In previous articles “The Future of Racing” I highlighted some of racing’s obvious challenges and I mentioned a few possible solutions.
Just about every discussion around racing always focus on the negatives and it makes a mockery of the old adage that any publicity is better than no publicity.Today I would like to touch on some of racing’s challenges but concentrate mainly on the lighter side of involvement, which is often what keeps punters going even when having a particularly lean spell for a period of time.
Racing is a wonderful game with interesting people and stories and it has produced many legends over the years that many readers will remember quite fondly. Trainers like Terrence Millard, Herman Brown, Jean Heming, Ormond Ferraris (still going strong and hopefully for many more years), George Azzie and many more who were all household names in the glory years. Some of the turf machines that captured the imagination in my time and that I still remember fondly are Horse Chestnut, Model Man, Empress Club, Ipi Tombi, Roland’s Song, Flaming Rock, Senor Santa, Golden Loom, Aquanaut, Bush Telegraph and too many others to mention. Great duels like the match race between Divine Act and Brainteaser will always bring back special memories.
My punting started when a friend got me involved in racing during my student years and he taught me about form and jockey/trainer combinations and many of the peculiarities of the game. I had to contribute R5 to a few bets that he was placing and we ended up winning R25 each. This looked so easy and I decided that I wanted to play on a more regular basis. After about a month of some success and eagerly following events in the newspaper I suggested to Tommy that we should have a crack at a Pick6 as the payouts looked amazing. He explained that he had been playing for years and that he had never won this bet, but we could try it the following weekend since he had to attend his sister’s wedding over the coming weekend.
Being very eager at this time and sensing some easy pickings (being completely ignorant) I decided to try it on my own. Armed with a Computaform and The Citizen racing section I tried to apply my “wealth of knowledge” expertly gained over a 4 week period. I played R13, a R9 Jackpot, R2 Place Accumulator and a R2 Pick6 and in my ignorance placed these bets on the Friday before raceday. At this stage my only access to racing was the radio and I waited eagerly on the Saturday for the first race of the PA to start. The race came and went, along with my ticket (physical ticket in those days)
but I was still very hopeful given the early success that we have had. Race by race the excitement mounted as every runner kept my dream alive. I won the Jackpot and was now waiting for the final leg of the Pick6 in jubilant anticipation. By now a crowd of family members had assembled, all rooting for my runner to deliver the goods. Against all odds it played out like a Hollywood movie, with the hero of the story completely victorious and riding off into the sunset. I had achieved something that very few had done before or since and that is winning a Pick6 with basically a straight line, not to mention at my very first attempt. Tommy had a hard time believing this and made copies of the ticket to tell colleagues at work that his prodigy had done the impossible. I had no idea that the results and dividends could be obtained by phoning and in my ignorance I waited for the Sunday paper which you could buy late on a Saturday evening.
The rest of the day was spent dreaming of my pot of gold and all the “experts” assured me that I could expect at least a four figure pay day, but probably a lot more. The time had finally arrived to collect the paper and to widen my smile and off we went with my mother warning that I should be careful not too meet harm along the way before I could spend my stash. I turned the pages hastily to get to the sport and racing section. With my heart racing I found the results column, by now new wheels could be a possibility and even toss in an exotic holiday. Reality punched me right between the eyes in one earth shattering moment where I was sure that it had to be a misprint with some zero’s omitted. I had won R792 on the Pick 6 and R84 on the Jackpot, not a bad return given the outlay, but mighty short of my very ignorant expectations.
My first outing to the track produced another very interesting moment. I got a few friends together and we headed off to Turffontein for a mid-winter meeting. I was standing next to the rail and asked one of the regulars where the track was and he told me that if I stretched my leg I would be standing on it. This looked nothing like the lush green surface that I saw on televised races like the July not long before. He had a good chuckle and I must admit when I realised my mistake I was laughing just as much. My wife also produced a classic moment a few years later when she turned to me after the third race and asked if these horses don’t get tired.
The best quote that I ever heard was at Durbanville in the 90’s when a punter was set for a big pay day with outsiders having dominated the first 4 legs of the Pick 6. He was still running, had a banker in the secong last leg (4/10 and facing the three legged variety of opposition) and he had 6 of 10 runners in the last. All set for early retirement, he was watching Leg 5 and coming into the straight his horse was very well placed in 3rd and a front runner renowned for making a brick wall look like the Great Wall of China in front. His horse cruised past the second runner about a furlong out but Murphy had placed a door in the wall and he came up short by less than a nostril. I have never seen a look of such utter disgust ever before and it was at this point that he quoted the most prophetic words that I have ever heard at a race course. He said that “punting is a game for Kings and C!#$@ and I don’t see any Kings over here”. This just about sums up what racing is all about, tremendous highs and lows and centimetres between winning and losing. Non-punters have no idea what a rush a close win can produce and in no other sport is agony and ecstacy such close companions. This is true for punters and I suppose even more for race horse owners.
Racing has great entertainment value, and the big race days bears testimony to this fact, with crowds that reminds us of racings glory years before other forms of betting and televised coverage of sport. For all its short comings racing still has vast potential that betting operators need to tap into rather than tackling the mounting challenges only through subsidisation and diversification. Racing will grow if the punting experience could be more entertaining and affordable to more people. Current products serves racings customer base well but growth will not come from this source in future. Racing needs to re-invent itself through products with an entertainment bias to attract a much bigger and more sustainable market. Accept that not everyone will become hard core punters and that a casual or occassional involvement is a great starting point for growth. Exposure, through supportive concepts, holds the key to unimaginable growth and these formats should get more support from betting operators. If you expose enough people to the game and keep them interested for long enough, the merits of involvement will be clear and a mixture of leisure and serious punters will emerge for the industries benefit.
Let us look for racing solutions for our sports challenges and not reasons to support mainly alternative sources of profit. The solutions are there but operators must be brave enough to support more modern concepts and accept that growth from smaller but regular players will be far more sustainable, and profitable in the long run.
Happy punting – Leon Smuts
