THE MARKETING OF JAMIE KAH??? SERIOUSLY?
Larry, Moe and Curly Joe were deep in discussion the other day on the dead people’s racing and sports radio station. They were tripping over each other and giddy with excitement about the marketing potential of jockey Jamie Kah.
Jamie Kah is the hottest racing property right now in Australia after her mega success during the Melbourne Spring Carnival. The ideas were bouncing off walls like Ace Ventura on crack until arriving at that old chestnut about how there’s now someone for little girls to look up to and- here we go again- who could attract those “younger people” to the races.
Right now, for all the talk about “resilience” and how great it is that racing is going on, playing to empty houses is wearing very very thin. Unless the most hard boiled punter- the race goer is an endangered species- who really cares? Those “younger people”?
That was just another hook for our mate Pete to throw out there along with the kitchen sink until The Everest became what it is today- The World’s Richest Race On Turf.
Think Pete gives a toss about those “younger people”? He’s moved on. With the help of his posse of enablers, he’s busy having fun lobbying new grenades in the direction of the geniuses at Racing Victoria who are seemingly only too happy to play catch.
As for the marketing of Jamie Kah, what we heard from Larry etc was everything heard after Michelle Payne won the Melbourne Cup. Nothing new. Nothing relevant. Apart from a gawdawful movie about Ms Payne’s historic win, it’s been fizzle with no sizzle.
THE CASE OF THE WOODY AND THE CLUB
To say that the case between Trainer Sean Woods and the Hong Kong Jockey Club was acrimonious would be a bit like saying that Johnny Depp and Amber Heard had suffered a minor blip in their relationship.
The likeable Woods who arrived in Hong Kong in 2003 and trained in Hong Kong until the 2016/17 season when he and fellow trainer Andreas Schutz had their licences revoked after failing to meet the performance criteria for the third time. And so began an extremely long drawn out horse opera including a writ issued against the Club for what could be termed “wrongful dismissal”.
This case has seemingly dragged on even longer than The Big Orange considering conceding his loss to Biden. Mentioned during everything that came out in the wash was Woodsy being given “inferior stables”, Olympic stables, no swimming pools- for horses to exercise in and not for the Trainer etc etc- and, just to move things along, meant him not being able to do his work properly. This put a dent on the strike rate of his winners and which saw horses leave his stable.
One can only suppose that this very protracted case has finally reached something approaching closure. We say this after seeing the highly impressive video presentation of the new Sean Woods Stables, formerly Jeremy Noseda’s Shalfleet yard in Newmarket. We wish him well.
THE ITALIAN JOB
Everyone who is someone has dined there. Also, anyone who wants to be seen as being somebody when everyone knows they’re not. And apart from one particular racing personality who’s been banned for life from the venue, everyone else in Hong Kong involved in horse racing who (a) enjoys its entire dining experience or (b) is a pretentious fawn-icator hell-bent on being seen as someone with some clout, has visited the restaurant known as Da Domenico in Causeway Bay.
We have gone there many times to its different locations over the years, mainly because someone else is always ready to pick up the tab for the very good Salted Sea Bass and Prawn Scampi plus to “speaka the Italiano” with highly passionate Hong Kong horse racing fan and restaurant owner Alessandro.
On the weekend, the very popular Alessandro saw Forte, the first horse he owns in a partnership win a race at his debut.
(Photo: Wallace Wan)
Picked and trained by Caspar Fownes at the Hong Kong International Sale in July, and ridden by Joao Moreira, definitely the most successful and lethal combination in Hong Kong horse racing these days, the HK$6m purchase was a very impressive winner in Class 4 of the second race on Saturday over the Shatin 1000 metre straight at the generous odds of around $5.1. The galloper is definitely more suited to tackling longer distances- in time.
Joao quietly pumping his fist as Forte crossed the finish line and the spring in Caspar’s step as he led in his new stable acquisition spoke volumes: it was a win that would mean almost everything in the world for the very popular Alessandro. It would also go some ways towards repaying the pretty high price tag paid by the owners.
Though controlling his excitement for the winning photo, we understand that the exuberant restaurateur quickly imploded like a spicy Italian sausage and morphed into this weird mix of the Roadrunner, Ace Ventura, Julius Caesar, Charo and Craig Williams if he was Italian as the day progressed. And who can blame him?
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