24/03/16
Of all the aspects of racing there are two that never cease to amaze me.
The first one is advertising via race names. What a total waste of money that is. I’d be amazed if any entity that calls a race after their business would ever recoup their outlay. The race names may well appear in the form guide or racebook, but 99% still wouldn’t have a clue when a race is called the “Bill Bloggs Handicap,” (thoroughbreds) or the “Bill Bloggs Pace,” (harness racing), or the “Bill Bloggs Fifth Grade,” (greyhounds) what business Bill Bloggs is actually involved in, whereas say if it was the “Bill Bloggs Painting Handicap” one could reasonably deduce Bill’s business is either 1) painting houses or 2) painting portraits – and so on and so forth.
And the race clubs seemingly don’t care – they just want their sponsor’s money. You see if they cared, as I’ve written here for over a decade and I’m still waiting for the industry to catch up with my ideas, there would be a “sponsors page” in every race book that gets printed, outlining exactly what “Bill Bloggs” business involves, to help him recoup something back for his sponsorship outlay.
Additionally racecallers in the main don’t care, they just say that “they’re moving in for the fifth race and the favourite is Legless”, instead of being more pro-active towards sponsors by saying something like, “They’re moving in for Race 5, the Bill Bloggs Handicap and Bill has a big painting retail business situated at Scenic Drive at Strathpine on the north side of Brisbane where he sells paint to both trade and retail clients”. No such luck though, that sounds too much like hard work, and most racecallers just talk up Radish and crew that are in the race, to see if they can talk some desperate and dateless punters into parting with some moola to increase the TAB hold on the race, as after all most racecallers are employees of TABs. As I always say “good help is hard to find in racing”.
The second aspect that amazes me is the number of equine athletes that can’t win a race in “the sport of kings” – thoroughbred racing. It’s no wonder it’s called “the sport of kings” as one would just about need to be a king to afford to pay the training bills in an industry that has so many non-achievers in its ranks.
I have been gifted and/or lent, many terrific racing books over the years by some wonderful people and the wealth of information that is contained in some of them is mind boggling. Granted the statistics that I’m reproducing may be a bit old, but nothing much would change over the decades in the racing industry statistically – so check out some of these. The sources of my information are “Australia Race Results” books from various years. They contained not only the results of every TAB and non-TAB thoroughbred race run in Australia in each racing season, but also many other interesting statistics. The front of the book noted: “The Australian Race Results is published by the Racing Services Bureau (a Division of the Victoria Racing Club) 400 Epsom Road, Flemington, Vic. 3031, on behalf of Principal Race Clubs of Australia”.
The following statistics are taken from “Australian Race Results Volume 22 Season 1st August 1998-31st July 1999”.
In that aforesaid one season timeframe a total of 32,039 individual thoroughbreds raced in Australia. Before I continue, of that number (32,039) how many do you think would fail to win a race in that entire season? Do you think 3299, 7299, 11299, 15299, 19299, 23299 or 27299 would be correct? The answer soon, but firstly here’s a break-up of the age and gender of those 32,039 horses:
AGE
FILLY
MARE
COLT
GELDING
HORSE
RIG
TOTAL
2
2149
708
1660
2
4519
3
4136
532
4093
3
8764
4
3277
4044
200
3
7524
5
1825
3164
110
5099
6
738
2187
57
2982
7
260
1472
40
1
1773
8 & over
86
1276
16
1378
TOTALS
6285
6186
1240
17896
423
9
32039
Of all the horses aged “8 & over” above, here is a more detailed break-up of the ages of the 1378 in that grouping that the book outlined:
AGE
NUMBER OF HORSES
8
881
9
340
10
114
11
28
12
7
13
6
14
2
And here’s the answer to the previous question and you might need to take an angina tablet first because it’s amazing to look at the number of races that each of the 32,039 thoroughbreds won in the entire racing season:
NUMBER OF WINS
NUMBER OF HORSES
0
19299
1
7277
2
3096
3
1411
4
612
5
213
6
87
7
28
8
10
9
4
10
2
So from the aforesaid table, an amazing 19,299 of 32,039 individual thoroughbreds, or 60.23% failed to win a single race anywhere even at Dingo, Moree, Hanging Rock or some Australian eastern seaboard thoroughbred tracks that have raced in the last fortnight namely Woolamai, Hinnomunjie, Ardlethan or Trangie. Did you know the last three racetracks existed? Me neither – I thought they may have been in Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan – but they are actually in Australia.
Then if I add those horses that won no races in the season (19,299) to the number that won just one race anywhere around Australia (7,277) that means that 26,576 of the 32,039 that raced in the season, or now an astonishing 82.95% of all thoroughbreds that raced in the 1998/1999 racing season won a maximum of one race, which conversely means only 17.05% could win two races or more during the same season.
Kind of makes you want to race out to the next yearling sales and be part of the excitement of it all – doesn’t it?
And it would seem to me as an outsider looking in, that back then we bred horses that had a bit of guts, not like many of these sooky thoroughbreds of today. Guess when I think about it, the same has happened in the human race.
