A SPORT RUNNING ON EMPTY

Racing fans above a certain age who had their seasonal clocks programmed before the introduction here of AW racing religiously adhere to the principle that the summer months are for flat racing, and the winter period for the less glamorous but more earthly discipline. 

They will now be in the middle of changeover mode. It's that time again to digest all the trainer talks, even if they are more likely to serve as appetite whetters as opposed to sources of profit. This is also the time when you can rest assured an announcement will come that one of your favourites will be out for the season - this time around Topofthegame. By God let us hope Santini stays in one piece !

Call it a mode of mind, or a custom, it is undoubtedly a process that all traditional racing fans ride with every October. We may even try a new angle to compiling shortlists of horses to follow, whether it be getting obsessive over an under the radar yard, or the progeny of certain stallions.

Whatever the merits of these angles, or how the season unfolds, those of us still able to conjure up a buzz, even one with the batteries fading, will be betting regularly through the winter and thus contributing to the game.

What a warming thought it is that the late Presenting's progeny will be with us for a few more years yet, that Fleminsfirth is still active, as one of the morbid areas of the game is watching the final crop of a popular stallion grow older then fade away, whether it be a Vulgan, Deep Run, Strong Gale or Gunner B.

We are probably the last generation containing a meaningful number of genuinely engaged racing fans. There will not be another wave of racing enthusiasts to follow.

Those in any doubt of this this should have been watching the SKY coverage of Chepstow last weekend. The Saturday was marketed to attract racegoers from the Universities in the nearby catchment areas.

We are told they turned out in their thousands. At first instance that sounds quote impressive until you learn that they spent the day in a giant beer tent getting smashed.

Luke Harvey went among them for a chat and it was blatantly clear that they'd have been lured in if the main fare had been rally car racing, motorbike racing, or even just a stage with various musical acts without any form of racing.

Put yourselves in the mind of a TV viewer, who has never visited a racecourse but has a fondness for the horse as an animal. So, they are watching the Chepstow coverage. It quickly dawns on them that the gist of the message the SKY racing team are supporting, is that you come along, get bladdered all day and join in with the inane chants.

I think it would put many off paying a visit to their local course. And those that defend the agenda of courses targeting the fun day out crowds should ask themselves whether it has any prospect of resulting in long term sustainable benefit.

There are a couple of questions that should of been put to some of these students which would have exposed how ridiculous it is to assume that a meaningful number of them would become long term disciples of the sport.

Firstly, are they aware that there is a high class meeting at Ascot the following Saturday ? As the answer will be no, they can then be asked that as they now know there is, would they be watching it on TV and having a bet, or would they instead be concentrating and betting on football.

It's not hard to predict with certainty the category of answers that would be received. And on a wider scale, the fact that they are not racing fans of any sort and won't be betting regularly on horse racing, is the crux of why pot holes and abandoned chassis are ahead on racing's highway.

And it's all very well ITV racing proclaimng what a fantastic future lies ahead for the sport while focussing in on school visits to the racecourse, and Sheikh Mohammed paying a visit to a classroom to discuss the sport.

They were kids from a Newmarket school for christ's sake, of course many would have an interest in the sport, but they are hardly an accurate portrayal of youth interest in things equine.

It is an inescapable reality that if the noughties born and beyond generations do not contain sufficient numbers that will bet on horse racing, then the sport as we know it will fold.

They will be have been brought up by a father, who if a betting man, will almost certainly concentrate in the main on football. There will be no racing newspapers in the house and with wall to wall live sport coverage during the weekend, the racing will pass by unnoticed.

The omens are not good. Many of a certain age will be happy at the thought that they'll have passed away to spare them witnessing the collapse of a fabric of life that only up to a couple of decades back, you would have been sure that it would continue for hundreds more years.

Craziest of all is the idea that the sport can save itself by adapting to a fast changing society. Any proposed radical changes will only hasten the end. It would be like patients being prescribed heart tablets for the rest of their lives to manage and control their illness, then washing them down the sink to adopt a New Age diet.

Best not to get upset. Instead, just let out a hearty chuckle the next time someone from the TV media proclaims the future of the sport is in safe hands.

image reproduced under CC licence (CC BY - SA 2-0)