TODAY: HOW THE SPORT OF KINGS COULD MAKE MILLIONS: Daqman has his annual moan about the state of the game, and reckons more people could be attracted to racing under a millionaires’ charter with the sport as beneficiary. He asks for a Premier League of racetracks with big-field handicaps aimed at a public lottery.
TOMORROW: THE FINAL CLASSIC MEETING TAKES CENTRE STAGE: Back to big-time racing tomorrow, first day of the Ladbrokes St Leger meeting on Town Moor at Doncaster.
READ DAQMAN’S RACE-BY-RACE GUIDE: Daqman already has a 45.0 BETDAQ bet in the wallet and he’s in cracking form on the quality scene with nine winning bets on Sunday, including a 7-1 nap. Look out for his daily analysis, race by race.
I don’t usually try to sell big issues in the street. But I wanted to ask people I didn’t know, along with a few people I do know from day to day, like the butcher, the baker and the ice-cream maker, about the issues facing horse racing.
I present my dossier of Daqman’s research in a few words: generally blank faces, with the occasional reference to ‘doping’ was all they knew about racing.
Otherwise, though last year most had heard the name Frankel, general knowledge of racing was poor or non existent on the streets, and public perception is of the negative aspects of the sport.
Mo Farrah, Andy Murrary and the like are household names but no one had heard of Johnny Murtagh. Just a few knew Frankie Dettori, again because of scandal, though one said: Doesn’t he jump off his horse? She paused and then asked: when?
Somewhat taken aback, I said: when what? When does he jump off it? she asked, and I tried to stifle a mental image of Frankie leaping out of the side door halfway through the Derby, saying: I’m not going to win this one, so I’m going home.
There are millions out there without any education in racing. In their pockets millions of pounds going begging. Simply because nothing from the inside reaches the outside. We don’t project ourselves.
Yet the same people spend a colossal amount on gambling, largely on games and on the National Lottery. Racing had its own version which was burgeoning under the Tote of Peter Jones’s days.
But the sport was a BF and missed out when the Tote was up for sale. It got done! So inept and unconcerned had been racing’s governors over the years that much of the problem was that no one knew who owned it.
But the principle of a lucrative pool for racing remains. There are millions out there, mindful of a gamble of some sort, who would ensure the future of racing, if they could be brought into it with a numbers game. It would not just be a means for racing’s survival.. but the road to riches.
What was wrong with the Tote jackpot, even at the time of its grand revival under that canny man Jones, were the weaknesses of any jackpot run within racing, which Jones himself acknowledged.
Firstly, jackpot ‘betting’ depends on a knowledge of racing, though, ironically, a pin would often do better. Secondly, such jackpots are prone to manipulation by syndicates, most particularly when small fields are involved and more than one leg can be reduced to a few ‘bankers’.
Whether syndicates are that effective or not, people think they are, so dissuading many from taking part. The ‘little man’ can’t win against a group throwing thousands of pounds at the target.
The answer is for racing’s authorities to create a lottery-style jackpot with only big-field races of between 14 and 20 – which seems currently to be favoured in our calendar – such jackpots to be sold to the outside world as numbers.
Bookmakers run their own lotteries in the betting shops and for each shop to adapt to a national racing lottery would be easy for them, particularly if they thought it would reduce or replace the levy.
With racing put out to the masses as a numbers game, many members of the general public would begin to take notice of the sport, be won over and take a genuine interest in the game.
To make a weekend jackpot worth millions, a major overhaul is required in which handicaps are big across the cards in Saturday racing.
The ‘new’ public brought into the sport must be able to watch a Premier League of tracks and events, fighting for the spotlight and the big money.
Bling-easy I don’t think, but competitive quality racing with contenders from all over the world hits the headlines and the headlines feed more interest.
They pack the stands for the Shergar Cup, so the publicity must be attracting people who wouldn’t normally go racing. Imagine, if those six races with a guaranteed 12 or so runners had a lottery prize of millions at the end of the day!
Racing has to be political, whether it likes it or not, moving into the big time and moving with the times. This ‘small island’ once held the racing world captive with the best Derby and the best horses.
The Derby at Epsom this year was a race of nonentities. It is now an event of sentiment but one way down the world pecking order for prizemoney and, at home, the Irish Derby is the better arbiter of form and quality in the breed, the Arc de Triomphe in France and the Breeders Cup in America the ultimate accolades in the Flat-racing year.
While on the political rostrum, can I add that another scandal is finally reaching the street, another negative that puts people off our sport: we fail to deal internationally when one of our own is threatened.
The BHA should have taken a lead, calling on all affiliated racing authorities to condemn – and mutually rescind – the decision that came of ridiculous posturing by the Indian Jockey Club in place of justice in the case of Martin Dwyer.
Get the Jockey Clubs together, unite now in an international G20 of the sport and outlaw India for its palpable failure to show even a grain of commonsense and to bring racing into disrepute by making the case a laughing stock.
Not even our politicians at the real G20 summit could do worse (what am I saying!). One thing the man in the street is 100% about: that authority itself when failing in its duty should pay the penalty, not the sport itself.
DAQMAN’S BETS (staked to win 20 points)
BET 6.5pts win FREEMASON (2.20 Leicester), if lose 6.5pts win SURCINGLE (4.20 Leicester) and 1pt win double the two
BET 5pts win AUTOPILOT (3.20 Leicester)
BET 8pts win LAST SHADOW, with 1pt win and place BURNSWOOD (4.10 Worcester)
BET 3.7pts win and place KING BORU (4.40 Worcester)
BET 8.5pts win (nap) ROCKY GROUND (4.50 Leicester)
BET 1.5pts win and place CRYSTAL MONARCH (5.00 Redcar)
BET 5.5pts win AVON BREEZE and 2pts win (stakes saver) BONDI BEACH BOY (5.40 Beverley)
DAQ MULTIPLES: 5pts win double ROCKY GROUND (4.50 Leicester) and CARLTON JACK (5.10 Worcester)
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