I have a standard two-question quiz for non-racing people.
First question: “What is Australia’s biggest race?” Second question: “How do you qualify?”
The end of last year’s Melbourne Cup.Credit: Getty
Everyone knows the answer to question one. The Melbourne Cup is the “race that stops a nation”, and punters bet comfortably more on it than the Cox Plate, Caulfield Cup and Everest combined. They will again on Tuesday.
But few know the answer to question two because it is arcane and complicated.
The effect is that the Melbourne Cup is a one-off event rather than a year-long journey in the mind of the public. This a wasted opportunity for racing.
You see, no one is in any doubt how a team gets to the AFL or NRL grand final, or the Super Bowl, or how a tennis player wins Wimbledon. The competition starts with a certain number of contenders and they play off until one remains. And that process gives context to how ever many matches there are in the tournament or season.
And the characters are recurring and well-known – the Lions, the Swans, the Hawks, the Tigers. The Panthers, the Storm, the Chiefs, the Patriots. Djokovic, Williams, Federer, Nadal.
Once upon a time even the Bombers and the Blues!
Australian racing, by contrast, is very hard for the average sports fan to follow. It features more than 36,000 active horses and nearly 20,000 races per year. Distances and race conditions vary. Benchmarks, rather than being on a scale of 1 to 10, are stated in niche numbers like 64 and 78, and horse ratings peak (so far) at 147. Racing colours – the team uniforms – are chosen by the horse owner and number in the thousands. Races are frequently named after people the general public hasn’t heard of, and, with one notable exception, are not packaged as a series. There is little context or continuity race to race.
To borrow from this week’s other big sport, cricket, racing often feels like a slightly random set of one-dayers rather than a clearly-formatted World Cup.
Trying to make racing more fan-friendly is easier said than done, however. I speak from experience!
There are various barriers.
Firstly, racing is state-based, so there are no proper national championships. And, with no revenue-sharing, the incentives to co-operate are minimal.
Even within Victoria, marquee races such as the Cox Plate and Melbourne Cup are owned by the host race clubs not by the governing body. And as race clubs largely make money from their own races, series are hard to create and inter-club collaboration is limited.
Meanwhile, owners, trainers and jockeys are all free agents. They will race wherever and whenever suits them. They mix and match accordingly and are never required to turn up.
This is not the case in other professional sports, which are based either on leagues with contracted players, or tours with ranking points and season-long schedules that ensure the best players come together for the key events. Imagine if the Daicos boys only played for Collingwood when they felt like it! That, basically, is racing.
Finally, there is a mindset challenge. To insiders, racing’s complexity is part of its charm. They understand and enjoy its intricacies and are typically resistant to change. This is natural, but can ultimately be fatal: sports that don’t refresh their fan base ultimately die. And racing’s fan base is ageing fast, with young punters increasingly betting on sports they play and watch growing up, such as AFL, NRL, cricket, NBA and even UFC.
So what to do? The key is to make racing’s format, key series and finals as obvious as possible.
Just as comprehension is a test for the writer, not the reader, racing needs to make things easy for the prospective fan, of whom by far the most watch the Melbourne Cup and nothing else.
How about we start with a “Melbourne Cup Series”. A set of races across Australia – and the globe – that offer points to qualify for the great race. One hundred points for the big races, such as the Cox Plate and Caulfield Cup. Fifty points for lesser lead-ups, starting on New Year’s Day with the Perth Cup to create an all-year narrative. The top 24 point-getters would earn a berth in the Cup.
Or just have 12 golden ticket spots locally, and six globally, with wild cards or a points system for the rest.
Basically, I’m, proposing a format where everyone in Australia can correctly answer question one and question two.
The current answer to question two, by the way, is as follows. There are seven golden ticket races, four at Flemington, one in England plus the Cox Plate and Caulfield Cup.
After that, it gets complicated. That there are no fewer than nine other types of race performances that give priority for the Cup, for example placing sixth, seventh or eighth in last year’s Caulfield Cup.
Then it comes down to allocated handicap weight, relative to a benchmark for the age and sex for the horse.
And handicapping is a complex story all on its own.
The golden tickets have been smart initiatives by the Victorian Racing Club – now the club needs to finish the job. While they’re at it, perhaps they can also make ties optional in the members’ enclosure.
Andrew Jones is principal of management consultancy The Killer Group. He is a former CEO of Racing Victoria and Cricket NSW and has advised on the business of cricket, rugby league, netball, racing and golf.
