- This topic has 42 replies, 19 voices, and was last updated 14 years, 9 months ago by
.
- Posts
I remember the To-Agori-Mou vs King’s Lake clashes very well. Having followed To-Agor-Mou religiously since his 2 year old days, I backed him throughout his 3 year old career also. Yes, his various head to heads with King’s Lake did capture the public’s imagination – but by and large, the racing public’s imagination ! Mainly due to the needle involved between Greville Starkey and Pat Eddery; both claiming their mount was the best miler around etc.
… but I digress
The Sussex Stakes is a big deal among racing fans, and will always be considered a main feature among the converted, but it is not – unlike The Derby, The Grand National or The Cheletenham Gold, considered a "marquee" event – and it is highly probable that no amount of slick marketing would elevate its perceived status among a wider audience.
I have found that the once a year punter or erstwhile tv viewer will only take a greater interest in racing when they have actually attended a live meeting and have savoured the atmosphere and all that the meeting entails. I have yet to meet such a person who, having done so, said that they had been bored to years. In fact, most couldn’t wait to come back again.
In short, the more non racing people we can get through the turnstiles, then more people who will take a greater interest in the sport – the big events and the smaller events.
Gambling Only Pays When You're Winning
I remember not so long ago on the eve of the Derby and National there would be a "What Will Win The Derby/National" program
Why can’t the "Morning Line" be shown the night before. Lets call it "Racing Preview" or something similar. Whereas the Morning Line would concentrate on latest news, non-runners, betting moves, going/weather reports and a look at the "off-meetings" etc. The Friday evening show, maybe a slot after C4 news, would perhaps concentrate on the feature event for the following day, interviews with jockeys/trainers. A must would be to run our feature event of the week on a Saturday.
I know a Friday evening slot would put it up against the soaps, but it may capture people who have some sort of interest in sport. It could even feature a live evening race.
I know I’m living on Fantasy Island, but who knows? Advertising counts and Hills, Ladbroke’s, Betfred, Racing Post etc. may be willing advertisers.
+1 Mesh
and the truly absurd thing about that is that horses are so photogenic. It would be almost impossible to take a picture of Frankel in full flight without it looking visually stunning and inspiring. I’d like to bet that plenty of people who saw a full size picture of Frankel on a billboard would then want to go and see him in the flesh..
Excellent post Meshaheer and spot on Tuffers
Perhaps this should become the trademark/logo/branding seen atop all Racing plc marketing and advertising bumf
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/upload/img/stubbs-whistlejacket-NG6569-fm.jpg
This is George Stubbs’ utterly beautiful, staggering and compelling painting of Whstlejacket, now part of the National Gallery’s collection. For those yet to see the 10ft x 8ft (lifesize) original, I urge you to. It is quite simply jaw-dropping, breath-taking, tear-inducing and knee-weakening. I must have spent half an hour or more just staring at it in an increasingly hypnotic state; and on eventually walking away little else in the world seemed to matter, for all-too-fleeting a time
1. That these are the two best horses in the country
I would question your premise that Frankel and Canford Cliffs are the "two best horses in the country". While CC is quite probably the best horse in the country, I fail to see how you can apply the same epithet to F. He is for one thing unexposed, and for another the subject of voluminous and continuing debate as to his ‘true’ ability and the not small matter of how he should be ridden; epitomised by the five pages of chat on the ‘Canford Cliffs against Frankel: the match of the year’ thread.
As such the forthcoming Sussex Stakes is not a ‘race of the century’ (that bold assertive cliche may better have been applied to the Queen Anne perhaps) nor a ‘public race’ that should be especially marketed, but a fascinating ‘purist’ first clashing of a proven 4yo up against an unproven 3yo: the type of race that occurs every high summer once the all-aged G1s get going.
Now, should F and CC provide us with a stirring battle of 135+ nodding heads come the winning post then subsequent ‘matches’ in say the QE2 may be worth ‘bigging up’ into a clash of the titans: miss this at your peril Joe and Jo
At present the racing fraternity don’t really know what to make of Frankel and discussions about him are littered with qualifiers such as ‘potentially’. If we don’t know, how on earth are we going to ‘market’ him to an even more uninformed public?
