If my door mat had to cope with the same volume of traffic as my spam folder, I would leave the recycling bin under the letterbox.
Among the least active contributors are the ARC press office. As someone who could live their life without ever watching another horse race, most are of minimal interest. ‘We are delighted to announce that we are sponsoring the Cuthbert Dibble and Grubb Steeplechase at Wethersedge’ or wherever.
But every so often, ARC (casually) deliver hand grenades.
‘Just to let you know, we have opened up the media rights war by buying Newcastle and Sunderland from under the noses of SIS. Love and kisses ARC.’
I was given a couple of hours of heads-up (with a ‘keep shtum’ warning) for last autumn’s announcement that they had plunged the wooden stake into the dying black heart of the GRA by buying Belle Vue and Perry Barr.
Then late on Friday afternoon, when the biggest impending decision seemed to be ‘Kronenburg or Stella?’, they did it again.
‘We have bought Nottingham and appointed Rachel Corden to run our tracks. Have a nice weekend – ARC xxx
WT(actual)F!!!!
I’ve been a journalist for nearly four decades. I am supposed to have a nose for ‘something is occurring’
Nope.
BOOM!
With the dust still settling, I am trying to figure out what it all means.
I usually describe the battle between ARC and SIS as a media rights ‘war’. That view was based on the early noises coming out of the ARC war room that SIS would soon financially bleed out.
But any suggestion that ‘it is a bit of unpleasantness which will be all over by Christmas’ seems about as relevant here as it did to the troops in the summer of 1914.
In the 26 months since the outbreak of hostilities, it has developed into trench warfare and I don’t think anyone would dispute that morale is higher in the SIS trenches than among the ARC troops.
No one would be more aware of this than Rachel Corden, whose own trainers have been hit by prize money cuts, though the cuts have been across the whole group of ARC tracks.
So what is the Arc strategy?
Was it/is it, to keep the ARC product leaner than the SIS equivalent and wait for the betting shops to sign up for the cheaper option?
It would make sense – except – can the bookies afford to hand ARC a monopoly on product?
Put another way, does it matter if SIS fails to make a profit? Although venture capitalists own around 20% of its shares, most of the rest is owned by bookmakers.
The longer this goes on there is a temptation to forget the battlefield analogy and think ‘chess’. What is the revised ARC strategy (or cunning plan)?
We know that:
+ They have unlimited resources – an estimated £18bn
+ Their business mantra is ‘we don’t lose’.
+ They are now the biggest track operators since GRA sold Portsmouth in 2010 and contracted to five tracks.
What they have lacked in the specialist greyhound industry knowledge and they are getting that in spades, by adding a queen to the chessboard in Rachel Corden.
Born, reared and schooled in the greyhound industry, the Nottingham promoter is now among the most experienced track promoters in the land and no one will be more acutely aware of the current issues. The biggest by far concerns the number of available greyhounds. A number of tracks are losing the battle to provide competitive racing with full racecards.
I recall predicting that, for the first time ever, tracks would close due to a lack of runners, and so it proved with Mildenhall and Wimbledon the first to do so. Sure, Wimbledon’s long term future was always doomed but the place closed a year early because it ran out of dogs.
Mildenhall might have been a racing backwater. But with an SIS contract, it could have severely damaged ARC tracks Yarmouth and Peterborough.
Which leads me to one final thought. ARC missed an opportunity to severely damage SIS when they allowed Towcester to close without a decent media rights deal.
Nearly 500 greyhounds were soon dispersed with probably 95% of them ending up at SIS tracks which in some cases, were desperately struggling to meet their racing commitments, even then.
If SIS were to pile resources into Towcester in the coming months – who knows? – they could probably close at least four ARC contracted racecourses and ARC themselves would be out of the game.
If Rachel Corden can persuade the ARC hierarchy of the need to strengthen resources (and like a football manager wanting to know the future transfer budget before he signs up, I can’t imagine that it hasn’t been discussed) there could be some interesting times ahead.
Forget hand grenades – it might be time for the heavy guns!
So the media has latched onto the family rivalry issues over the England/Ireland rugby on Sunday with the Farrells on opposite sides.
The same thing will be taking place in Golden, Tipperary where Holland senior will be saluting the red rose, while his offspring will be waving shamrocks and belting out Amhrán na bhFiann.
In the case of daughter Rachel, born and bred in Eire, she gets a free pass. As for her brothers, as described by their sister as ‘Plastic Paddys’, having been whelped and weaned across the water, they will always be Dorset refugees.
Should they ever decide to return to Britain, they could always be repatriated. . . . . in the Tower of London.
Old mate Tony Smith has taken exception to the ‘bigging up’ of Turnhouse Jet attempting a ‘modern day record’ of 13 consecutive wins over hurdles.
While acknowledging the tremendous feat in winning 12 consecutive races over the jumps, the former Crayford, Newcastle and Walthamstow racing manager questions the merit of a ‘modern day’ feat and reminds us that the great Long Hop strung together 16 open races, on a variety of tracks, including going unbeaten through the Grand National.
One step at a time Ricky – best of luck on Sunday.
Readers who followed our Belle Vue story last week will have picked up on Mick Hardy’s offer to make sure that the Laurels Trophy will be available for the next presentation for the former classic due to celebrate its 90th anniversary this year, assuming Newcastle once again find a sponsor.
The Cesarewitch Trophy
The Belle Vue strong room contains a number of trophies with links to the sport’s distant past. They include The International, which was run at Wimbledon at the end of the year. There are so many competitions with great histories too. Whatever happened to the Gold Vase, the Summer Cup and of course, the Pall Mall?
(Last year of course there was no Arc, Gymcrack or Grand Prix and we are still awaiting word on the Scottish Derby.)
But what about the only classic, of the original ten, that hasn’t been staged since 2009? We are of course referring to the Cesarewitch. Run over 600 yards prior to the closure of West Ham, in the mid 1970s, it evolved into the marathon classic. (The TV Trophy never held classic status).
Now the magnificent Cesarewitch Trophy (right), on which you can find the names of Pigalle Wonder, Mile Bush Pride, and Scurlogue Champ, to name but three, is in the safe care of GBGB, who even took it onto the Antiques Roadshow to have it valued.
Now if only someone could be persuaded to find a few quid and resurrect this grand old race. Who knows, they might be able to amend a similarly named race by omitting the word ‘Kent’. . .
Over to you Mr Smyth 🙂
The Irish have contributed many great words to the English language. ‘Feck’ is probably my favourite with ‘tic’ not far behind. For the uninitiated UK readers, it is certainly not the same as “thick”. In fact, there is no English equivalent. The closest you could achieve would be a phrase of ‘being defiantly ignorant in the face of all the evidence’.
As in ‘now you’re just being tic for the sake of it‘
Sometimes the two words work as contrast. So when an anti says, ‘greyhounds don’t like racing’, the challenge is to know whether they are being ‘thick’ or ‘tic’. Do you really believe that or are trying to justify your bias? Or to quote one anti I heard recently, ‘greyhounds love to run, but they hate racing’. Tic tic tic!
If you are looking for a walking, tail wagging example of canine happiness, keep an eye open for puppy King Axle. Just to see him on parade is enough to make any dog owner smile. His tail doesn’t stop even when he glances up at the dour Jock parading him. After the race, well, he has clearly had the best time ever. Come on dad let’s play!
Axle is an absolute flying machine too, so his happy-go-lucky antics may soon be ‘a thing’ to a much wider audience.
If you want another example, check out the video below. If you can’t accept that this is a dog reliving the moment, your are just being feckin tic.
