Lack of trackside schooling
G'day Ozninja,
I think it's great that we'll all be looking at this stuff far more closely than perhaps we did previously. Not before time. I welcome it because it has long been my contention that the inception of the TAB and the advent of very widespread off track betting has produced entire generations of Punters that have effectively missed some crucial schooling.
Their understanding of racing is IMO not anywhere near what it would be had they been more widely exposed to wagering & watching races from trackside...and as a result I think the general standard of Stewarding has dropped away accordingly as they're also not being called to account by the Punters any more than the drivers who do such things are called to account by the Punters.
By that I mean these days there seems to be many thousands of Punters who couldn't read race tactics as they pertain to the individual horses involved & their respective capabilities...if their lives depended upon it.
I can very vividly recall some extremely loud and angry on-course Punter protests when certain things happened in a race that they picked up on as being not entirely on the up & up.
Those guys were seasoned race-goers, they knew exactly what they were looking at and they'd hang over the fence and absolutely give it to the driver or drivers they felt had stiffed them.
These days by comparision the Punters are a very, very mild bunch indeed. Half the time I am sure they don't even notice dodgy happenings and unfortunately in some instances so go (legitametly) some of the Stewards to boot.