If storytelling is so important to horse racing why isn’t it telling these?

A couple of friends and I were talking about a number of things when someone asked if a horse racing club or racing jurisdiction might one day host something like a Super Bowl halftime show.

The answer from one of us who worked on the J-Lo-Shakira half-time show was that there MIGHT be a chance of this happening in possibly Japan or maybe Australia though no one should be holding their breath.

The Super Bowl show of shows, she mentioned, is really about advertisers using the huge audience watching the game and the show’s commercial breaks at home to debut their latest campaigns.

Of course, there’s also the show itself where a couple of the very biggest artists in the world appearing together onstage in absolutely spectacular with all the bells and whistles and fireworks.

I don’t think Prince needed anyone else onstage with him except for his band.

How many advertisers will horse racing attract- and what’s in it for them other than very possibly a public relations disaster?

Why?

When in advertising, certain clients had a Clause in their contracts that we would not work for cigarettes, and alcohol brands and certain gambling oriented accounts

There was, we were told, a certain negative rub-off effect on their brand personalities and so what was going on was something very much along the lines of “You are judged by the company you keep”.

It’s easy for, especially governments who need their taxes on betting to be healthier to talk about making horse racing part of entertainment, but how- and who’s the audience and what exactly will the overall product look like and what will it offer and how will it work?

Like what some cities have now, have singers or bands perform before and after the races or have mini pizza performances squeezed in between the races and those plodding paddock parades much needed by hardcore racing fans?

Did bringing superstars like Kylie and J-Lo to the Dubai World Cup races at Meydan some years ago and for an after show meet and greet actually work?

What was the ROI? Or didn’t Sheik Mohammed and his enablers care less?

It was just token showbiz and not everyone can make this work by bringing extremely different ideas and pastimes together. They simply don’t fit unless no one really cares or what’s the price of money for Sheik Mo, anyway?

Could fans of horse racing and entertainment- even if this entertainment was to feature superstars- ever be in perfect harmony like an old Coca-Cola commercial, or would this turn off two totally different consumer groups who might find it difficult being in the same room together?

I have lived with three very different and intelligent and financially independent women and none of whom warmed to going horse racing- and this included keeping me company my Happy Wednesday years.

They preferred going to the very cool whiskey bar called Stockton’s that was in Wyndham Street which they felt was more to their liking because it was understated and cool and hip without having to try to what it was not.

I took the HKJC CEO there one night to see the customers that it attracted- and which what was then the “happening” club at Happy Valley racecourse called Adrenaline couldn’t.

Why not?

Well, why Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly and not Madonna and Cher?

A Happy Wednesday was where younger people in Hong Kong were given economically priced themed nights including ‘live’ music and- key- a friendly meeting place for a very international group of like minded people in their early twenties. 

Though it didn’t attract the sophisticated and more experienced and worldly ladies, the Happy Wednesday brand worked. But nothing lasts forever and knowing when to leave is something that is all about intuition and timing.

Where horse racing keeps going off track is thinking it’s all about horse racing and that other products and industries need THEM.

Wrong. So very wrong.

If horse racing is to ever be more than it is right now, it needs to sell its value proposition to those potential business partners and popular consumer brands currently not looking their way- or maybe are, but with hesitation.

Horse racing needs to first present a positive brand personality and market what this product can offer brands and new businesses targeting the hip, cool and aspirational through a well thought out strategy.

It can’t be a random jigsaw puzzle of bibs and bobs of fluff where worlds and different customer groups collide.

At least until there are some real answers that elevates this brand personality to something more than it is- and this is not something that can be bought- someone like the HKJC should look at improving what it already has- the racing product.

Recently spending HK$14 billion on “new attractions” like feeding carrots to AI created horses, pony rides, interactive games etc and opening new venues at Shatin racecourse for mainly budget tour groups from Shenzhen and the Selfie Generation somehow reminded me of a down market version of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.

One guesses that just like Trumpty Dumpty knows about escalators someone knows what they’re doing.

At a time when the Happy Wednesday entertainment model that I created over a decade ago has been copied by almost every other racing club except the JRA, there’s always room for improving the major attraction-the racing product.

Why not give those stiff, cardboard cutout presentation ceremonies that no one watches some life, and have those attractive girls in blue still dressed like Pan Am stewardesses wear something of a nouveau chic Shanghai Tang ‘look’ etc etc.

Another thing: What percentage of racegoers and those who bet on races care how well-known a jockey is?

Couldn’t there be some new young faces in Hong Kong like very good and young female riders Angela Jones, below, Celina Goudray, Emily Lang etc etc?

Maybe there should be a very good Entertainment Director exclusively for marketing the racing product- the horses, the riders and the trainers and owners- and without Creative By Committee or having to appease some mysterious Dr Strangelove?

For instance, horse racing around the world has had loveably quirky gallopers with really appealing back stories like Chautauqua, Pakistan Star and, today, the always entertaining and recent winner Pride Of Jenni.

Their stories have reached the mainstream media- and created new stories and at least hold some interest in something to do with at least horses with a mainstream audience without bringing in horse racing.

Still with storytelling, think about Hara Urara, the horse in Japan who never won a race despite 113 starts, retired in 2019, and who recently passed away and was given a hero’s farewell.

Just look at its cult status and popularity in Japan, the incredible amount of merchandise made and available in his name and how this very special horse stood for resilience and was even considered a good luck charm by drivers.

Let’s not just talk about racing and the need for storytelling.

Find brilliantly positive racing stories and build great marketing around them which might lead to new marketing opportunities that will help increase turnover and the overall popularity of the pastime.

Do it and not roll out another round of vapid words very few understand or care about- fluffy stuff about some whirlpool and more record numbers and other data driven algorithms that make as much sense to non racegoers and even racegoers as selling Coppertone to Africans.

What horse racing and those who lead it too often suffer from are knee jerk reactions.

Some boffin from government might say, “Jump” and they say, “How high?” 

Someone or another, again probably someone from a government, might say, “Horse racing should have some type of a link with entertainment” and one will probably see something produced where the square pegs don’t fit into the round holes.

And then?

These are the tough questions that those trying to prop up horse racing with bits of this and that should be asking themselves before what is already a sunset industry sinks slowly into the past by trying too hard to desperately be what it’s not.

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