One of the key things that gets belted into cadet journos is the absolute need to have a key point to make in anything you write. Waffle, and you run at the risk of having the editor’s size 12 boot make severe contact with your nether regions! That doesn’t seem to be the mantra at the ABC!
On Monday night, “Four Corners” – arguably the ABC’s flagship current affairs programme – ran a segment called “Off Track”, which was, ostensibly, targeted at the integrity issues surrounding Victorian racing. It certainly touched on the Aquanita debacle, but that was all it did in that regard. The rest of the segment was a mish mash of the usual ABC emotional claptrap that gets trotted out whenever racing gets any ABC attention. The end game for retired racehorses also got a run, as did racehorse traceability, leading horses from cars, the situation for country trainers, competitiveness and tongue ties. Fair dinkum, there wasn’t much left out!
The end result was a segment that left viewers totally confused about the point the ABC was trying to make. But that’s what happens when people with very little knowledge of racing, and apparently even less interest in the sport, try to beat up a range of issues about which they know even less. It was classic ABC, really. Pretty much a total waste of an opportunity to make a statement about integrity in racing – how the integrity issue has been handled under the regime headed by Terry Bailey, what are the issues, what are the management concepts and where could, or should, the integrity programme head now that Bailey has gone and Jamie Stier is in the chair. Given that the programme was scheduled to tie in with the last day of Bailey’s reign as Chief Steward in Victoria, the expectation that integrity, and how integrity issues had been managed in the decade of Baileyism would be the focus of the “Off Track” segment was not an unreasonable expectation.
But no, off went “Four Corners” into the murky world of emotive rubbish pushed out by the limousine left and the tree-huggers.
Let’s have a think about one of the emotive issues – what happens to horses when they stop racing?
Up front, it is a fact that there is a percentage of horses that end up at the knackers and in pet food before the natural end of their lifespan. That happens, has always happened, and will continue to happen as long as people have pet dogs and cats, hopefully at a diminishing rate. But that isn’t the whole picture. There are many more trainers and owners that see re-housing their retired racehorses as both an obligation and a responsibility. To prove the point, just take a look at any issue of “Horse Deals” magazine, and check out the “Off The Track” section, or choose any of the other horsey publications and look at the Classifieds. Go to any equestrian event, and ask the competitors whether their dressage mount, or their eventing mount, is an ex-racehorse. The fact of the matter is that most retired racehorses can find an alternative to racing, if the owners and trainers put in a bit of an effort. That alternative also often includes nothing more than a paddock on the owner’s farm and a very simple retirement as a paddock companion for horses still in racing. Did the ABC touch on that? Nope, it’s not sexy enough.
The same kind of comments applies to the other issues outside integrity issues canvassed by the programme.
Why didn’t the ABC pick up on an interview with Terry Bailey in which he made it very clear that he had absolutely no regrets about the turbulent times he presided over? Special person, Terry. How many of the rest of us mere mortals can honestly say that we have nothing at all in the past decade of our working lives that we would have handled a little differently, given a second run at any given situation?
And why did the segment gloss over the Aquanita issues? One question that really needs some explanation by Racing Victoria – there will certainly not be any explanation emanating from the departed Chief Steward – is why it took stewards so long to snap the trap on the Aquanita players? The Aquanita charges go back for years!
Why did the segment not make a big deal about the cobalt schemozzle?
Why did the ABC not interview Peter Moody about his decision to walk away from one of the best stables in the land, and take the position that he would never return to training while Terry Bailey was officiating?
The programme was simply trivial. But there you go, it’s the ABC. They called the segment “Off Track” – at least they got that right!
By Rob Young