But in the thoroughbred publication back then, they proudly named the 10 horses that had had the most career starts – and raced in that season. Check out the number of starts some of these horses had in their career back then. And guess what – they didn’t gin around watering tracks the night before race meetings and all this garbage like they do now.
HORSE
STARTS
1sts
2nds
3rds
PRIZEMONEY
Quatra Gambie
168
24
18
10
154345
Mark Time
156
33
38
21
193225
Benbara Knight
142
20
13
13
232450
Nip And Zip
138
28
23
12
231371
Captain Silvea
138
18
19
16
231580
Glenmurray Rogue
137
17
14
13
174798
Cheeky Challenger
135
33
30
18
116595
Concerto’s Estate
129
5
7
6
18590
Heavenly Dancer
124
16
18
20
68985
Amunsden
120
27
22
21
88730
They sure bred them tough back then – and in numbers. I’ll bet there weren’t four thoroughbreds in the 2014/2015 racing season that each had 130-odd career starts in the racing season, like happened above. Nowadays “they” have to start race meetings off on good 4 tracks, so multiple sooky excuses for a racehorse that are the son or daughter of some shuttle stallion doesn’t hurt its little footsies or legs. What a joke.
And there’s more proof today via Queensland’s only daily Statewide newspaper, The Courier Mail, as to why harness racing in Queensland simply continues to wither on the vine. What a sad indictment it is on the once great sport that in the modern day, the only way that harness racing can get a write-up in The Courier Mail is if it’s sponsored. It’s hardly a State secret that punter confidence in the harness racing sport in Queensland has been at a very low ebb for many years, with constant allegations of team driving at TAB meetings. In fact the allegations were so bad at one point that Racing Queensland, the governing body of the sport in the State, even held an enquiry into allegations of team driving a few years ago, but shock, horror – they could find no proof of same happening, which was great, as imagine what would have happened had there been proven team driving. Punters unfortunately didn’t have their confidence in the industry restored by the findings of that enquiry and it’s a fair call that the other two codes of thoroughbreds and greyhounds see the harness industry as an under-performer in terms of TAB turnover. And despite three-quarters of a page of “sponsored” harness racing news in today’s The Courier Mail, sadly both the sponsor and the high profile journalist that is credited with writing the column have unfortunately forgotten to mention that there’s the huge annual non-TAB Marburg harness racing meeting happening again on Easter Sunday. They remembered and mentioned what was happening interstate on Sunday at Armidale or somewhere way over the border, that no one is interested in, but “forgot” about the big day in their own back yard at Marburg. What a missed golden opportunity to help promote the sport and the day locally. But not to worry – that’s what I’m here for – to cover any what I perceive “shortcomings that may occur in mainstream media”, as regularly happens. So it’s back to the old adage of “never fear Phil is here” and let me publicly advise that there are seven races at Marburg on Sunday with the first set to line up behind the mobile at 12.30pm and the starters in the last get sent on their journey at 4pm. Justracing is proudly sponsoring a race on the day, as I do annually at this meeting. As I wrote earlier in this story race sponsorship is a waste of money, but I lead by example and sponsor racing in two countries of Australia and New Zealand. Given racing is my core business I feel compelled to do something to assist the participants. And Marburg is to me “a great day to get out in the country with the battlers”. I much prefer spending time when I get a rare chance to attend a race meeting to be with the “battlers”. In my opinion, being a humble kid from the bush who grew up in a little town that had a population of about 30, there is nothing worse than being at a race meeting with people that think they don’t need air freshener in their toilet, so a Marburg harness meeting, or a non-TAB thoroughbred meeting at say Esk simply has my name all over it.
And there are six other wonderful sponsors on the big day at Marburg and they are the Sundown Hotel, which is the best pub in the Marburg area in my opinion, by about a furlong. It’s just up the road from the Marburg track, on Darren Lockyer Way, on the Brisbane side of Marburg. Other sponsors on the day are Geoff and Rhonda Stansfield from Laidley Denture Clinic, local identities Chrissie and John Turner, the Ipswich City Council and both the Mitchell family (Kenny and John Mitchell) and Wallace family (Jeff and Wayne Wallace). The latter two are sponsoring the Joan and Wally Mitchell Memorial and the Des Wallace Memorial respectively.
As usual the steakburgers are so good that one is nowhere near enough (ditto at the Esk gallops), whilst the prices for all other food and drink at Marburg are much cheaper than they are at all other thoroughbred, harness and greyhound tracks in South-East Queensland, as that aspect at Marburg is all run by a terrific bunch of volunteers whose wonderful contribution is recognized here and sincerely appreciated at club level.
Come to think of it, Marburg club don’t need the help of The Courier Mail or the “sponsor” when they have people like me in the trenches with them – they have already backed their first winner.
Today on www.brisbaneracing.com.au there’s a harness racing story from New South Wales about Johnny Tapp’s terrific achievement of getting two fillies into this weekend’s Gold Tiara final at Bathurst.
