WHY do the minor codes – especially harness racing – no longer attract the mainstream media coverage they once did?
Just compare the situation leading into another Interdominion Pacing Championship at Albion Park on Saturday night to the situation some decades ago.
A chosen paid contributor – Adam Hamilton – once a top harness scribe who we understand now works for a major Corporate Bookmaker – has been the only one writing stories on an Interdominion that features Leap To Fame, arguably the best pacer in the world.
Well and truly gone are the days when a big team of harness racing writers from Australia and New Zealand would cover the event annually.
Brisbane alone had three scribes providing a mountain of coverage and form – Gary Keep from The Courier-Mail, David Fowler (the Telegraph) and LGHR (the Brisbane Sun). There was a fierce rivalry for stories between the trio and the big winner was harness racing.
The major newspapers in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth also had dedicated writers to this specific ‘minor code’ , including two each from Sydney and Melbourne not to mention AAP.
Now there are none and the sport has to pay for coverage. It’s not as though harness racing doesn’t have the same amount of stars. So what went wrong?
Some will blame it on the massive drop in turnover because punters lost confidence betting on what they call ‘the red hots’. Others lay the coverage demise on the reduction in mainstream newspapers and the monopoly enjoyed by the Murdoch Media, where it relies heavily on how much Rupert and Lachlan cop in the pocket for coverage provided.
If the Murdoch’s had their way we would be paying for everything. Their newspapers are circulation disasters and their futures have to be in doubt but the price still rises. If you want to read anything produced on-line – be it from the print or website media, expect to pay a subscription.
Those at the coalface say the Murdoch Media only provides extensive coverage of the gallops because of the millions it receives from the TAB and the industry to publish form guides not to mention major advertising revenue from corporate bookies and Harvey Norman (of which Gerry Harvey is a major racing identity).
Harness racing in Queensland is lucky to have an influential owner like Kevin Seymour who kept the sport afloat when it was near rock bottom. He and wife Kaye race Leap To Fame, an amazing pacer being compared to the mighty Popular Alm.
For someone who was weaned on those early Interdominions at the Creek where thousands would line the fence for a glimpse of the likes of Hondo Grattan, Paleface Adios, Koala King, Markovina, it will never be the same. They were followed in latter times by superstars like Popular Alm, Village Kid and Preux Chevalier.
For some inexplicable reason the atmosphere wasn’t quite the same when local heroes, Blacks A Fake (four-time winner), the US import Mr Feelgood and perhaps the greatest of them all, Leap To Fame, emerged on the scene.
From a personnel perspective the saddest part has been the deterioration of the image of harness racing in Queensland. Punters say they can blame it on themselves. Here’s hoping when Leap To Fame attempts his hat-trick at the Creek on Saturday night, the local star will entice thousands back to the track.
Despite a generous invitation from an old mate, former Gold Coast Turf Club chairman, Andrew Eggleston, to join his party in a private box overlooking the finish line (with food and drink provided) on Saturday night, I won’t be one of them.
Not because I don’t want to see Leap To Fame win (I’ll be cheering him home from the comfort of my lounge room) but my memories of covering the sport I once loved include too many bad ones. I don’t want to rub shoulders with identities that I believe are responsible for the demise of the sport locally, one in particular a high profile steward who I regard as the worst I have ever seen.
And it’s not as though LGHR did not once love harness racing to such a degree that he participated as an owner when it was big-time in North Queensland. His initiation was the result of a friendship with Laurie Ryan, a potato farmer who he met when Deputy Chairman of the Thuringowa Shire.
They raced a number of pacers together. Sadly, the first of them, Treasurer, choked down and died on the old Townsville Showgrounds track. He was replaced by another from the Keith Addison stable at Deception Bay in Hunter’s Gent who went on to win over 20 races in the north including the opening night feature at the new Cairns Paceway where he defeated Interdominion Heat winner, Social Knight.
LGHR parted company on an amicable basis with Ryan we he moved his team to Bill Dixon who had decided to shift from Charters Towers where he worked as a linotype operator for the Northern Miner to Townsville to take on the sport full-time. But for the competition of Jack Rix, Dixon was to prove near-on unbeatable.
That was where LGHR first saw a young Grant Dixon, who inherited all the training prowess of his late dad in their move to south-east Queensland and now prepares the great Leap To Fame.
Travelling from Woodstock west of Townsville where LGHR had his horses trained – I would drive past a property with three tiny girls playing out the front. Their father Vic Rasmussen was a harness trainer who had moved from Victoria. His dad Cyril used to clock horses during races which was something of a novelty back then to the harness fraternity in Townsville.
Vic and his wife Cheryl were of course, the father of sisters Natalie, Vicki and Kylie – the little girls playing together who were to make a name for themselves in the sport. Natalie was the trainer of multiple Interdominion winner Blacks A Fake. Vicki and Kylie filled the void Natalie left when she moved from Brisbane to New Zealand.
Six more Inter Dominions have been hosted in Brisbane since Welcome Advice won at the old Creek in 1972. Here’s hoping when the new facility promised at Albion Park is delivered by the LNP Government that from a fans and punters’ perspective ‘if you build it they will come.’
TIME will tell.
