October
SeptemberSocialism works
I have just finished reading The Phoenix Rises by Ross Oakley, the story of the salvation and consequent thriving of Australia’s favourite sport, Australian Rules football.
The more I read into this remarkable story, perfectly titled, the more I see what is so badly needed in our other extremely popular sport, thoroughbred horse racing.
The more you see, the more you hear, the more that this sport is viewed objectively, the more it should be seen that a very similar approach should be taken to the one that those courageous men took 30 years ago.
While the same parochial, winner-takes-all attitudes that nearly brought down the VFL are allowed to continue to exist, racing is heading for the destination that would eventually have consumed the VFL. The “winners” will have it all, but, at huge cost to the vital industry that racing supports.
We need consolidation, rationalisation, amalgamations, co-operation and, most important and easiest to implement, the equalisation of revenue.
Yes, some very powerful forces have always espoused that this would be tantamount to the “socialisation” of the sport. But call it what you like, it is vital to the industry that provides all the basic ingredients to that sport.
In fact, to quote from Oakley’s book, “Here was a funny thing, another paradox for modern football — some of the key men driving the restructure of the game were by every instinct and belief men of the free market, and yet they had to acknowledge that the best interests of the game would be served by introducing … a kind of sporting socialism.”
Adoption of that position, undoubtedly repugnant in their everyday life, was the catalyst for the salvation of Australian Rules football as we know it today.
Let’s get real. Horse racing is no longer a “sport”. It is an industry that is among the highest providers of employment, yet many of the contributors to that supply chain are either on their knees or already effectively bankrupt.
These people — owners, trainers, strappers, stablehands, etc — are nothing more than pawns supporting a vast international gambling business, which, as has been reported, turns over billions, yet injects a pittance into the industry.
The analogies between the two sports are striking, but who will have the courage and ability to do for horse racing what those brave people did to resurrect Australian Rules football?
Or will racing proceed to its inevitable return to being the “sport of kings”, with the providers their serfs and vassals?
Torquay (Vic)