Ideas for The Morning Line

Quite a few things I disagree about, Gh.

Grasshopper said:
It's the suggestion that terrestrial coverage is a cure-all for racing's ills that is misplaced.
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It might not be a cure-all but it's a very important aspect. Without terrestrial TV I'd probably give the game up. Then again, maybe it's people like me that are the problem.


Grasshopper said:
Firstly, most people think it is bent to a greater or lesser degree.
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They do and let's be honest it is. It might be straighter than in any other country - which I doubt - but along with just about every other sport, including the so-called icon of fair play, cricket, it is bent. The problem is that in racing the shadier side of the game is what's promoted from within the sport, eg the Barney Curley coups, etc. The racing media laud when a 'gamble is landed', etc. It's hard to get new people into the sport when they feel outsiders from the start.

Grasshopper said:
Two, the language is arcane and inscrutable and too hard to understand.
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And Yorkshireman, googly, square leg, fine leg, etc, to take some terms from just one other popular sport, aren't? The more they're used and explained the quicker people will come to terms with them.


Grasshopper said:
And three, understanding the mechanics of form takes time and experience, and the vast majority of sports-watchers have neither the time nor inclination to learn it.
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This part I do agree with. In these days of quick fixes, exemplified by the proliferation of FOBTs and virtual racing, these evils are the stuff of bookies' dreams. The bookies don't want us having access to information other than what they want us to access.

Part of the problem is that most people feel to get the most enjoyment out of racing they need to have a bet. People don't feel that way with other sports. Betting is a side issue with them. I can't remember the last time I had a bet on the snooker, for example. I don't know if I've ever had a bet on the darts. I very rarely bet on anything bar horse racing and even then only on the type of races in which I focus my form study.

I do think the big meetings and Saturdays need to be brought back to the more popular channels, away from C4. They gave it their best shot and it worked for a while but it's a case of adapt or die.
 
The problem is that in racing the shadier side of the game is what's promoted from within the sport, eg the Barney Curley coups, etc. The racing media laud when a 'gamble is landed', etc. It's hard to get new people into the sport when they feel outsiders from the start.

Exactly. And even on here the whole seedy business was lauded as well as pretty disgracefully in the media. Anyone with a fringe interest in the game would rightly turn their back. There are plenty of other betting options to being ripped off by a miserable old po faced tosser

The doping is possibly even worse given the headlines that generated.
 
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Desert Orchid said:
That's what I suspected.

Do they have bookies there?
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You know they don't; but that's little to do with why their racing is straighter.
It's properly policed by officials who appreciate the importance of punters to racing's income, and apply the rules accordingly.
 
Has cricket really taken off?
the IPL and the Big Bash are fabulous but going to the T20 bash the last 2 years on FRIDAY night too, it's only 30% full. I can imagine county cricket is empty?
ODIs and Tests are like Cheltenham, the other stuff is in the same boat as racing. Pyro etc is only at the TV games too.
T20 is a great product that needs to follow the way IPL and Aus do it.
 
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I think 20/20 is awful in truth but cricket has a similar audience to racing. By far the majority of attendees go once a year for an annual fix. I am pretty sure that this was confirmed in a survey. The slight difference is that racing is more for the day out and cricket more for the sport. Cricket has a pretty large following. Go in any office and you will find someone who can talk through the test match but find someone who can recall last years Derby??

County cricket is far from empty. Bit of a myth there and crowds have climbed in recent years, from a low base admittedly. Festival county cricket can be very busy
 
reet hard said:
You know they don't; but that's little to do with why their racing is straighter.
It's properly policed by officials who appreciate the importance of punters to racing's income, and apply the rules accordingly.
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I suspected they didn't but didn't know for sure. I don't follow racing politics that closely.

Would the substance of your second line apply if bookmakers had as big a say in their sport as they do here?

Am I right in concluding that in HK it is genuinely a case of punter v punter with the industry taking its cut? How much does the government take?

Does HK cover our racing and do/should we charge them for it?

(I honestly don't know.)
 
reet hard said:
It's properly policed by officials who appreciate the importance of punters to racing's income, and apply the rules accordingly.
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yes it is..and its what is lacking here

in HK if you are slow out of the stalls...you better have a very good reason.

The very first type of policing i would like is at each course one person lists all trainers/jockeys horses that are slow from the stalls...i would then like a league table to be produced..jocks+trainers who are at the top at the end of each month get financially penalised as its then clear its not just unlucky instances occurring.

