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I couldn’t agree with Cormack more.
I would add two things, to do with horses not having a choice.. firstly, parents put their young, helpless children into cars and drive them around. They make sure they are safely belted up and taken care of and as safe as possible for the journey. However occasionally, tragically, the car might crash.
Secondly, my friends horse is an ex racer (not a very good one at that!) – he is 22 now and going strong, and he loves nothing more than to gallop and to jump. He detests being shut in a stable. Thoroughbreds are beautiful creatures bred and made to run fast, and we should love them and appreciate them and care for them as best we can, never take them forgranted. But you can’t wrap them up in cotton wool.
When I was little (I am 24 now), I used to ride at my local riding stables each Saturday (it, and most others, have shut down now because of insurance issues etc).
That got me into ponies. My parents bought me a subscription to ‘Horse and Pony’ magazine.
One day in said magazine, there was a voucher for 2 for 1 entry to the racing museum in Newmarket. I made my dad take me as it was ‘horsey.’ I took one look at all the horses on Newmarket heath that hot summer’s day (I was 12), and I was hooked.
Every birthday I made my dad take me to Newmarket – we did stable tours, stud tours, racing school, equine swimming pool – the works. I watched all the big races on tv, videoed them all, bought all the books, drew pictures of Derby winners, etc. Pretty much have not changed. Have a big framed picture of Sea the Stars on my wall. My dad now follows racing also, incidently.
I now work in Newmarket, in bloodstock/pedigrees. I don’t go racing very often unless I get a free badge – it is so expensive and I hate all the drunks who don’t give a stuff about what I believe is the most important thing – the horses.
If you want to attract young people to racing, get them hooked early. Especially all the pony mad young girls out there. I don’t think there is much point messing about with anything else (except the cost of race meetings perhaps) until you have hooked people into caring about and being interested in the horses. Someone then needs to be conveying all the things that we followers of racing love about the sport – the characters, the history, the triumph, the heartbreak, the challenge, the fact that it is for princes and paupers all wanting to see the same thing – a beautiful, historic, champion thoroughbred.
My favourite tv presenter when I was younger was always Clare Balding, because she always seemed to have the right amount of passion and knowledge combined, and often told the stories behind each horse. Sure, I found it difficult to understand some of the betting terminology, for example, but learnt it because I was interested and wanted to know more.
Obviously in an industry racing to breed, instead of breeding to race, a la flat racing, it is maybe harder to get people hooked on particular horses, but my favourite sport is the flat as I rather like the speed and the excitement of seeing a new crop come in each year. This is perhaps because I am interested in pedigrees and enjoy looking forward to the progeny of my former favourite racers (like Galileo) coming onto the track.
Getting bored of my rant now but I just wish the BHA would stop messing about with trivial things and realise they need to go back to grass roots and re-ignite some flames of passion for their sport.
Thankyou to those who have replied so far, that information on Island Sands is useful, thanks apracing.
cormack15 – the full title of it if you’re interested is ‘how relevant are the British Classics today, in terms of identifying top quality three-year-olds and their future stallion potential.’ My research has involved not only the spreadsheet mentioned but also analysing Timeform ratings, six case studies of stallions and four interviews with key people from within the industry.
Ive not got long to go now, incidently it’s due in on 2000 Guineas day. I’ve always been interested in racing but it’s the first time i’ve ever written on the subject. Whether people would agree with what i’ve written i don’t know, but i’ll see how i do marks-wise!
