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Let us agree to differ as I think we have fundamentally different views as to how racing should relate to the economic world, indeed we seem to have fundamentally different views on economics.
.May be so, and thank you for your gentle response!
I suppose the fundamental point at issue is not how but whether Racing should spend so much effort conforming to the highly unedifying mock-logic of this “economic world”. We have all seen what happens when any sport (name your own) sells out to business methodologies. Sooner or later, it dies. As cricket is dying. As Association Football may.
Racing is different – and luckier – in so far as it has always existed solely because the rich (who, like the poor, are always with us) enjoy the breathtaking site of their fast horses trying to get from A to B faster than the next man’s. Although the faces and names change, to a very large extent this group is by definition above economics. They will pay large amounts of money to provide pleasant venues for their passion. They will pay any amount of money to provide the horses themselves. And the “little people” (everyone else) will always be able to enjoy the spin-off work, and the fine spectacle afforded.
Subsidy, support, patronage, sponsorship … call it what we will. It has always been around for horse racing. And it always will. But “subsidy” (in the sense of public financing of the sport, directly or through gate returns) has only ever played a minor part in the matter.
Pinza
As Aragorn says I really do hope you are right as well – but being a wizened old cynic who has been round the block far too many times, I do wonder if the model you suggest would support 60 racecourses – especially when half of them are owned by the "big three".
As regards the "gentle response" thanks for that response, it’s appreciated – I learned a long time ago that aggressive responses get you nowhere and just antagonise people – although being human I do sometimes lapse
Aragon
Yes, it is quite large and, being a bungalow, more expensive to heat than a house with a similar number of rooms. I suspect British Gas have gone over the top with £139 a month, as I am currently in credit with them for £168. But with the two most expensive quarters coming up, they may be right. If I’m in significant credit come April, though, I’ll be seeking a refund and a drop in the monthly sum.
I think racing like everyone will be hit hard and jobs will be lost due to falling income and profits.
If you think ‘full blown recession, the worst of your lifetime if not of all time and lasting for longer than a year’ instead of credit crunch it becomes harder to be optimistic.
Can race courses survive with 25%+ fewer people going racing and spending on course, can trainers keep going with less money coming in from owners?
Bookies will survive as they have a guaranteed profit on turnover but like the rest of businesses tied to the racing industry will have to tighten their belts and jobs may be lost.
Over the next 2 years or so, until things bottom out and start to improve, survival will be the name of the game everywhere – not just in racing but in all businesses and in most households.
I’ll be interested to see how many people are going to this AW season’s weekday fixtures in December and January to watch a standard day’s card in the windy cold rain.
I think we are headed for a deflationary depression, not just a recession. This is as a result of the reversal of the greatest expansion of credit the world has ever seen. The unwinding of this will be savage, as the subprime mess is just the first of many disastrous leveraged black holes that will implode in the coming months and years- as we go forward you will hear more about credit card debt, other unsecured debt and the ultimate elephant in the room, the 50 trillion dollar derivatives market which must surely also collapse. Prepare yourselves for the worst economic times in a lifetime and don’t underestimate the real-world effects- they will be huge. The only saving grace is that these tend to lag the financial market effects so you still have some time to act- sell any speculative assets you have, pay down debt and cut down on discretionary spending.
If you are one of the few with cash left in a few years time you’ll be in a very good position.
From a racing perspective sponsorship, attendance and owner support will all take a huge hit. Like all organisations who act by committee racing has expanded and spent at precisely the wrong time and will have to cut and contract dramatically. The four day Festival is one classic example- watch the attendance at the Thursday fall dramatically and for the calls to go back to 3 days to gain traction. I predict a return to 3 days within 5 years. Those who have stated that syndicate ownership will cushion the blow are dreaming- ordinary people will pull out in droves once the extent of this becomes apparent and they need cash for everyday essentials more.
Pinza is right to an extent in that racing doesn’t follow the normal rules of business but it’s a luxury and will hurt badly as spare cash becomes harder to find.
On the bright side, the Sovereign Series is dead in the water!If you’re going to be a writer who wants to be read, rather than a writer who wants to write, then you have to put yourself in the position of the reader before you publish/post your material.