This wouldn't be hard to do...we could actually as a forum do it..make a list each day for a month just out of interest..i think it would make very interesting reading
 
Desert Orchid said:
Would the substance of your second line apply if bookmakers had as big a say in their sport as they do here?
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Bookmakers aren't the problem.
Lifted the following from TRF, posted by someone who understands HK racing better than you or I ever will


Alan Aitken, SCMP muses on this demonstration of how in HK the punter is Number One :

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Spalato was unbeaten in Singapore going into the traditional Hong Kong Sprint lead-up and was touted as the "new Rocket Man", but beat just one runner home after racing wide then pulling up lame in his right hind leg afterwards.

When HKJC stewards inquired into the flop, there was an indication that Spalato had "briefly exhibited a restricted action in its right hind leg" before he raced and a hearing into that was adjourned.

Stewards have been unable to reconvene that hearing with trainer John O'Hara until next Monday, but chief steward Kim Kelly said yesterday he was keenly aware the betting public would be making decisions on Spalato's performance when they bet on the Hong Kong Sprint this weekend.........

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At this time of the year, with so many visitors in town, we do run into the odd Hong Kong racing critic but, overwhelmingly, the view from abroad is condensed into a few words: why can't we do this at home?

The reality is that you can't replicate Hong Kong.

Places like Australia or Britain or the United States, or just about anywhere for that matter, might do things differently if they had a blank sheet of paper to start again.

In all of those places, planning and action for the benefit of the sport and the industry are constantly stymied by in-fighting, fragmented rights and jealousies buried in the mists of time.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong racing has all the first things that would be written on that blank sheet - central administration and vertical integration of all the telecast, gambling and regulatory elements of its business into that central administration, all with strong but arms-length government co-operation and no breeding industry with its own different agenda to run interference.

The days of an actual gambling monopoly are gone in an age when so much of the action takes place online - some might say those days never truly existed when robust illegal markets were considered - but what Hong Kong does and should be copied isn't down to that "only game in town" mentality anyway.

Tuesday's unique decision to allow details of the "Spalato inquiry" to be made public, before the inquiry, is an example of the club getting on to the front foot for the sake of its customers, punters.

In some places, they put forward the most important groups in racing as owners and punters.

Sorry, it's punters.

Take away horseplayers (from anywhere but Dubai) and you have no prize money and nobody wanting to race just for ribbons.

Take away owners and racing organisations can easily buy horses and put on races to bet on.

And, for the sake of punters making an informed decision on the merits or otherwise of Spalato's last race, vis a vis his chances in Sunday's Hong Kong Sprint, the Jockey Club will today make public the evidence for an inquiry likely to be held until next Monday.

That evidence will deal with Spalato's condition on the day of his failure, what was done and said by the people handling him, but no official judgments will be made on that evidence until the inquiry. It will be out for display for punters to make up their own minds before they bet on Sunday.

There will be administrators elsewhere in the world who wonder why the club would bother, and there will be those who tremble at the implications of releasing evidence well in advance of an inquiry.

But, as we said, Hong Kong is unique. The club doesn't get everything right but it gets an awful lot right - as expected, with the level of control available. And it is perhaps the only jurisdiction where the customer is put first - a mindset that seems really difficult to replicate.
 
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interesting read

the problem here is that many punters themselves also believe owners are the most important people...they aren't

we had this discussion on here many moons ago..many believed owners were the most important people if i remember correctly

so when punters have been trained to think they are at the bottom of the food chain..thats where they will be..and where they are..fodder for the industry
 
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clivex said:
I think 20/20 is awful in truth but cricket has a similar audience to racing. By far the majority of attendees go once a year for an annual fix. I am pretty sure that this was confirmed in a survey. The slight difference is that racing is more for the day out and cricket more for the sport. Cricket has a pretty large following. Go in any office and you will find someone who can talk through the test match but find someone who can recall last years Derby??

County cricket is far from empty. Bit of a myth there and crowds have climbed in recent years, from a low base admittedly. Festival county cricket can be very busy
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Somerset county championship home games are always well attended and this applies to when some of the days are midweek.
I'd go more myself but I'm always bloody working.
 
I can confirm your observations on Somerset - I go there once a year for a county match day to have a few beers and watch some "proper" cricket with friends, plenty of people there.

