Cryptic notes from the crib
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Can horse racing hear new opportunities knocking?
With everything and more than we could ever have imagined going on in the world today, one has to wonder where exactly that adult game of racing horses fits into life and just how much tweaking it might need to make it relevant to, well, anyone- even its loyal customer base.
It’s not going to be a stroll in the park- or a race track- getting back into a rhythm after some pretty socially crippling lockdown years for many.
Forgetting about living in “racing bubbles”, and even in Michael Buble’s bubble, for this sport/hobby/curiosity piece to move forward, now could be the most opportune time for those currently running racing clubs, or perhaps the few on the outside looking in, to see in what guise horse racing might be able to continue.
These outsiders to horse racing, like a certain private equity billionaire we know from Eastern Europe, has always seen new opportunities during times of chaos for his investment portfolio.
As part of investment strategies, someone like him is looking at what he describes as “Happiness Packages” that bundle what he describes as “boutique horse racing” with the still untapped potential of this taking place in an often overlooked tourist destination like, for example, Sri Lanka.
Though hardly of G1 quality, there already is horse racing in the picturesque area of Sri Lanka known as Newra Elya.
Think of this “boutique horse racing” in an island known for its beaches, tea plantations, fabulous food, low cost of living, the restaurant known as Ministry Of Crab, six star hotels in Colombo and plenty of old world colonial charm to discover in places like Kandy.
When the island was called Ceylon, there was horse racing in Colombo and Newra Elya. It was here that the Australian rider Ted Fordyce aka “The Railwayman”, below, dominated the pastime and where he married a Sri Lankan girl.
I rediscovered everything my birthplace has to offer when somewhat relentlessly wooing a rather adventurous Danish girl who had won me over- and Sri Lanka winning her over after one holiday there, we made it a point to visit the island at least twice a year- and found everything else it had to offer. This included the local and far more potent version of Red Bull plus all the brilliant cuisine.
Travel restrictions aside, asked last week was if a horse racing driven destination package of what’s today known as Sri Lanka would work.
Depending on constantly changing scenarios and just how entrepreneurial one is, it could. Seriously. And in today’s “new abnormal”, maybe someone is telling us that the old excessive ways have run their course and the future- a more simple future- lies ahead.
Taking a leaf from the success of luxury resort group Amanresorts, party time in Ibiza and the Hong Kong Jockey Club’s Happy Wednesday brand, my friend from Eastern Europe is working on various Happy Meal destination packages that include the North of India, the Maldives, Mauritius, New Zealand and Taipa island to create a new customer experience that sells a Happy Meal combo of horse racing, and music against exotic backdrops.
The thinking is to create the next wave of Ibiza moments- but in a more chilled atmosphere.
From everything I know, this has gone way past the Thinking phase. It will start to happen when travel starts up again and everyone who has remained grounded finding their wanderlust again.
For those racing clubs that have been up and running for decades, bells are ringing that it’s maybe time to work with those who can offer something more for the image of horse racing- an image often often dwarfed by the gambling big bird of prey flying overhead.
Gambling of course invites criticism. There’s often the wrong type of fan that breaks down the door, crashes the party and ruins it for everyone. This short circuits many others from different industries participating as business partners.
Still, through some Don Draper creative thinking, new ‘look’ horse racing can certainly be made to look glamorous.
James Bond, for example, made casinos look stylishly dangerous and sexy. So did Bugsy Siegel and Michael Corleone.
The always fascinating game changer that was Stanley Ho gave casinos a new lifeline by bringing Vegas to Macau.
It’s not difficult to see where all this is leading...
When the Hong Kong Jockey Club created the popular Happy Wednesday brand at the iconic Happy Valley Racecourse for a younger demographic who wouldn’t have known a quesadilla from a quinella and thought that the same horses ran in every race, its success was no fluke.
To achieve this while retaining its existing hardcore market, took strategic thinking using different online channels, creating original content, and having the support and trust of the Club’s CEO.
It was also having a new team in place who knew this customer segment. These customers became regulars, part of street marketing and ambassadors for the most popular outdoor racing club in Hong Kong.
Though this was back then, it wasn’t that long ago, and one often wonders how it might have continued to evolve...or still can.
With more and more surges of the Covid-19 variant coming and going and returning and keeping many from being anywhere except home base, let alone a race track, horse racing has become somewhat of a wrinkly television and streaming product. It’s not exactly Netflix.
Many have either got used to staying at home, or, as is the case in Hong Kong where the hapless government has put the fear of Omicron into people needing people, lifestyles have not only completely changed, they’ve ground to a halt.
Few in Hong Kong are interested in going out and risk meeting other humans in case of forced into being quarantined in the horror movie that is Penny Bay.
All this has very much changed lifestyles, the viewing habits of many, what they will accept and how there’s a need to not be a social pariah.
On the plus side, there’s the opportunity to create new and different online channels catering for wagering plus teaming up with movie or music streaming companies for content.
Watching paddock parades on television is hardly going to get pulses racing.
Why not, just for starters, offer home audiences a different and more varied menu choice?
Then again, how big is this home audience?
For horse racing, it means taking the blinkers off and understanding why even big global brands are being forced to change in order to stay relevant.
Being concerned about losing that loyal, but ageing market whose prime time were the Nineties is not exactly going to move anything somewhere exciting.
As we keep hearing, there’s been a changing of the guard and with the world seeing the end of different eras and the start of new ones.
This might come as a rude shock to some with a vested interest in it, but horse racing is hardly a priority to many who are clueless how it all works, especially in these days of so much confusion.
Having said all this many times before, and if horse racing is ever going to hold hands and start singing “We Are The World”, there’s a need to understand how and why current and potential racing jurisdictions are different- how to make use of this difference, and never ignore those with new ways of looking at old business models and asking, Que?
The major music companies did this in the early 2000s to those upstarts in the technology sector. Mistake. This arrogance and ignorance only gave birth to the independents led by tekkies and the free-for-all music business model that exists today.
What must come into play is how best to use the technology at one’s disposal to bring something like racing together with consumer brands as part of entertainment partners, and stop continuing to work as separate and jealous little old boys’ clubs.
Like The Breakfast Club, those days are as over as Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer whereas The Running Man has run his race.
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