How is she/he going to feel? What reaction am I aiming to incite?
Some of the posts on here, however competently written, are just unreadable and will doubtless result in your reader feeling miserable about life.
Luckily, making sure a writer takes into account a reader’s reaction is what an editor is for. And an editor is the fundamental difference between free media and paid media, thank God.
Only masochists and Goths wants to feel miserable as a result of something they’ve read. Or fans of Elizabeth Wurzel. No-one wants to feel as if they could chew on the noisy end of a revolver, as I have, by reading some of the posts here, particularly yours, carvs, which is the most miserable, suicide inducing post I have read on a message board in ten years. Thanks for that.
I’m so depressed now it will be a week before I come back here and even then, I’ll tread carefully. What, with the midweek Thatcherite Nuremburg Rally we had in the Lounge, I’m surprised the lights are still on.
Even if it a writer’s intention to leave a reader feeling uncomfortable – and thus, prepared to act – you have to imbue a sense of hope, that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
For those who have read the unrelenting, hopeless misery on this thread – Pinza apart – and are now reaching for the arsenic phial, then read today’s Berts Blog. There is hope there. For us all.
Some of the posts on here, however competently written, are just unreadable and will doubtless result in your reader feeling miserable about life.
and what is wrong with that – why be deluded that everything is OK when it isn’t. If we followed your argument to its logical conclusion the BBC would not have shown Michel Burke’s film about famine in Africa. No bad news would be reported.
Luckily, making sure a writer takes into account a reader’s reaction is what an editor is for. And an editor is the fundamental difference between free media and paid media, thank God.
But is that a good thing with the "free media", as in ths forum you get both sides of the argument. When have you seen balanced argument in, say the Mail, Express, Guarniad or any of Murdoch’s papers?
No-one wants to feel as if they could chew on the noisy end of a revolver, as I have, by reading some of the posts here, particularly yours, carvs, which is the most miserable, suicide inducing post I have read on a message board in ten years. Thanks for that.
What would you rather do, walk around wearing rose coloured spectacles, bury your head in the sand or accept the realities of the world as it is going on around you? I think Carv’s post is one of the most perceptive I have seen in many a long time.
If you want a feel good read, the read The Beano or Daily Star or even a Barbra Cartland novel.
A fine post as always, Max; though I will just suggest that in arguing the case for keeping the likes of Cartmel open and for greater application of syndicated ownership, we haven’t been painting an unremittingly grey picture between us.
Paul – must be the first time I’ve seen the Beano mentioned in the same breath as the Daily Star! I seem to remember someone dreaming up a C21st Beano a year or two ago, wherein Dennis the Menace receives an ASBO; Fatty from the Bash Street Kids becomes an introverted Emo kid in the face of taunts from the other kids; and The Nibblers’ strip comes to an abrupt end after a visit from Rentokill.
gc
Number of gratuitous Cartmel references: 385
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
- Total Posts 17716
You’re not Will Self are you, carvillshill, a man whose sole purpose in life is to make everybody as sinfully miserable as he appears to be?
When bird flu reared its ugly head in China three years ago we were assured that, during the coming winter, upwards of 750,000 would die (in the UK) from the contraction of a human form of the disease. When it snows, people are immediately warned to avoid all forms of travel unless absolutely necessary, as death will be an unfortunate inevitability should they dare to venture outside. Hell, a football team need only draw two matches on the spin and the manager is instantaneously thrust into the spotlight with his job seemingly up for grabs.
Such events never come to pass of course, or are needlessly blown out of proportion – it just seems to be the ‘British way’.
The same is sadly true of the financial crisis the world currently faces, and unfounded over-exaggeration serves only to force society into a state of unequivocal panic. Don’t get me wrong, there are serious problems that need to be addressed, but businesses won’t suddenly stop trading on the back of the moronic lending policies of some US executives. The ‘real’ issues exist in banks who have loaned money to high-risk customers, international institutions who trusted these lending policies enough to maintain a financial interest in them, and traders and hedge fund managers who have finally found out that they’re not as clever as they thought they were.