I also go to New Zealand once a year, and I've been to a couple of days at a Plunkett Shield match at Eden Park, but there were no more than a dozen spectators there, no exaggeration. All the Kiwis want is 20/20 or 50 overs cricket.
 
EC1 said:
If possible can we keep this reasonably serious and hopefully someone like Rory, or anyone in the racing media that does read the forum, could pass on our thoughts as punters as to what we would like to see to make the show interesting to cynical sods like us.
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Kind of you to elevate my press room status, EC1, but I suspect Gearoid is correct in his assessment of my influence. On the other hand, Nick Luck's mother is allegedly a fan of my work (I kid you not), so there's a sliver of hope!

It's a good topic for discussion all the same, and while I take on board the validity of the doom-mongering from brother Grassy et al, there are ways of making the most of TML - ditching some of the cast makes sense, as most of the input isn't needed, and I'd rather have a dedicated host for the show, even if that wasn't a household name. A show is synonymous with its host, and someone should have the opportunity of bonding with the public, rather than operating a weighty cast like a ventriloquist. I'd have no more than three on the sofa, plus a weekly guest. Ruby Walsh was terrific when he was on, and even the clown Geoff Banks managed to add to the show by getting on Ruby's tits. Unfortunately, C4 got the idea that GB was a draw on his own, and his continued presence is unfortunate to say the least - the only upside is if they treat him like Baddiel & Skinner did Statto on Fantasy Football.
 
Aragorn said:
The "aint worth saving it" position is fine in the short term and I agree the programme is terrible but what it stands for and peoples long terms views are the issue. We're all into the sport but do you think people will pay subscriptions in the future to watch something they know nothing about? No.
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You are spot on there.

People aren't going to go out of their way to find out about racing, great sport though it is. It's not like the old days when if you wanted to have a bet you had to learn about racing, and would likely become a fan. So, it's important that the programme, or some successor, succeeds. We can't expect people to beat a path to our door if they don't know what's behind it.

My ideas?

1. Focus in some proper detail on two races, typically the big black type wfa race plus the big handicap.

2. Have a "weeks big talking point" item, might be about the Pattern, drug policy, small fields, whatever you like, but in some depth.

3. Do away with unnecessary jargon. A chance visitor might imagine it's being broadcast in Martian, but without subtitles. Example: there's nothing "unracinglike" about saying 1 1/4 miles rather than 10 furlongs, nobody under 40 knows what a furlong is anyway.

4. Have fewer dull people on it, I mean both presenters and guests. No industry time-servers, yes men, fence-sitters, wafflers or monosyllabic mumblers.

5. Change the slot back to 9am.
 
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EC1 said:
interesting read

the problem here is that many punters themselves also believe owners are the most important people...they aren't

we had this discussion on here many moons ago..many believed owners were the most important people if i remember correctly

so when punters have been trained to think they are at the bottom of the food chain..thats where they will be..and where they are..fodder for the industry
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Very good point. A strange constant refrain on here in the past
 
Surrey too. Oval is nicely buzzing on cc days and guilford is often packed. I went to worcester last season and was amazed how many were there
 
Things that could go without anyone noticing...

The betting update - pointless having that at 8am. Available online. I cannot believe that people are waiting for the morning line to get updates on the betting market.
The "interview the CoC" - pointless. Available online....if you are driven by ground you wont be waiting for a 2 mins segment with a guy digging his heel into the grass.
Panel...there is zero need for 3 or 4 regulars reading through the racing post and picking out their best friends horse (eh Alice?). I couldnt care less what Nick, Alice, Mick etc are tipping up for the day.
Close it down in the summer and show re-runs of Everybody Loves Raymond.

And add...

One guest (trainer or jockey per show) - overview of his horses for the day....but dont get PFN on if you are just going to blow smoke up him.
Take the 3 biggest races of the day and do a detailed (10min) review of form. They dont bother doing it on CH4 Racing - so this may be a step forward. (I have the same issues with RUK now also - there is hardly any form discussion prior to a race, yet they spend 10 mins reviewing post race)
 
I've got to the stage that I don't even read the Racing Post any more. I just open it to the Irish meeting of the day and that's it. Racing has whored itself on tipsters that don't understand betting. I put the Racing Post in the bin every Saturday for that very reason.
 
rorydelargy said:
Kind of you to elevate my press room status, EC1, but I suspect Gearoid is correct in his assessment of my influence. On the other hand, Nick Luck's mother is allegedly a fan of my work (I kid you not), so there's a sliver of hope!

