How do we make Harness Racing strong via today's sports betting market

The last couple of posts in the sprint lane thread have scared me. Some weeks back I posted that a well known gallops personality teased me that Harness would be irrelevant in a few years.

With all forms of racing being dependent on their share of the gambling pie what can we do to stay viable

Suggestions pop up from time to time on various threads. Harness bodies conduct surveys and I imagine would be interested in what you people have to say so let's do our bit right here and start a list.

Eg.

Recently I remember someone suggesting that it cannot be that hard to make all runners as easily identifiable as the Doggies do

In the Sprint lane thread I was swayed that in this day and age every horse has to have an opportunity in the straight and that this should be uniform for all tracks

If you want to expand the title a little go ahead. The punting dollar is no doubt our lifeblood but we have to have horses and owners putting on the show

Over to you .......

The game needs more exposure to the wider public, in recent years we have been marketing the game to it's brethren.

How you do this is the tricky bit, we get next to no coverage ( unless it's bad) on Radio, TV and the papers, how can we change that?
Does harness racing need a team of highly professional, "runs on the board" publicists? If so what shape does that take and how does it get paid for?

The gallops are facing a similar problem to us but from a completely different standing, look at the papers, they are getting a pretty fair run there.

There can be no doubt the amount of dollars spent by the gallops in newspapers keeps it and creates interest. Over the last 10 to 20 years harness racing has lost its valuable scribes eg Bill Ellis (retired), Adam Hamilton (to TAB) plus others. I remember talking talking to Bill Ellis some years ago about his column getting smaller all the time and the answer was $$$$$$$, the gallops paid for the space he had and his space was reduced.

The other area where this paid for space has a great impact is that it allows the gallops to create personalities such as trainers " Waterhouse, Moodie, Cummings" etc plus jockeys stories on their life and hardships or just feel good stories. Harness racing does not have the space to develop a following of any participant, unless its bad.

Who are the good looking, talented young drivers to promote a Groupie following in harness racing......we must appeal to the young generation with new technologies

I presume none of you answered the recent questionaire online?

A good start to increase the sport of harness racing to appeal to punters would be to limit who can drive at a metro track.
Some of the drives recently leave a lot to be desired and surely now its time to make a rule that only compnent drivers can drive in town.I wont name names but there was a shocker yesterday at Melton driver seemed either in compnet or disinterested or both.The horse was long odds but had trialed well.

A very good question Leigh, I completed the survey and encouraged others to do the same.

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Originally Posted by Lucky Camilla"s Lovechild

I presume none of you answered the recent questionaire online?

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Did you mean to say "I presume all of you" but Guilty there Leigh. You know how it is - when it the survey lobs depends on its chances, I would receive around 20 surveys a year and probably complete half of them.

What were the highlights of the survey Leigh ie its strengths/areas it focused on?

Unfortunately the survey which was released in mid March is now closed. I noticed that Ray (the only posting reply) mentioned it had a strong focus on integrity

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Originally Posted by Danno

The game needs more exposure to the wider public, in recent years we have been marketing the game to it's brethren.

How you do this is the tricky bit, we get next to no coverage ( unless it's bad) on Radio, TV and the papers, how can we change that?
Does harness racing need a team of highly professional, "runs on the board" publicists? If so what shape does that take and how does it get paid for?

The gallops are facing a similar problem to us but from a completely different standing, look at the papers, they are getting a pretty fair run there.

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Danno, I completely agree with you and Bailey. I think TV advertising pushing free admittance should be a major part. Let people know that there is a free show on - and make it a show.

Recently our little zoo in the Grampians decided to have a gold coin donation Sunday to say thank you to the Fireys . They ran a few ads for it on local Win TV. People came from 100's of Kms away in there thousands. We are a small tourist town that attracts big numbers especially on long weekends and school holidays and especially Easter for the athletics Gift in neighbouring Stawell. The zoo is a few km out of town but I have never seen the town so full eg I went down the Main St a few times and there were always queues coming out the doors of the food stores. I have never seen anything like it. The pub a couple of km away that normally does 50 meals on such a Sunday did about 500 until they ran out of food.

Probably a bit too much detail there but I wanted to illustrate how keen people can get when they sense value for money. You might think that the appeal was raising money for charity but I know otherwise. You would also gather that although the attraction might be value for money - the people still spent money.

