IS HORSE RACING GETTING AHEAD OF ITSELF BY ALSO TRYING TO BE ENTERTAINMENT AND HOW DOES THIS WORK?

Some friends were, I think, teasing me on the weekend that by bringing “entertainment” to horse racing with the Happy Wednesday brand for the Hong Kong Jockey Club, I had created a herd mentality that was neither here nor there- “The Square Peg In A Round Hole Solution”.

Of course, Happy Wednesday under me was before Covid struck and Hong Kong was still a happy place.

Today is not yesterday, and I understood what my friends were saying during these post pandemic times, where worlds have collided and already highly flighty animals primed for racing having to suddenly deal with caterwauling sounds they have never heard before, and which some might call music, spooks them.

It also did during those early Happy Wednesday years and maybe we were just lucky or smarter.

This is 2025 approaching 2026, and ‘Live’ music in a venue at the races might work depending on the timing of everything.

It’s about understanding A&R, the quality of the musicians, the mood of customers and the time of day, bearing in mind that the appreciation or relevance of music is usually a nocturnal experience and something that simply does not travel very well in the afternoon or early evening, especially on a racetrack.

This “entertainment” often becomes an irritant and creates an even greater divide than what exists today between those aging hardcore punters very much set in their ways and settled in their own turf, and those younger people who perhaps don’t even know what they want.

There are then those new to racing like budget tour groups from Shenzhen who might see what’s going on and know it’s not for them and just wanna get out.

Perhaps instead of being sidetracked, and changing for the sake of change, those promoting horse racing should look at enhancing the racing product and the racing experience instead of what someone described as the “frilly bits”?

Again, going racing also has much to do with timing. If this were to take place in the afternoon of a weekend, it could completely derail more important plans for the night- meeting friends for drinks, dinner, having a glass of Champagne and perhaps good conversation at a hotel lounge where there’s no resident singer bellowing out show tunes.

Listening to the consumer and understanding customer behaviour in 2025 is what’s going to separate the sheep from the collies or whatever the hell one wishes to call it.

Speaking of consumers, perhaps when British trainer Maureen Haggas recently mentioned that someone or another rode one of her stable’s horses like a “big sissy”, the dear lady just might have opened the closet to a well dressed and often high spending consumer group who might be being ignored by racing clubs.

While looking at things beyond the obvious, surely, Shirley, it’s time that horse racing put some thought into looking at a different way of communicating with that mainstream audience, some of whom believe that Jockey is a brand of men’s underwear.

Without the rudiments of reasonably good communications, it’s all a bit like What If They Gave A War, But No One Came.

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