It's a good topic for discussion all the same, and while I take on board the validity of the doom-mongering from brother Grassy et al, there are ways of making the most of TML - ditching some of the cast makes sense, as most of the input isn't needed, and I'd rather have a dedicated host for the show, even if that wasn't a household name. A show is synonymous with its host, and someone should have the opportunity of bonding with the public, rather than operating a weighty cast like a ventriloquist. I'd have no more than three on the sofa, plus a weekly guest. Ruby Walsh was terrific when he was on, and even the clown Geoff Banks managed to add to the show by getting on Ruby's tits. Unfortunately, C4 got the idea that GB was a draw on his own, and his continued presence is unfortunate to say the least - the only upside is if they treat him like Baddiel & Skinner did Statto on Fantasy Football.
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I think the idea of having just one host might polarise opinion. No matter who you picked..a section of people would object..ie Matt Chapman..to me would be worth trying..but many would hate it...Nick Luck i think is excellent..other people will not like him. I'd throw in Lydia Pearce to the mix as well..i thinks she is very good..others may not though. So maybe have 2 main presenters....then at least you would possibly appeal to 80& of racing fans..possibly 20 for Matt and 60 for Nick:). But at least you would have covered both bases.

I think someone like Hugh Taylor having time on there would be good..there is a sample on you tube where he analyses sires who like slow ground..but he uses A/E rather than simple old %'s...stuff like that is helping and informing the ordinary punter..makes them looks at racing more logically.

You need people like yourself and Andy Holding who can rip a race apart and highlight horses that have good chances of winning and why others might not...that sort of analysis has to be of interest to a punter..he can learn from it. At the moment you get people passing casual views on races on there but rarely mention strong negatives for horses.

So there you have an educational aspect..but you do need humour..again..that can polarise views..what humour?..Tommo type..Matt Chapman type...again it needs to be a mix otherwise you alienate 50% of people.

I do think you have to have extremes..if its too middle of the road..people again complain its boring.

I think having a set tone to the show is not the way as we have seen..it needs a bit of mix+match.

There are all sorts of features on jockeys + trainers that can be thrown in.
 
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I'd get some fresh blood in...and I mean fresh blood. Not just a rejig of the same old faces or people doing similar on other channels. I used to work in the industry until quite recently and at open days, seminars and the like there were plenty of young, keen, knowledgeable racing fans, some of whom were interested in getting into broadcasting. Find a couple of those with camera presence and create the stars of tomorrow. Let them air their opinions and focus on the day's main races without having to arse lick owners or trainers; have a ban on bookies appearing (the show could do a quick round up of latest prices just before going off air - serious fans aren't watching the ML for betting updates anyway).

Some ideas for features:
Short weekly "Jargonbuster" slot - pick a topic and explain in layman's terms what the arcane language means
Round-up of decent racing websites / blogs / industry people to follow on Twitter (ideally for being a bit opinionated / quirky) and other social media - it's how people communicate more and more
Stud features - eg where the day's big race was won in the past by a mare now retired to the paddocks, have a feature on the mare, her offspring - for a lot of people, racing isn't just about the odds, it's about the horses too
A decent competition to lure people in, well-publicised - either a one-off with a big cash prize (£10k+?) and maybe the incentive to look out for the special 'codes' over 2-3 programmes to keep people watching, or a rolling cumulative prize, say starting at £1k and going up to £10k if not won, based on a short racing quiz. Interspersed with the usual "win tickets to X meeting" type too.
 
Can't really think that a section on breeding going out 8.00 am on a Saturday is going to work (stud farms with your breakfast - urm...no thanks). Personally I think it would bore people rigid. Jargon buster has been tried before.

The bottom line is people need an incentive to watch this programme, and if the 'team' could demonstrate they were making a profit and become a televised Pricewise they'd succeed. I don't know who the most successful of them are as punters, but I was always under the impression despite the bad press she gets, that it's Tanya?

Otherwise it looks like the Emma suggestion is about the most likely to turn this sinking ship round!

Racing has a problem really that won't go away. It isn't easy to market something as a spectator attraction that lasts 3 minutes in every 35, and takes place at a distance of a mile away. The absence of any meaningful team dynamics, and the constant retirement of its players every 2-3 years makes it even harder. There is just so much about it that runs contrary to our sporting culture. Money however, never went out of fashion
 
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