By Camilla Wright
Publisher, Popbitch.com and Founder Popbitch Racing Club
Horse racing has so many competing interests – breeders, owners, the betting industry, punters… that racegoers and those that just like the sport are virtually ignored. But without them, this becomes a niche interest for the super-rich with no place in mainstream media or popular culture.
In our option-rich, time-poor society, horse racing is competing with a myriad of other pastimes for eyeballs, attention and media interest, and losing. Big time. By ignoring the the more casual racegoer, it’s in danger of becoming cultural irrelevant.
People who run horse racing are in danger of missing out on what is right in front of their faces – that the sport is almost in a death spiral. A nice interest for gamblers and the super-rich, it’s been left behind as a mainstream cultural interest. While football and music festivals make it to the front pages, racing struggles to even get column inches on the back pages.
Social media and celebrity have changed popular culture for good, yet horse racing hasn’t kept pace.
Blind, deaf and dumb to the huge changes wrought in how people like to spend their time and money, racing has stayed an industry held hostage to minority interests.
Without reform, its days as a popular sport are numbered.
Comments