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Brian O'Connor

Brian O'Connor's Latest Blog

Cultivate The Committed

Saxon WarriorSaxon Warrior
© Photo Healy Racing

Walk into any betting shop and racing's greatest fundamental threat is in front of you - Portman Park. The impact of the British government's stake reduction on 'Fixed Odds Betting Terminals' has dominated racing coverage with regard to levy impact there and in terms of picture rights here. But it's a symptom of a deeper issue for the sport. Because Portman Park proves people really will bet on anything.

The legacy of when racing was just about the only thing to bet on still lingers. In many ways Irish racing's lobby to government remains rooted in it. But it's obsolete. Any visit to a betting shop proves it. So does any visit online with turnover on events from second division Latvian football to the spread on Japanese sumo. The buzz is the bet. What it's on is secondary. And that's a fundamental problem Irish racing will have to eventually address.

At the moment it doesn't have to. But a financial model largely based on state subsidy and media rights deals is hardly a rock solid foundation.

After all state subsidy is vulnerable to state whim, such as the likelihood at some stage of other sports governing bodies not unreasonably demanding a slice of the betting tax action too. And if people in betting shops or online are prepared to bet on anything where's the payoff for gambling firms to keep paying big for pictures?

There was a significant element of facing up to that when the chief executive of the Hong Kong Jockey Club, the splendidly named Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges, last week called for a fundamental rethink worldwide as to how racing pitches itself to the public.

Amid the inevitable 'branding' jargon and 'visions' about returning to the world's Top 10 sports Hong Kong's CEO bluntly pointed out that racing has lost popularity through being perceived as a gambling only sport.

"Our brand is dominated by gambling and we have to change that perception," he said, adding: "We have to broaden our fan-base and to do that we clearly have to shift from gaming as the main brand to leisure and entertainment: racing must be positioned as a world class sport."

This ties in with the hardy chestnut as to how the sport here attracts greater public interest and engagement. But if the branding that Engelbrecht-Bresges is on about is fundamentally an exercise in presenting how you wish to be seen then Irish racing has never properly worked out its pitch.

Secure in its financial incubator it can afford to be offhand with Joe Public. Yet it's also insecure enough to feel it doesn't get enough recognition: desperate for attention but on its own terms. It craves greater mainstream profile but remains instinctively distrustful of outside examination.

However if the financial basis underpinning it eventually gets undermined by people really being willing to bet on anything then the sport's long-term future depends on getting its hands dirty and pitching itself to the very public it currently is able to afford to ignore. And it will have to be a pitch in line with Engelbrect-Bresges's idea that racing sells itself on the basis of actual racing.

That means trusting the sport to have enough of a pull in itself. A lot of racing's pitch right now is based in a fear that it doesn't. So we have gimmicks, celebrity sales pitches and fretful dumbing-down exercises in attracting audiences that mostly regard racing as social opportunity. Horses and jockeys are just a vague background to a good day out.

Last week a television executive called for racing to demystify its language, arguing that phrases like 'on the bridle' are too much for people. That only feeds into further dumbing down for a supposed hidden mass digital audience that still tends to reserve the right to make up its own mind on what it likes or dislikes.

A 'grá' for racing can't be injected into people. You can't persuade people into having a passion for it. By its nature this is a marmite sport. It's not like football or rugby which have huge casual audiences. People are either turned on or turned off by racing. So instead of making itself look craven by wooing the casual, racing's fortunes are best served by cultivating the committed.

That means getting its house in order through proper integrity policing, coherent and meaningful anti-doping measures and being beyond reproach in terms of animal welfare. It also means actively embracing opportunities thrown up by technology such as sectional timing and providing relevant information to young audiences accustomed to masses of data being thrown at them.

Crucially it means reaching out to the public, having a stake in getting them to invest in racing not just in terms of ownership but emotionally too. What racing desperately needs are actual fans, those who love the game for itself, a game that doesn't pander to ambivalence but which has the self confidence to back itself and what it has to offer.

On to less high falutin' stuff and there were some grumbles at Naas on Sunday when racing was abandoned with two races to go. The ground around the bend into the straight was reported slippy by the jockeys riding in the first and conditions hadn't improved by the time the bend was required again.

It's the customers right to grumble. But this was straightforward. Once the jockeys expressed their concerns that was it. They are the ones putting their necks on the line. And as the Naas manager Tom Ryan said "it's impossible to ignore the feedback from jockeys. If they express concern and something happened you're left in mid-air without a parachute."

The bend has provoked criticism before but the problem here was ground conditions which was ironic considering it looked like perfect good to firm flat racing ground. Spoilsport showers of rain proved once again you can't beat nature.

And you can't beat racing for rumours. That's nothing new but it was quite a novel step for Gordon Elliott to be forced into publicly addressing "the uninformed and malicious" speculation that he had been closed down by the authorities due to the strangles virus. Depending on who you spoke to speculation as to the problem varied from strangles to black death.

The much more mundane reality was that some of Elliott's string were not quite right after Punchestown so he decided to take a break from running horses while establishing the problem. Even when he stated this publicly it seemed to fan the flames even more. It's hard to know what more Elliott could have done, a point the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board seemed to back up.

Disease control is vitally important but this was depressing proof of how there are few things more virulent than a rumour people want to believe.

Finally, we're into something a little different when we're still in May and chat about a potential first Triple Crown since Nijinsky has begun well before the second leg.

It appears though that Saxon Warrior is that little bit different too. The colt was imperious in the Guineas and improvement for both the run, and a step up in trip, is widely anticipated at Epsom. John Gosden has the Derby second favourite in Roaring Lion but even his post-Dante comments suggest Saxon Warrior may be exceptional.

Of course presumption is deadly dangerous. However if you can't get excited about such a horse and such a prospect then maybe in reality this isn't the game for you.