Well done is better than well said. Or in other words, actions speak louder than words. Benjamin Franklin’s words held true over two hundred years ago but none more so, than today. And when the tote’s betmark cards don’t fit into the very machines which are designed to read them, then maybe it is time for a palace revolt. Julius Malema may well be our man.
Just too much talk, too few women and a helluva lot of white guys hanging on grimly to their big wooden desks and fancy offices. In my personal opinion this goes to the very heart of horseracing’s ills. Summarised, it boils down to complacency, a lack of motivation and waffle. There is just too little being done, there are too many dinosaurs and there is no connection whatsoever with the existing or prospective customer base or the buy-in of the very people who can and may want to make it work. And if you reckon that I may just be smoking my socks, think about it. We have heard the words, the promises, the semantics and the grandiose plans all before. And every single position of influence and power in horseracing in this country is held by a pale male. Window-dressing and the odd politically correct event here or there just doesn’t blow anybody’s hair back anymore and no wonder the game has drifted off the boards and is right out of fashion in a society very different to what we knew twenty years ago.
My eloquent colleague Robyn Louw commendably came out with all guns blazing in last week’s Sporting Post (1659) as she posed some interesting angles in questioning some of the irritatingly frivolous and wishy-washy rescue options proposed by the operators in their bid to breathe some life into horseracing. I hope that somebody in authority has read the ‘Louw Flier’s’ Pavlovian Response a few times and digested what the writer is saying – rather than their usual route of badmouthing or attempting to discredit, hopefully they take heed of an equine intellectual who hails from a longstanding racing family and loves her horses and the game. Her motives are passion and frustration – not agendas, nasty tricks, character assasination and sour-grapes. Believe it or not, gentlemen.
I fully agree with the Louw Flier contention that even the thought of the creation of ‘centres of excellence’ is a ludicrous one, when the existing facilities are ‘shocking.’ I have said it before and I will ask it again – when has anybody of authority or power been into a totalisator outlet in the past six months or should I say years? Not that it is their job, but we are in a state of emergency, and should the Directors not be drinking and interacting with the punters on a Saturday afternoon at Café De Ville or Guzzlers rather than being safely ensconced in the private suite with their private tote teller and state of the art tote machine? Do the Managers visit outlets and talk to customers? No, not in a million years previously – and certainly not in the next million years, either. Why, after all , should they? Theirs is not a performance based environment, after all.
Which reminds me of my interview with Western Cape Bookmakers Association Chairman Dean Finder last week. This very knowledgeable man touched on the aspect of the manner that sponsors are handled locally. I didn’t include it in my piece as it was irrelevant to the crux of that article . But Dean Finder explained how the Bookmakers Association had bent over backwards in years gone by to make their sponsorship of the Cape Stayers Series work for both sides. Dean said that the Bookmakers had originally decided to utilize the sponsorship to show punters and the industry that they were putting something back into the game. They dished out betting vouchers and handed the winning jockeys special whips. But as Finder says, all they got offered was a table for ten people for lunch in the Somerset Room. There was zero energy, enthusiasm or willingness to work together and to optimize and grow the occasion. And so this year, their budget, which racing so desperately needs will go to a more social and infinitely more deserving community cause – which might not be a bad ending, after all. Mr Finder will verify the accuracy of this little tale of marketing woe and haplessness.
But back to those ‘centres of excellence..’ I could not believe my ears and eyes when walking into a local tote outlet on Monday to drop in my Arlington Place Accumulator. Besides the fact that I felt a touch emotional – after all, Arlington has been there since I uttered my first words and soon it will be nothing more than a faded and distant memory – I just wanted to walk in and out. But the queue was about eight deep in front of the sole teller – who I have known for some years and who happens to be an individual who always smiles and is thoroughly helpful and accommodating. The delay, with three minutes to load was caused by punters having to read out their selections as the betmark cards were the ‘wrong size’ for the card reader. Seriously. When I got to the front – thank heavens for the inevitable bolt and delay at the PE start – I asked the teller why the betmark cards were still on display and available if they didn’t fit. The answer? “ This is the new batch they sent – they don’t work either….!” Not a notice of apology, not a solution in sight. And I know what Gold Circle spend on betmark cards annually. Does anybody care? I doubt that they are even aware of it.
But why whine week in and week out, when nobody listens? Maybe, just maybe, we can make a small difference somewhere and I have made references in the recent past to that excellent little book ‘The Racing Tribe’ by anthropologist Kate Fox and thoroughly enjoy paging through it from time to time as, while based on findings and research in the United Kingdom, many of the familiar scenarios and oddities are very recognizable in our own situation. Ms Fox also has racing folk summed up neatly as she observed in her racecourse visits, with their curious behaviour patterns. She refers to one of the standard exchanges between racing enthusiasts as ‘Whining Rituals’ – complaints and laments about the evils affecting different aspects of horseracing. The author humorously explains how she got caught up in one such ‘whine’ about the English Derby having ‘lost its atmosphere’. Bored as sin, she decided, as an outsider to the conversation group of regular racing enthusiasts , to toss a curved ball in and posed the obvious question : “ Which meeting then still had the atmosphere that the Derby had lost?” After a momentary pause, the group answer was unanimous – “Cheltenham”, they shouted in unison. So Ms Cox went on to pose the obvious – “ But why did Cheltenham have this great atmosphere?” The group answer was again unambiguous and clear – “The Irish” , they said. So the author, with rational mind, proceeded to suggest then that the obvious solution would surely be to attract lots of Irish trainers and spectators to the Derby by offering them discounts, incentives and special travel packages. Her suggested solution was dismissed as a joke as the conversation turned to another whine.
Could this little anecdote illustrate that we gain more enjoyment out of complaining about things than coming up with real solutions? Maybe being negative and critical really is a ‘racing thing’? Or is that the easy way out? Call people negative, call them critical, call them what you choose. But the only way we can bring about change is to have a say and voice an opinion, regardless of who we may offend.
A scientist, writer and politician, Benjamin Franklin was nobody’s fool. He died in 1790 at the age of 84 and was years ahead of his time. He also suggested that ‘a life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things. There will be sleeping enough in the grave…..’
