New £3.6million marketing drive ignores the real reason people love horse racing
Racing has launched its latest marketing drive - and there's something missing. The Great British Racing campaign, which will run through the summer with the aim of attracting more people to the sport, is called The Going Is Good and is funded to the tune of £3.62m by the Levy Board.
A chorus of voices in a 40-second video released last week painted the thrill of a day at the races. 'Hey, girl!' starts the clip, before telling us 'the girls' all got ready 'under one roof' and ended the day 'dancing in our heels - we haven't had a singalong like that in a long time'.
A male contributor, meanwhile, informs that 'Hollie Doyle rides - and she's in great form."
And that's as close was we get to the activity that got the vast majority of us into racing - betting. The Going Is Good is guilty of the same omission - at least so far - as all the similar ventures that preceded it.
Given that the harm done by gambling to a very small percentage of the population is never far from the news, the reason is obvious. But ignoring the umbilical link between racing and punting makes no sense.
It's a relationship that stretches back centuries and, without betting, racing would be nothing like the professional sport we enjoy today. When I took my first job in racing, 'doing the board' - look it up if you're lucky enough to be under 50 years of age - in a Bedford betting shop in 1987, horseracing was the dominant sport when it came to bookmaker turnover.
But its share of the pie gets smaller, year on year, and football now holds sway. Many of the punters who bet on football have never had any interest in racing. Surely that's a market we should be aiming at, in addition to - if not at the expense of - the great-day-out brigade?
I'm not writing this to rubbish The Going Is Good initiative. I am lucky enough to learn my living from horseracing and hope against hope that it succeeds.
The wholesomeness of their initial offering is all very well, but the marketeers have to look gambling in the eye. Betting business is booming - every time you check an odds-comparison site, there's a new firm listing its prices.
And we need to harness that bond with gambling, rather than pretending it doesn't exist.
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