Take the stock market as it exists today. Share prices have been falling rapidly due to the aforementioned panic forcing people to offload their shares at any price they can get. Supply is readily outstripping demand and, as any business student will know, prices only go one way. There will be people who lose incredible amounts of money, that’s for sure, but their irresponsible attitude (or over-inflated ego, they amount to the same thing) has ultimately cost them. They evaluated the risk, failed to spot the minefield that was sub-prime lending, and have lost. As such, stock activities aren’t necessarily an accurate indication of the problems we are facing, though the media would have us believe something very different.
Some businesses will be affected, of course they will, but those at the greatest risk rely on the ability to borrow to function (perhaps revenue is seasonal, high costs are attributable to their day-to-day running, or they operate in a particularly volatile market). Businesses with capital reserves will continue to trade perfectly well (liabilities aren’t a defining issue at the moment either, with interest rates having taken a welcome cut), assuming that their customers aren’t already in a blind panic and haven’t been locked in their houses due to an unusually early forecast of snow. Only yesterday it was reported that an engineering firm in the Midlands would be creating a plethora of new jobs, opening a second site in the area and investing approximately £10m, all in the next twelve months.
Some businesses will fail, some will get by and some will continue to prosper (if not at the levels they currently achieve), it’s simply a drastically scaled model of everyday life. We are not all destined for financial implosion, nor the fiery oblivion that has been so widely mentioned in newspapers and on television. Common sense and a little forethought will go a very long way, as of course will the vast sums of money being offered to help the banks restore their lending channels (the Bank of England could, in theory, just print stacks of cash and introduce it into circulation, but the last thing any government wants to be seen doing at the moment is reducing the value of money).
Hi, I’m Maxilon 6, Maxilon 5’s younger brother.
Some of you might have heard of me. I’m a moderator at wwwdroopysdrawers.com racing site. You’re all welcome to join, if you like the noble art of the Greyhound.
Instead of stars, we measure seniority by woofs. I’m a nine woofer and proud of it. Ten woofs is the apex of posting achievement on our site, but like searching for the end of a rainbow, it’s a mythical attainment, quixotic in it’s own fashion. No-one can ever get ten woofs.
But it doesn’t stop us trying huh, fellow boarders!
I’ve never read this board before though as horse racing is a bit slow for me. I like my races measured in spots. Is it Cheltenham yet? When does it start? I see you’ve got a thread up!
Do they still have those dirty great fences to clamber over? Or is it all sand? Is that L’escargot still running? He could well easy jump those bouncy castle fences on “It’s a Knockout”. even under Prince Edward.
And what’s this about seventeen down at Pompey last Tuesday? It was chokka Saturday night! I could scarcely get my fiver on…
Anyroad, what am I doing here you might ask. Max gave me his login details and that. I’m just writing a quick note to say that my brother is in hospital and won’t be posting for a while. A good while, as it happens. At least until he regains the use of his fingers.
I’ve just been over to see him at the Queens Medical Centre. Funnily enough, he’s in the ward two floors and four corridors away from the Royal Suite, which will please him no end. Prince Charles is a regular visitor there. For his corns, apparently. He can still speak though and has asked me to post this note for him. That’s Max, not the Prince.
It appears that, in a fit of nihilistic grief, he decided to throw himself off Trent Bridge this evening. Unfortunately, due to a stroke of typical bad luck he dropped thirty feet onto deck of one of those booze cruisers sailing up and down the Trent. It was sadly full of expat Scotsmen watching the Norway game. They weren’t best pleased at the interruption –he hit the deck just after the missed open goal – so they kicked Max’s head in.
From what I can gather (he’s speaking through a heavily wired jaw so I might have got all this a bit jumbled up), he decided to End It All because:
a) The Tories are back!
b) The world is full of pessimists!
and
c) Misery is the new black!He also went on to say that he might have to get a full time job. That really hurt, I could tell. His eyes started reverberating like a crack addicts’ and his plaster started to wobble all over.
“No more Southwell”, he kept repeating. “No more sand…”
Yet, the real clincher propelling him off the bridge was that some bloke called Richard Hills threw a feather duster instead of his whip at a bobbo he’d lumped on at Ascot called Taamer and it got done a length.
