It had to happen, and it should, with the talk in Australian racing circles these past few days being about the very successful two meetings held last Saturday, the one at Randwick and the other at Caulfield.
Instead of being separate entities, and judged as such, both really should be benefitting from the greater whole of the sum of its parts...with Matt Stewart over at RSN seemingly besotted with Trainer James Cummings wearing a hat at the Everest race meeting.
The AUS$15 million Everest, especially, was a hundred and fifty percent Australian success story, and, quite rightly so. History will bear this out.
The idea for the gimmicky race might have been borrowed from The Pegasus in the US, but the head of Racing New South Wales- Pete- dusted off his old Neil Diamond record collection, turned up the heat with millions in prize money, introduced various slots, and a turnkey operation was born that worked for the coffers of the racing club he leads like Attila The Hun on tippy toes.
The beast that was this year’s Everest had everything to appeal to a mainstream Aussie audience in a country where “Sweet Caroline” is still a pub favourite that invites a good old knees up and becoming the new theme song for whenever good times never felt so good.
Could “Celebration” by Kool and the Gang, or “Good Times” by Chic or “Dancing Queen” by ABBA or “Tubthumping” have created that same Party On atmosphere? Maybe.
The Everest this year was one big coming out party for hundreds of thousands- of all ages-who dressed up for the occasion and simply wanted to go out, interact with other human beings and finally have some fun.
It was where some very good horses raced against each other every half hour as the nectar of the gods- or some cheap plonk- flowed and great new back stories and racing heroes introduced as the non stop party continued.
The running of the more traditional 2022 Caulfield Cup complemented the razzmatazz of the Everest, and Racing Victoria has the rest of the Spring Carnival marketing bundle to roll out.
The Caulfield Cup was excellent for what it was, and like the Everest, introduced everyone to its own changing of the guard.
Wherever we are, and whenever possible, the world owes it to itself to celebrate coming out of the dark.
Often, those who should be looking at the Big Picture get bogged down in the minutiae and overthink something as simple as this.
The KISS Theory of Keep It Simple, Stupid becoming an exercise in navel gazing and throwing everything against the wall and seeing what sticks. This is seen as marketing.
Bringing back good times like those at Randwick Racecourse and at Caulfield somehow end up going walkies. This time, they didn’t.
Could the “vibe” of the Everest have been transferred to Champions Day at Ascot in the UK later that day or the kinda, well, obtuse Bow Tie Race Day at Shatin the next afternoon? No.
There are many reasons why, but it’s often to do with words like “tradition”, “stodginess”, “pretentiousness” and things that are real and honest with strong emotional attachments getting lost in the shuffle of trying desperately to make what it isn’t there what it could never be.
Sadly, Hong Kong racing is looking less than ordinary these days with embarrassing lapses of unmasked goofiness.
This is primarily because the city is still struggling with stringent social distancing measures that make returning to normality seem difficult.
Despite promises of “regular transmission resuming soon”, there’s a resistance to buying into this because of scepticism. It’s a foxtrot heard before.
In case, no one has been told, Hong Kong is now officially part of China. It has lost whatever “product personality” it once had.
Throwing millions of dollars to lure or cajole multi millionaire international jockeys to come to Hong Kong for another round of smash and grab from the city is not only unfair on the local community trying to make ends meet, it’s not going to help the quality of the racing- if this even matters.
How can it when these marquee value names are, more often than not, riding very average conveyances meaning that “form” can be thrown out the window and replaced by potluck?
Far more importantly, it’s about timing.
Right here and now, the city that’s the home for Hong Kong horse racing and everything else that has to do with the big old world of entertainment has no USP- Unique Selling Point. It’s lost.
This is something that the Hong Kong government doesn’t understand as they are bland and myopic administrators trying to bring in bits and pieces from here and there, but clueless about how all the pieces will fit.
There’s no Don Draper marshalling his creative troops because no one understands how important they are to everything as everyone believes that they are frightfully “creative”.
What happens next is guileless posturing with many in the city keeping up pretences as they know the importance of playing The Game Of Thrones to win. But how many can?
Being a Hong Kong Belonger, for myself, it’s about seeing what I can personally do to help a city find its feet again.
This is the city where my parents arrived from Ceylon penniless, where they managed to send me to primary and secondary school, and where I met the girl I married with whom I have a daughter, and a city that’s been so good to me.
It’s never been about shouting for another chorus of that ABBA song.
I have a few ideas to help Hong Kong that are more than ideas, a few short stories and what’s called a “journography” coming out next year.
This should help make me even more of a persona non grata in those social circles and private clubs that I loathe.
As for my thoughts about horse racing, it’s like it was before being approached by the CEO of the Hong Kong Jockey Club to build what became the Happy Wednesday brand: It’s a pleasant enough place to visit, observe, absorb and then intuitively know when to move on.
Unlike when in the music industry, being “in” horse racing is not a career that’s going to win me International awards nor introduce me to a talent pool comprising creative people. Both are tremendously important in motivating me to continue to go for that brass ring.
Having said this, despite its association with gambling, horse racing could “demystify” and reinvent itself to attract a mainstream media and audience- regularly and not once a year.
The question is whether horse racing wants this or is happy to just plod along in 2022 though now thirty years older than it was in 1992 believing this is fine, and that it’s in touch with today’s consumers because James Cummings wears a groovy hat?
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