Racing targets a makeover
The Australian – Sydney,New South Wales,Australia
OPINION: Glenda Korporaal | September 26, 2009
Article from: The Australian
TOMORROW at the historic Inglis saleyards in Sydney one of the queens of Australian racing, Gai Waterhouse, and veteran radio commentator Alan Jones will launch a new book on the horse that has become a legend in Australian racing, Takeover Target.
Written by Lyndall Crisp, editor of The Deal, the monthly business magazine published by The Australian, the book Takeover Target is one of those wonderful stories about Australian racing that is the exception that proves the rule.
The story is about a Queanbeyan cabbie who was a knockabout Polish migrant. He managed to scrape together $1375 from a compo payout to buy a horse with dodgy knees that went on to become one of Australia’s biggest racing prizewinners (more than $6 million) He ended up in the royal box at Ascot chatting with the Queen. The story of owner-trainer Joe Janiak and Takeover Target has become a legend among Australian racegoers.
That Janiak, a man of a few words who spent years living in a caravan, bought his horse from a stud owned by wealthy businessman Tony Hartnell and others adds to the rags to riches story that Australians love.
Owning and training thoroughbred horses is an expensive business that can cost millions of dollars with little financial return. Turning up at the racetrack is no longer the integral part of Australian lifethat it once was.
Takeover Target will see the heart-warming story reach Australians who have a cornucopia of sporting events vying for their attention. It may well reignite recent rumours about the story becoming a movie.
Racing claims to be the first official Australian sport because the first horse race was held in 1810 in Sydney’s Hyde Park. For many Australians, racing was once considered the alternative to the Saturday afternoon football match. It was not out of the question for thousands to nick out for a flutter at a midweek race day.
In the great Australian mythology, the racetrack is seen as a place where millionaires and knights of the realm mixed with ordinary punters, sharing a common love of fine horses and a bet.
Now the four football codes — Australian football, rugby league, soccer and rugby union — and cricket have become highly organised professional games with great marketing machines.
Meanwhile, the advent of totaliser agency betting about 40 years ago meant punters did not have to attend the track to bet (legally). Racing had to make the next big inevitable decision to let in live television. Sky Racing began in 1998 and the newer TVN got going in 2004.
While these decisions expanded the total racing audience and the revenue from betting (betting turnover on Australian horse racing is about $15 billion a year), the crowds at the ordinary race days and midweek races decline. The big success story of Australian race is the colour and movement surrounding the four days of the year in November leading up to the Melbourne Cup, which can attract more than 100,000 racegoers a day.
While the number of betting outlets in Australia is increasing with the advent of telephone and internet betting, thoroughbred racing knows it needs to work hard to maintain its attraction.
The racing industry likes to quote the fact the Australian Bureau of Statistics survey shows it is the second most attended sport in Australia after Australian football. The last ABS survey of sports attendance, for 2005-06, shows two million people, or 12per cent of the population over 15, attended at least one horse race during the 12-month survey period, coming in behind 2.5 million people who attended at least one Australian football game during the year (16per cent of the population over 15).
It compared with 1.5 million, or 9 per cent, who had attended a rugby league game; 682,000 who attended a rugby union game; and 560,000 who went to a soccer match during the year.
But the survey also shows that 70 per cent of those who went to the races only went once or twice during the year while more than one-third of those who attended Australian football, basketball, soccer and netball went to six or more games a year.
«When Sky Racing began there was an inevitable impact on attendances as people could watch race meetings in hotels and clubs,» says Andrew Harding, the chief executive of the Australian Racing Board. «When racing became available with a second pay television channel (TVN) there was a further decline.
«There is no denying that if you go back 20 or 30 years, a section of our fan base who may have gone to the track (to) enjoy the racing now has other options which they are taking up.»
Sydney racing is revamping its traditional autumn carnival, with Events NSW getting behind it to attract more visitors to the track. Earlier this month, Waterhouse made a bid to revive midweek attendances at Randwick with her Mad Hatter birthday celebration. It attracted a crowd of almost 2600 people, the biggest midweek race day at Randwick in more than a decade (excepting Oaks Day).
Understandably, one of the big concerns for the racing industry has been in making sure it gets a fair slice of the financial pie when it comes to internet and telephone betting and new betting exchanges such as Betfair. Racing also sees Asia as a market of the future, looking at moving some races from day to night events to attract more betting from Asia.
korporaalg@theaustralian.com.au
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