The punter is king.
THE SPORT of horse racing has begun the year with news that doesn’t help the’Sport of Kings’, which has been in dire need of good news for some time now. The Government divested the sport mainly because it could no longer justify the use of scarce taxpayer money to subsidise a sport that has been consistently in the red since the days when the Danny Melville Board was in charge of racing at Caymanas Park.
To be profitable, racing needs to improve the ‘handle’: the money bet on the product that is presented to the public day in, day out. That means attracting more people to bet: the ‘yuppies’ aged 21 to 35. It also means increasing the horse population by encouraging those who breed the animals and by reducing the tax and red tape to those who wish to import horses to race, and eventually breed. One of the ways of increasing the number of people who bet on the product is to attract them. Encourage attendance at Caymanas, and once you get them there, make the experience one to remember. In other words, make them want to come again!
The decision to divest to the present owners, Supreme Ventures Racing and Entertainment Limited (SVREL), seemed to be a workable idea, although there were those who had some trepidation at the thought of one company controlling all the gambling in the country. However, the promised mega-millions of investment, although started, has sputtered as the directors of the company seemed to forget what every ‘racing guinea-gog’ told them: racing cannot turn a profit for at least five years! There seems to be this ill-conceived mindset that profit must come, and must come now!
INSULTING, DEMEANING
The changes at Caymanas have now begun, seemingly thick and fast, as the realities of promoting racing in Jamaica sink in. The punter is KING and must be treated as such. It is his/her hard-earned dollar that can and will rescue racing. It is unbelievably foolish to attract a bettor who, after reasoning and consultation, has decided to bet on a horse, to win and/or to place, and, on seeing his or her selection triumph, glibly to return the money staked, with no profit or incentive added. To place on a tote board the following: ‘Win: $50, Place $50. Second Place: $50, Third Place: $50’ is insulting and demeaning. That scenario happens nowhere else where the promoter hopes to make a profit. The new tote system makes one unable to place multiple bets on one ticket. A punter known to me, purchases his bets early on a race day as his work does not presently allow him to go to the track as often as he would like. He buys win, exacta, quinella, and trifecta in most of the races. He leaves the betting window sometimes with up to 62 tickets, all stuck together. If he purchases a multiple win bet, for example, a pick six or a pick nine, et cetera, the rules state that in the event of a late nonstarter, his new selection would be the on-time favourite. Therefore, in every other racing jurisdiction that I am aware of, the promoter would make, as a policy position, the early announcement of these non-runners to facilitate the punter, as in more than half the cases at Caymanas Park, the on-time favourite really has little or no chance of winning. Thus, if the information is given late, his bet would automatically become a losing bet, to the advantage of the promoter, and to the distinct disadvantage to the punter, the supposed one person who you do not want to annoy!
TAZ, who was supposed to run the fifth race on the Boxing Day event, died on December 24, but SVREL was taking bets on this horse up to the third race when the Pick 9 started. On that same day, RESURGENCE arrived at the Lasix barn at approximately 8 a.m. and was declared lame and not given Lasix (a powerful diuretic that is used to prevent horses from bleeding), but it was not until the second race that an announcement was made that the horse would be a late non-starter. WONG DON died on November 30 but was still being sold as a starter up to the second race on December 1. There are many other examples which could easily be cited. In these cases, the only beneficiary is the promoter. This leaves a particularly bad taste in the mouth of the affected punter, the socalled king.
The new chairman of the board, Solomon Sharpe, has his DNA purely from racing. His father and his uncle, as a team, ruled racing in the 1970s as the legendary Arthur ‘Big Moose’ Sharpe and his brother Owen ‘Pilot’ Sharpe combined to win championships and big races. Therefore, Solomon Sharpe is well aware of the importance of the betting dollar and the implications if the handle is not increased in short order. There is a lot of improvement needed in racing. It can be done, it has been done. All it needs is someone at the helm who is prepared to do the right thing, what is necessary, no matter WHO has to leave the company. Racing has to be run by people who KNOW racing and are prepared to INSIST that the lifeblood of the sport, the punter, and the owners of the animals are protected and incentivised. Solomon Sharpe seems to be the right man. He will need help and cooperation from ALL the stakeholders in racing. Racing can be saved. It must be saved. Over to you, Mr Sharpe.