By Hans Ebert Visit Hans-Ebert.com
“You missed the best ride I have seen by a jockey.” It was a message sent by someone relatively new to horse racing. A female in her late Twenties. French Chinese. A regular at a Happy Wednesday meeting. Someone met around three years ago for the first time at Adrenaline when helping her fill out a Six Up ticket. She was talking about Douglas Whyte’s winning ride last night at Happy Valley on the John Moore trained Good Beauty.
Though out of Hong Kong, I had watched a replay of the race. To say it was vintage Douglas Whyte wouldn’t be doing the ride nor the rider justice. And certainly not to those still learning about the incredible career of the legendary South African rider. About how very very few ride the idiosyncratic city track better. Possibly no one.
My friend continued: “Why isn’t there a micro site or app that shows people like myself what the difference is between an average ride from a good ride or a great ride from a good ride?”
She was on a roll. And knowing technology and marketing and the wants and needs of her age group, she held my interest.
“You know Douglas Whyte,” she continued. “You know Executives at the HKJC. Can’t they create an app where Whyte explains why he did what he did during the race? This is what us newbies to horse racing are interested in. All that data for the seasoned race goer is too much for us young puppies to absorb”.
She was talking about what I refer to as going racing and those new to that on course experience often feeling that they are being recruited into the “school of puntology”.
Racing fans in every country are different. With its Happy Wednesday nights, the HKJC has a brilliant collection of inquisitive minds. Young inquisitive minds who look at horse racing with new eyes.
Like the new generation of music fans looking at different ways of supporting the work of musicians instead of just taking everything for free through the streaming of music and where most of the payment goes to those who own streaming sites, there’s a new generation of those who attend the races. Those races at a Happy Wednesday night.
More and more, from the mouths of babes come new ways of looking at things.
The smart ones have left social media and Wikipedia wisdom. They’ve returned to independent thinking. It’s the new Indie spirit. I’m loving seeing its return. The world has been waiting for this for too long.
It’s where the future meets the past. But refuses to be shackled to Babs singing “The Way We Were” and losing time missing “the good old days”.
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