General / Graham Cunningham / 26 February 2010 / Leave a comment Free £25 Bet View Market

The BHA's plans to bring racing into the 2010s is a controversial topic amongst lovers of the sport of kings. Here, racing UK Analyst Graham Cunningham offers his views on Racing for Change...

BHA chairman Paul Roy told an audience of 300 at the British Horseracing Conference this week that the ideas of his Racing For Change team "have prompted a hailstorm of forthright views."

Well, here's my forthright view on the movement which is intended to shake racing out of its so-called lethargy and make it irresistible to millions of young people with significant disposable income.

In short, I think it is in grave danger of becoming just a more expensive and highly publicised version of a host of well intentioned ventures (think Go Racing, Showcase Races, Lunchtime Attheraces and the Sovereign Series) which bit the dust having made little or no impact.

Tony Smurthwaite did a typically solid job of reporting Tuesday's Conference in London for the Racing Post, but where was the comment on whether RFC are on the right track with their latest plans? Bizarrely, there wasn't one word of praise or criticsm from the trade paper in Wednesday's edition and when a brief comment piece did emerge from editor Bruce Millington on Friday it argued that goodwill towards RFC "remains simply because all who rely on racing's prosperity for their livelihoods need the project to succeed."

And perhaps we do need RFC to prosper to a certain extent, but the desire to see progress shouldn't mask the fact that a list of what RFC has come up with thus far hardly suggests football should be quaking in its boots.

1. First we had old fashioned Brian to be replaced by edgy, modern Ben. Good luck with that project.

2. Then we had decimalisation of odds being floated. Nothing wrong with the idea, of course, but will it put bums on seats? Probably not. More importantly, will it ever be embraced by cost conscious racecourse bookies? Almost certainly not.

3. Paid media training for trainers and jockeys came next. Nice work if you can get it, but the search for the Stephen Fry of the weighing room could be a long one.

4. Free entry at certain tracks for a week this year. A worthy plan by any standards. But asking those who have tasted racing buckshee to come back and pay through the nose if they come again is another matter altogether.

5. Premierisation of the racing calendar. It seems the Flat season is to begin in May rather than March, while the jumps season will start in November and end at Cheltenham in March. Words cannot express what bunkum this is. And its impact will be negligible.

6. Flat season to end with "a fantastic European finale." Err, it already does at Longchamp. By all means try and compete with Arc weekend, but we already have Champions Day at Newmarket and the French have extremely deep pockets thanks to their link with Quatar.

7. Team events for jockeys and trainers on summer Friday nights. "We might need celebrities to carry it off, "says RFC project director Rod Street. Believe me, Rodders, you might need a bloody miracle to carry this one off.

Of course, sniping at those who are tasked with implementing change is easy, but it's not something I do for the sake of it and it seems clear now that plenty others in the media are beginning to wonder about RFC.

And, while racing clearly needs all the good publicity it can get, is it really so tired that it needs to reach out to third rate celebs in a bid to snare the X Factor generation?

For what it's worth, I reckon racing's showcase events are in fair health overall and key pointers like betting turnover and racecourse attendance hardly point to a crisis.

Getting behind a project is all well and good if its ideas are likely to make a significant change, but will RFC's proposals really change that much about the way racing is perceived or the way it is enjoyed? I very much doubt it.

Tags: BHA, Graham Cunningham, Horseracing betting, Racing for Change