Vol. XL February 6, 2009
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The next twelve weeks provide a window for us to change how racing is marketed.
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THE WAY WE MARKET
For the public outside of horse racing, the Kentucky Derby is the only day which stirs interest in the sport. We have eighty-five days to till new ground, plant the seeds, and reap the benefits. Once the roses are placed around the Derby winner’s neck, we are awarded the two weeks leading to the Preakness to make hay of the public’s seasonal passion for racing.
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Photo courtesy of Churchill Downs |
This is a time to educate and groom people about the entire sport. We wrongly place the weight of the entire industry on the back of the Derby winner. The newly-turned three-year-old lugs 126 pounds over a mile-and-a quarter in a 20-horse field, and then has only two weeks to ship to Pimlico and face another gate filled with the best from a crop of nearly 40,000. It’s too much to ask for a young colt or filly to carry the entire industry and all our hopes too.
Our style has been to use the fourteen days between the Derby and Preakness to make a super-hero of the Derby winner. If we’re lucky our hero wins the Preakness and we receive three more weeks until the Belmont to turn up the heat. New interest in our game sprouts like crazy during this period, but for the past 31 years the hype ended because we have been unable to produce a Triple Crown winner. We would be mistaken to place a disproportionate amount of expectation on achieving the coveted crown again this year--it’s time to hedge our bet.
2009 presents a great opportunity to change the way we market our sport. The winners of the great Derby prep races from across the country begin to attract little clusters of followers. We should be prepared to lead them to the untold thousands of other intriguing stories and beautiful images of racing. Every trade publication and media outlet has a golden opportunity now, to choreograph a fabulous program from the untold thousands of tales and historical glimpses racing has to offer. God knows there is plenty of material from which to draw!
This is a time to display the multitudes of elements that surround our great sport too. Do you realize that the average person not only is unconcerned about racing on a day-in, day-out basis—they are also completely naïve to the far reaching effect it has on horses, people, jobs, tax revenues, and the stewardship of our land?
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Race Horse Oats growing in North Dakota |
Photo courtesy of Dan’s Oats |
What a wonderful opportunity this time frame presents for us to tell them—show them in pictures and present in print what racing is from the inside. For the sake of the industry, can’t WE put selfish agenda aside, give our egos time off and join together to establish solid footing for why racing not only deserves to exist, but to display the traditions and joie de verve that non-fans are missing? To borrow from another recently-successful campaign, I say. “Yes, we can.”
In twelve weeks the general public is going to be led right back to last year’s Derby and the focus will not be on Big Brown’s victory, but on the tragedy of Eight Belles. Calvin Borel and Street Sense’s 2007 victory in the Run for the Roses will receive less coverage than will Barbaro’s great winning performance in 2006. Unfortunately, that will serve as the precursor to taking our timid public to Barbaro’s tragic accident in the Preakness two weeks later. Big Brown’s impressive Preakness victory will be glossed over and his no-show effort in the Belmont magnified. This penchant toward the tragic by the media is not limited to racing, but preparation for the onslaught must be prepared for.
The entire industry should poise to receive blows from every direction. Some will come below the belt but they require to be defended as well. We have media to train—media that has long been running in the wrong direction. Twelve weeks is the window and if we are not fit for the fight, we’ll put ourselves closer to joining boxing in more ways than metaphorically.
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We must look in new directions |
Photo courtesy of Barry Bornstein |
Marilyn Lane
Editor-in-Chief
QUOTABLE
"The task of the writer is to seize the reader by the back of the neck and force him to love life" ~ Leo Tolstoy
This editor’s task is to take fans by the forelock and lead them back to the traditions and joys of horseracing. |
