October
DecemberMoney talks
The comments attributed to John Wheeler in Winning Post (Snippets, 19/12) were rather telling, particularly his prediction that the anti-jumps lobby, now tasting blood, would focus on other aspects of thoroughbred racing. I am sure he is correct…after all, it is the notoriety most of these people crave; the animals are their simple vehicle.
Yet I wonder if they have had as much influence as they think. In fact I wonder if they have not been some sort of unwitting trojan horse for the faceless numbers men and those obsessed by the glitz of the big race days.
It seemed rather eerie to me to read John Wheeler’s remarks last Friday and then to pick up a Saturday newspaper to read the there were to be changes at the "industry-owned" radio station Sport 927. Those changes intrigue me:
• Angela Pippos is gone and her mooted replacement is Tony Jones — a trenchant opponent of jumps racing (whose ability to make himself an expert at everything perplexes me somewhat);
• Steve Moran (a passionate advocate for jumps racing) is gone and his mooted replacement is Shane Anderson, a deservedly recognised expert on international racing and the "big race day", yet one who is never heard to be championing, or even acknowledging, the battlers with a couple of jumpers, or a couple that may be worthy of turning to jumping to keep the operation viable, at the many country tracks around Victoria.
These changes seem to me to be all too cute, and to dovetail too neatly with one of the reasons given for the appalling decision to end jumps racing: the drop in betting turnover.
(Nothing was conceded about the fact that premier jumps races had been relegated to Sundays — Sundays following Saturday group races when any fool could have told the decision makers that turnover would be down.)
Have the protesters had as much influence as they think? Or do the egos running the industry have some forlorn dream of a year-round carnival for racing in Melbourne with high-flyers jetting in weekly? Then, if the battlers fade out, so be it.
If this is the thinking we might as well forget the industry altogether, because without the grass-roots participants from all around the state it will die.
The numbers people and the "big day" crowd will have killed it off.
Monegeetta (Vic)