It seems the colored cloths idea is getting some merit any views on the matching helmets leaving the owners colors as still there.
I reckon could live with that VOR...the only technical issue at hand being the vastly different array of helmets worn, both old and new, and how in the Hell would you put one on/make it stay there? The Coloured cloths would have to have BIG/CLEARLY VISIBLE NUMBERS on them. That has a fair bit of merit.
From a technical aspect not a drama there are many different sizes of Jockey helmet across the would the best and I am told tried system is lycra covers they stretch well and with a good elastic band you will find they fit most helmet variations, needs to be bigger than Jockeys but I have no doubt it can workOriginally Posted by Triple V
Last edited by Thevoiceofreason; 05-09-2012 at 10:59 PM.
[VVV] Nice one. Good old Lycra.
We suffered its many and varied visual obscenities all throughout the 80's (those lycra pants that were everywhere and more often than not seen to be cladding less than built for lycra style bodies) only close on 30 years later to have it come to our aid. That sounds like a plan.
On the score of Lycra...here's a fair old slice of it. Just don't click on this unless your pace maker is in good order. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_fCqg92qks&ob=av2e
Now THAT'S Entertainment.The bloke in the black shorts...he looks a lot like you VOR.
I know my eyesight is not great but there is no chance of me being able to identify runners by the different coloured caps that drivers might be wearing, or by the colour of the saddlecloth. By the way, Harold Park used to have a different coloured saddlecloth for each number.
Currently when I watch a race I distinguish horses because I generally know who the trainer is and therefore what colours it races in. It is very easy to see that the Robinson trained horse is leading from the Fitzpatrick trained horse, the Day trained horse is behind the leader and the Turnbull horse has galloped and is last, etc.
Under the proposal, after initially learning which colour corresponds to which number, (and assuming that my eyesight was good enough to identify the colours), I would be able to see that the pink (No 1) is leading from the green (No. 5), the black (No 3) is behind the leader and the blue (No. 8) has galloped and is last. Providing I have memorized the field and their barrier positions before each race there won't be a problem. I will easily be able to watch a race converting as I look at each runner the saddlecloth / cap colour to a barrier number to the perfectly memorised name of the horse that was drawn in that barrier.
I think I will stay in the restaurant and listen to Fred.
There is no doubt what you say is right to some degree, but the dogs have proved it works, punters do not have to think one is always the red ect .. for those that know the Trainers colors it is of zero assistance I agree but the truth is most punters do not know them, the HP numbers were not big enough to distinguish they need to be bigger if you are going to try it,
Many of our better punters will tell you they already use the driver helmets to follow a runner rather than the colors so it must work, I know in the Junior Drivers races where the leader in the pointscore always wore a yellow helmet cover it stuck out like dogs you know what.
Most Punters watch only one or two in a race the one they backed and the danger.
I just think it is better than taking away from the owners and trainers colors.
Bill,
I agree that it is better option than taking away the owners / trainers colours.
Most punters may only watch one or two runners and the proposed system would work well for those people. They would just need to watch the red and the green and ignore everything else (probably very much the case with greyhound punters with the race over so quickly) Incidentally, the greyhounds don't really have any option of identifying runners other than a box number related colour.
In your junior drivers example it would be quite simple to identify before a race that one standout helmet (yellow) is being worn by Radish. Impossible, IMO, to memorize 10 horses each race by virtue of their cap colour, unless your first name is Fred and your surname rhymes with pastings.
From a logistical perspective, should it be adopted that drivers race in colours that correspond to the barrier number, each club would need at least 24 and possibly more sets of dry colours and the same again in wet weather colours to buy and have laundered after each meeting.
Been a way for a few days in the bush with my bloody bill paying time consumer (job).
read most of the posts briefly on this thread, my personal opinion, for what it's worth, is that the whole concept is nothing new at all, it's just a collage' of copies!!
If thats the best our marketing people can come up with we are in bigger trouble than I have ever imagined!
Our game first suffered in the hands of "copiers' about thirty five years ago, when some self serving people convinced the administrators that we should copy the US racing product of mostly mobile racing, over usually shorter distances, on bigger tracks!! these same people were blessed with foresight weren't they?
This latest "brainchild" is basically telling us it's good idea to copy what the dogs are doing! Short races, consistent number/colour identification,short race intervals in a heats /finals sequence. Talk about being mentally challenged, I'd like to challenge the orchestrators of this bullshit to display where the data came from to support this mindless experiment. There'd be no surprises from where I'm sitting.
I am not the only person that has been saying we are inept at marketing our product these days, and I truly hope that this shortsighted, cheap idea does not get off the ground.
Shame on us for belittling the uniqueness of our brand to completely abandon it for a trashy, trashy cheap shot such as this.
SOMEBODY PLEASE EITHER SHOOT US OR SAVE US, to completey discard our point of difference is bloody MINDLESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
G'day all,
I just sent this to another forum and am reproducing it here. (if I can get the font to work properly)
............
There’s a basic inescapable biological aspect that none of these imbeciles ever seems to take into account and one that will always prevent Horse Racing in general from becoming the churn & burn poker machines on legs Dog Lotto style product that they so heinously desire and that is Greyhounds have multiple births...asopposed to 1 foal per year if you’re lucky.
They produce Litters of Pups each time & multiple litters a year (2 at least, sometimes 3 if you want to put the pressure on) and if from the resultant 4-5-6+ pups x 2 or 3 per year they find that better than 75% of them are flat out scooting to the letter box they just send them off to the grim reaper who for a few bucks knocks them on the head and buries them, and they go back and knock their ‘Bitch’ up again and the sausage machine continues unabated.
Horse Racing, both Harness and TB, has a completely different reproductive paradigm.....and so the $$$ and time invested in each ‘unit’ (Christ, I’m sounding like one of the the brain dead strokers that inhabit the respective TAB) is obviously far, far greater. They’d ALL do well to keep that in mind when they line up with their bullshit 1000m races bedecked in Greyhound colours proposals. What distresses me more than anything else is that our Industry Administrators, instead of focussing on what makes Harness Racing different from the Dishlickers, are falling in line to copy it.
The Barbarians are at the gate. We’ve got a swathe of shareholder beholding TAB bean counters & associated minions who want to/are prepared to take Harness Racing and cookie cutter it and belt it around and copy a totally different code and by way of doing so turn it into an equine version of Wentworth Park and it needs to be clubbed to death before it grows wings and flies.
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