Getting some TV race coverage, might help. You would think it would certainly help but you have to make the general public aware of it and build an audience. I think one off's like the ch9 Inter coverage fall down for the reason that it takes weeks to build an audience other than current devotees. I think the gallops initiative of showing Saturday racing on 7TWO (about 30? - every major Sydney or Melb meet) is an interesting one but I do not know what their audience figures are. I do know that it is not publicized well enough and that there are still punters that do not know that it is on

Someone once posted to me that Menangle has better prize-money that Melton thanks to the Harold Park sale. If this is true then use that premium to promote the game in the media instead as a few years of improved prize-money means nothing if the sport starts to falter in a few years

Tragically, I fear that we may have gone too far down the track ever come back. Some of the initiatives implemented by our controlling bodies in the past have done nothing but drive our industry down into despair. So whatever is done from now on needs to focus on what it is that makes our industry what it is.

For one, we are not thoroughbred racing, never were and never will be, we were the best alternative to the sport of kings and we should focus on being just that.

Austrotforum had an interesting piece on 3/5/14, http://www.austrotforum.com/weblog/ worth a read I think. The author states that in previous times a strong healthy base of 'hobby' owner/trainer/drivers negated the need for the larger stables to have 3-4 runners in a race and the obvious negative reaction when one of their longer priced runners gets home over the much more fancied stablemate.

Another kneejerk reaction to keeping fields full is the dropback clause. It now means that many horses that were once capable of winning 3-4 races are now limited to 1 or 2 wins if they manage them in order (R0 then C0) and are no longer competitive. The faster they bring in conditioned racing and do away with this ridiculous situation of winning a maiden and then lining up against horses that may have won in excess of a dozen races, the better.

Decreasing the number of meetings at the smaller bush tracks has also resulted in a decline in the number of participants and consequently the number of horses available to make up fields. In the 80's I remember being at Bathurst Showgrounds in the rented stables when there were over a twenty trainers amongst the tenants, some of them even getting up to 20 or more horses, as of yesterday, there are 2 trainers on the showground and they would be lucky to have a ten horses betweem them. Granted some of moved out to their own establishments, but the alarming fact is that over a dozen hobby owner/trainer/driver types have disappeared from the industry.

Harness racing evolved from farmers, tradesman and the like having nice cart horse that showed a bit of toe on the way to town. We need to get back to showing people how versatile this breed is, promote the fact that people can own a horse that they may race, have as a showjumper for the kids, and then still be quiet enough for the youngest to take to pony club. How many of us have had the pleasure of seeing one of our kids take out one of our race horses into the show arena in the ridden events and then raced later in the day in a show trot. Talk to some of the people that have brought back the trots to the local shows, they love having them there for the simple reason they excite the people.

Educate the general population that harness racing isn't easy, we can't just take a horse out of a paddock, throw it into a barrier and hope the jockey can hang on for 800 metres to win a race. Standardbreds have to trained to be drivable, score up behind a moving car or be able to pace away from a standing start, not overrace no matter where it is in a field of 10 horses, over distances up to two miles. Tell them that owners and drivers accept that they sometimes have to go 3 back on the fence with a horse that isn't overly tough and drive them for luck. That it takes a pretty good horse to sit in the chair, hell, we all grew up calling it the death seat for obvious reasons. We are limited in what we can do with most horses, that we can't just whizz around the field and tough it outside the leader for five furlongs and still be competitive. That we are racing animals that are flesh and blood, not machines. To come along and enjoy all the intricacies and a good time with less focus on making money from the punt.

I think it is paramount that all racing clubs take up the challenge of providing a good restaurant area with good viewing of the racing so that our sport is more of an entertainment less business like. Maybe even a few dual seat carts whereby we can take patrons out between races for a feel of what it is like to be out there on the track. Even ask a few trainers to have race night assistants so that people can experience what goes on into putting the horses out there to race. I am yet to meet someone who has sat beside me on a horse jogging and not been enthralled with the idea of driving one. I know the head office will be having kittens at this thought, but most trainers aren't stupid, they know their horses and which ones they can do this stuff with.

Lets return to the basics, bring back the differences, right handed racing, standing starts, grass tracks, highlight the versatility of the breed, the enjoyment of going to the trots with your horse.

I love the idea of the double cart rides between races Phil (or entertainment of some sort on the track between races)
The good restaurant/food suggestion would seem a no brainer - let's make it happen

How do you capture the general public to educate them about the breed is probably the question and we would have to see if today's younger folk even care

I wonder about handicap stand races, history books seem to suggest the public was captivated by champions making up huge starts. I wonder however if owners are likely to be interested

How important do you think it is for us to capture our share of the punting dollar?

ps Wanting to highlight the enjoyment of going to the trots with your horse you might want to change your signature ;)