I felt Horse Racing and the current state of play merited a longer tweet than just being added to the other one about match fixing. I see so many people talk about how racing can improve its appeal to the masses. It needs to rapidly, as it is dying on its arse at the moment.
It is heading the way of Greyhounds at a very rapid rate. People blame things like overcrowded fixture lists and entry prices. Undoubtedly they all need to be addressed but something stands out above all of that, as a basic requirement of any successful sport.
The one thing I never hear talked about is having a product that is ‘clean’ and fit for purpose. I know racing has a mysterious allure attached to it relating to insider information/gambles and it has always been part of the racing folklore. Lets call it for what it is. Cheating.
We are in a strange situation where Horse Racing in its current guise is utterly dependant upon betting for its funding via the Levy. Yet this is the sport that is the most corrupt of any of the ones in the betting sphere. Its not close. Its an ugly combination, that I have no doubt will contribute, to the continued downfall of the sport. If you want people to interact with a sport and bet on it, they have to be convinced that the sport is clean and the participants will be running on their true merits.
You will see it day in and day out horses that are not run on their merits. You will see huge drifts on Betfair and they wont be sighted. On the off chance the Stewards actually enquire about it, the trainer will come up with some lame excuse and nothing further will happen.
Not all big drifters will lose of course but you see plenty that are clearly not run on their merits. The Stewards might pick on some young apprentice jockey to make an example of them and give the impression they actually monitor these things. They are useless.
Vice versa you will see these huge gambles where a horse is smashed in (without merit seemingly) and unsurprisingly the application of cash brings about a remarkable improvement in performance. Either that or you will see the horse ridden differently to previous occasions.
Horses that have been run poorly multiple times to get a favourable handicap mark. Every time a horse doesn’t run on its merits, punters are being affected. Its affecting backers and layers of every other horse in the race. Every runner, every race, every time it is done.
If racing is lucky the Stewards may look at the race and the horse in question. The Stewards will say something like ‘the Winner appeared to show an improvement in form compared to its previous 6 runs where it had beaten 4 of 175 horses home.’
The explanation from the representative that the horse in question benefitted from a less competitive race has been noted’. What then happens? Absolutely nothing. The gamble has been landed and peoples hard earned money stolen from them. If that sounds dramatic, it’s not. If horses are not being run on their true merits and the authorities wont do anything about it, guess what will happen? Yes. People will just keep doing it and doing it more often. Racing is now a complete cesspit of such activity. The crazy part is that most people in racing applaud this type of behaviour. Whether it be naïve punters (oh wow what a great touch landed) or ridiculous tv pundits (oh that showed a nice improvement). No one calls them out for cheating. Its insane to me.
Some of this is closely linked to PEDs in racing that people just pretend don’t exist. One thing that clearly hasn’t helped is the advent of betting exchanges and the ability to lay a horse. It just enables the skulduggery to happen more easily. That’s not to say gambles haven’t been landed for as long as betting has existed. They existed well before the exchanges did. Its just unfortunate that absolutely nothing is done about these things. Barney Curley is lauded as some hero when he really shouldn’t be.
Racing needs to have a clean sport as the very fundamental starting point. Reducing the fixture list and increasing prize money will help with that. Sort the funding method out. Sort the stewarding out. Sort out watering and giving punters accurate info. Etc etc.
Get the basics right because without that it has no chance. Racing is competing for eyeballs from so many other sports these days. It has no divine right to success. The arrogance within the sport is astounding. It starts with those who have a voice on your TV every day.
If you want to see how far racing has fallen ask the man in the street who won the National or the Gold Cup or the Derby or the Guineas? The answer will or should horrify any big racing fan. All sports need a great product and atm racing just doesn’t have one.
From a betting perspective if you play on the horses you have to be extremely careful. Don’t complain though when you are 2nd to a huge gamble/PEDs, your horse never put in the race or on the wrong end of a horrendous stewarding decision. Its the current product on offer.
ProPunting 