Regarding the marketing of racing to the disinterested public at large: A little bit of navel-gazing may provide the answer, or at least an answer, that may provide those charged with publicizing the game with something worth using
How did we as individuals get bitten by the beautiful bug?
For my part it was an on-a-whim visit to Newton Abbot meeting in 1971 (is it really 40 years, gawd
) whilst on a family holiday in Torbay. Fell for the horse and the whole raceday (racing) experience hook, line and sinker. From then on it became a slowly developing and eventually consuming passion: from watching racing on TV onto regular copies of The Sporting Life and thence to betting. Never did I have racing thrust down my throat, never was I encouraged by family, and I was something of an oddity amongst my schoolfriend peer groupSo, the case then – and I believe it still to be the case now – is that horseracing is not a sport that is easily marketed or perhaps should be marketed: a sport that once chanced upon you either fall deeply in love with or don’t like at all, with few occupying the ‘take it or leave it’ non-commital middle ground
Drone – Frankel has been rated, by minds greater than mine, not only the best horse in the country but
THE BEST HORSE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD!
Drone , what a good post , I am sure you are right , getting em to go is the task , given prohibitive fuel costs and entrance fees , that one is not easy …
as for the Mac …he is just being a stubborn Scot ,so let him carry on ……
lets say I want to go to Newbury , it is 165 miles , 3 motorways ….yikes …about 25 quid in diesel minimum , more like 28
Entrance and a card 25 quid …cup of tea and a bar of choc 5 quid
55 quid out before any bet happens …its a lot of dosh , more if I chose Members
That’s just me , if I take my other half it becomes 85 quid
This is the issue RFC have to address
Cheers
RFC are my pet hate anyway I really can’t stand them. Why are we trying to get more people into the sport anyway? Attendances are very good on the whole we do not need to attract a load of yobs. Keep racing for racing fans – what is wrong with doing that?
Just cant agree with this at all. Why is it assumed that any new race goers are automatically "yobs"?
If you kept racing "for racing fans" there wouldnt be much left to watch frankly. There arent really that many of us
Attendances are only a small part of the issue. Racing needs to claw back market share of the betting market and races like this are the way to do so
Frankel has been rated, by minds greater than mine, not only the best horse in the country but
THE BEST HORSE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD!
You do yourself an unnecessary disservice Cormack:. In racing matters there is only opinion, opinion and more opinion, and the gulf between the ‘great’ minds and the ‘weak’ is narrow: those who get it wrong least…mutter mutter…come out on top
Don’t believe what you read in the papers
If we’re to take Frankel being ‘the best horse in the world’ as gospel then it seems to me that the near-general 11/10 – more likely to lose than win – could nestle comfortably alongside your ‘race of the century’ as ‘bet of the century’. Could it not
Great race in prospect, hope they both turn up, looking forward to it. Frankel has passed his A Levels effortlessly. Hope he manages to graduate with First-Class Honours now he’s off to university
Goodwood have, at long last, supplied crowd figures which have been placed on the Levy Board website.
The oficial attendance on Wednesday for the Sussex Stakes was 19,674. That’s a couple of hundred less than turned out to watch Reel Buddy win the Sussex Stakes, according to the same source, but an increase from the last couple of years.
There were over 22,000 present on Thursday and Friday, and 23,000+ on Saturday.
Goodwood themselves showed me how highly they rated the experience of seeing the great match race. They have a new sponsored bar area at the end of the Gordon enclosure lawn, the Tanqueray Bar. The location of this is marked for the terminally blind by four eight foot high flagpoles, each displaying a three foot long Tanqueray banner, wired into position to ensure it would be visible even in a dead calm.
From my usual viewing position at the end of the Gordon stand steps, the four flags completely blocked the view of the racecourse for about 150 yards either side of the 2F pole. When I visited the racecourse office to complain, I was plainly regarded as an irritant.
They can put on Frankel v Usain Bolt next year and I won’t be going anywhere near the place!
AP
) whilst on a family holiday in Torbay. Fell for the horse and the whole raceday (racing) experience hook, line and sinker. From then on it became a slowly developing and eventually consuming passion: from watching racing on TV onto regular copies of The Sporting Life and thence to betting. Never did I have racing thrust down my throat, never was I encouraged by family, and I was something of an oddity amongst my schoolfriend peer group
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.