Cryptic notes from the crib

Cryptic notes from the crib

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Horse racing and Radio Ga Ga

Humans are naturally inquisitive. Often, this is what keeps us going- trying to understand what’s often not there or that layer that’s hidden from view.

Maybe this is why we enjoy films that are thrillers or discovering the hidden meanings in songs, especially the recordings of the Beatles or Pink Floyd or the wordplay of Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen.

Horse racing is hardly what can be termed “intellectual” or “high concept”, but, once in a while, a few things that are not obvious makes one sit up and think twice.

For whatever reason, there we were last weekend listening in to the programme called “Aftermath” on Western Australia’s TABradio, which basically dissects the weekend’s races and interviews some of the jockeys involved about what happened during the course of the race and why.

On this programme, there were riders Declan Bates and Pat Carberry, below.

Other than not knowing that Declan Bates, below, was Irish, it was somehow fascinating to listen to him and Pat Carberry go through their winning rides.

Of course, the interviews Gareth Hall conducts on the Dead People’s racing and sports channels sponsored by the Tobin Brothers Funeral Homes with a journalist and author like Andrew Rule or racing analyst Deane Lester is something very different as these are human interest stories.

But in the hands of those interviewers who are able to dig deeper than that dead zone known as The Punt, something as basic as horse racing is suddenly airlifted and given another layer of interest. Or as is the current Mot De Jour in Australian horse racing journalism parlance- airborne. Every other stable is somehow “airborne”.

Where all this good stuff goes walkies is when they are repeated and repeated until one knows the stories by heart.

Why does this happen? These are 24 hour radio channels and need to fill up that dead air. And so, their content is on a loop and is just aimlessly played all night perhaps believing that no one is listening. But there often is- especially during these days and nights where sleep patterns are wired differently and audiences are constantly searching for new content.

Some very good opportunities to expand that regular audience base is being missed. Also missed are opportunities to market horse racing to a newer audience who wouldn’t know jockeys from the Jockey brand of underwear and Russian Emperor from Czar Nicholas.

Why not use this “dead air” that’s no longer dead air to play some Tom Waits or Dylan or Joni Mitchell or Dua Lupa etc?

Something/anything other than just pummelling the already frayed senses with more of the same and making something special and interesting become a huge bore...

This is what continues to keep horse racing in its own little bubble- the inability to change and keep up with the times and the realisation that, for instance, video killed the radio star decades ago, and that no one is interested in more radio ga ga unless coming from Queen.