeared from the public eye around 2006 (just like racing a decade earlier?) , two years after a heart attack and amid rumours that he was terminally ill – he ends the song with a simple expression of gratitude for being alive and not being alone:
“As long as there’s me,” he sings, “as long as there’s you.” In a move labelled the marketing revival of a lifetime, the album has gone to number one on the new release list in eleven of twelve countries.
Blame
But that is quite a digression to draw a parallel with the reincarnation of a sport that pulled the crowds and had a cult following at the very time those same punters were enjoying Space Oddity and The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars.
Are our racing gods falling into the blame trap and the leaning on past glories when it comes to igniting a revival of racing? Big feature days and festivals aside, are enthusiasts just not coming racing because there is so much else to do and because we have other options of accessing the show?
Or is the on course show, just plain bloody dismal? Last week I took the trouble to contact the operator and find out details of the Bring ‘n Braai at Durbanville this past Saturday.
After the excitement and success of the Sizzling Summer Season and the Cape Prawn Festival that wound the show up on Lektron day, the ideal weather and venue should have meant that the crowds turned out in numbers.
The event was even promoted with the distribution of leaflets, but as is so often the case, it was not advertised in the press and on radio. A friend who went called it a damp squib, and cursed me for even having drawn his attention to it.
“We had to look for the braais, and landed up leaving our meat in the cooler bags and buying a toasted samie. Tell them to contact me and I will teach them about marketing and building an atmosphere. And what on earth happened to those lekker twilight meetings that they held on a late Friday afternoon?” he said. I don’t think it helped that he brassed Moika Dancer in the Pick Six!
Buying
The innovation of the announcement of well endowed stakes races and trainer incentives by Cape Thoroughbred Sales for the forthcoming Book 2 Sale is an initiative to be lauded, but like with most things in life, it comes at a cost. Whose paying?
If the ideal world model says that stakes are sourced primarily from the betting rand and secondarily from sponsors, then surely this move is a marketing middle finger at Bloodstock South Africa, rather than a tonic for racing? I’m just asking.
Methinks we are treating the symptoms rather than the cause, and surely we should be going back to basics and lighting the fires (pun pardoned) at ground level?
Keeping the punter happy and growing the revenue base, improves the lot of owners and trainers and surely ultimately the image of the sport. Throw in the sponsors, who should be queing up, and hey presto! I can just imagine the names Clyde Basel is calling me. But I am like an opinion. Everyone has one.
Getting the structures right sure beats writing out a cheque, and one can only ask whether the breeders or the buyers will be paying a premium for the benefit of qualifying for these races? On a straight line I have roughly calculated that almost R9 million has to be pulled from somewhere to pay for the show.
And I am not saying it is a bad thing at all, but with the smaller breeder already under fire to survive another twelve months, one shudders to think that it will be impacting on his nett cheque. The trainer incentive of R1 million is also an interesting angle.
We have seen huge imbalances in power and badly spirited, albeit legal, manipulations of the Ready To Run concept in recent times by those who can afford it. Is it possible that the same will be experienced here?
One imagines a gun to the head a month before the end of the season, and an owner threatening to move a horse, or else. Hey, worse things have happened. I’m hypothesising , but we abhor talking about realities in racing, don’t we? I will study the fine print before jumping to conclusions.
Just like there are many of us of a particular generation who will be rushing out to buy Bowie’s latest release, there have got to be crowds just waiting to come back and buy horses and go racing and enjoy what used to be. As long as there’s me and there’s you, I suppose.
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Ups & Downs
Zimbabwean trainer Seb D’Aquino experienced the highs and lows of life and racing this past week. Things got off to a bad start when he was kicked in the face by one of his charges during starting stalls training.
He was rushed to hospital and underwent several hours of surgery, which his doctors described as a great success, and a story of a medical miracle that they would tell for the rest of their lives. With ten runners on a competitive card on Sunday, the D’ Aquino yard were hoping for the best and got off to a great start with a 2nd and 3rd in the second race. The performances of their runners once again outlining the fact that horses that may be in their place in stronger centres, really do flourish at Borrowdale and can be competitive again.
D’ Aquino won the TBA Silver Slipper, with the fast improving and diminutive 3yo filly Queen Katya, who overcame her stamina doubts, and started favourite to win well.The race review can be read here.
Seb said that he had been blessed by a great deal of support from the racing fraternity, and asked that we extend his deepest thanks for the interest from so many quarters. His good friend Gareth Pepper flew up to Harare on Thursday to assist him and to enjoy the racing on Sunday. Recovering at home with the support of his fiance Vanessa and their two children Taylor and Georgia, Seb said that he could not wait to get back to work.