I’ve heard him tell that one before. Have you all heard of this fellow? I suppose you have, being keen horsemen.
I keep telling him dogs are the smart boys gamble but he never listens. That and derivatives.
Anyroad, he wishes everyone all the best and he’ll see you all soon when everyone is cheerful again.
Post of the year – exceptional stuff!
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
This is an interesting thread, with thoughtful contribtuions from both ends of the economic spectrum.
Economic liberals, aka Thatcherites, monetarists, Manchester liberals, and right-wing Tories, argued in the 1980’s, when the coal industry was losing money, that it would be wrong of the government to subsidise a loss-making industry, that you cannot buck the markets, and rather that moan about the loss of an occupation some families were involved with for the sixth generation, miners should get on their bikes and look for alternative employment, as Mr Tebbit’s father had done some years before.
Now the banks and their shareholders, having wallowed in obscenely crass levels of profit for many years, are bailed out by HM Government at the first sign of turbulent waters. Similarly, some years ago, after having enjoyed creaming enough premia to live luxuriously in Surrey mansions for decades, the Lloyds names were helped generously by the tax-payer when it became time for a few payouts. Living in the midst of deepest, darkest rural Herefordshire, I regularly hear the call from countrymen who wouldn’t dream of having their sensibilites affected by coming within 50 yeards of an unemployed ex-miner, cry foul at huntsmen’s livings being impinged upon by the banning of bloodsports. That just before they routinely ignore the law and carry on much as they ever did.
Is there one law for the rich and one for the poor in this country? One would be forgiven for thinking so.
There something not quite right when an NHS hospital can change a light bulb in under 15 minutes yet it takes over 8 hours to see a doctor when you require your morphine dosage increased, due to a patient’s agony. Whilst the nurses look-on, unable to help – tears running down their eyes.
Whilst HM Government bails out the banks in order to get money moving – enabling the banks to lend to house buyers and companies.
Then when the banks have a choice to lend to a young clever whiz kid,
who has ability to revolutionise the NHS process ( who has no assets ) against a middle aged twat who wants to start another web design company ( who has a house for collateral ).They choose the twat.
Backing two runners is the relentless pursuit of value. Backing each way is a shortcut to the poor house. Only 7% make a long term profit.
Racing is the sport of Kings. Kings are not bothered by recessions.The Queen has some good 2yo’s who will be racing at Ascot next year so all is well.Ascot does not want the riff raff so no problem there.Things will get back to normal in Ireland. No more public employees syndicates crowding the in field.Good national hunt horses will be cheap again and the rowdy element will stay away from the courses.In other words racing will return to its former glory and life will return to normal there after the economic bubble;and the new rich will start working for a change instead of stealing money from us all.The rest of us will watch racing on the telly and return to our sixpenny accumulators and up and down trebles on the weekend.And dream of striking it rich as we used to dream before.Wake up and smell the roses. The good old capitalist world has a way of putting us all back in our place when we get uppity.
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The real issue, quadrilla, is greed.
Financial markets are manipulated on a daily basis with the aim of maximising profits, whilst banks have been generating obscene levels of turnover for years, due in no small part to the ‘sticky fingered’ policies of their executives. Where there is a chance money can be made, someone will take it whatever the ‘cost’ may be (we need only look at some of racing’s less radiant characters to understand that).
Unfortunately, the ability to think, plan and implement is not rewarded in this country unless you already have something the bank (or other financial provider) can take away from you without a second thought. The most solid projections in history could be put forward in the hope of obtaining some sort of finance (I know, I’ve been there), but they will always be overlooked as banks prefer to make ‘easy money’. Of course, ‘money’ in this context is interchangeable with ‘property and/or assets’.
My dad, for instance, has had a credit card with HSBC for 15 years. He’s been over his limit probably half a dozen times in that period and, having recently booked a holiday to Australia and had the interest added to his balance, exceeded his credit boundary by a mere £11. HSBC were on the phone within minutes of the start of business yesterday, threatening to withdraw their card services if he did not pay immediately, having decided in the interim to charge him an extra £25 for the privilege of being spoken to like a moronic criminal by ‘Dave’ from Calcutta.
Perhaps recent events will see banks learn, but I doubt it.
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