"Old killjoy" needs to check the market

This next passage comes with a warning: You should NOT read if you are young. You should NOT read if you are under 25 and have a deep interest in racing. You should NOT read if you have a liking for going to big race-days to enjoy the atmosphere and the horse flesh, or either on their own:

This was penned by someone from that last bastion of backward sporting protectionism that spends their days writing for that sporting soap box that is the Sydney Morning Herald. Richard Hinds- resident "old killjoy."

As ever, the best of Melbourne's spring carnival was on the track and the worst in the outer. There, the now traditional throng of teenagers and other barely legals successfully impersonated the dress codes of their parents but, as the pools of urine and vomit in the tunnel to the car park indicated, failed miserably to display much class in their drinking habits.
This might sound like the curmudgeonly lament of an old killjoy embittered by his recent contribution to the Bookmakers' Retirement Fund. But how would these kids like it if we started turning up at the Big Day Out dressed like Fifty Cent or Beyonce, filled ourselves to the eyeballs with ecstasy and started jigging around embarrassingly while losing our lunch at their event?
No, it's time racing officials stopped patting themselves on the backs about the sheer size of the crowds and began exercising some responsibility. Unlike we mug punters, most of the youngsters left in a heap of crumpled fascinators and nylon ties don't know any better.

You can go and stick your Yoga and you can put your Pilates on the shelf, I need an animal tranquiliser with a beer chaser to quell the anger and rage that the above comments well up inside my racing loving body.

(Before I start let me say that the following references to race goers who are not "young" and attacks against that group are aimed only at those older people who don't want to see young people on track, like "the-shortened-version-of-Richard" Hinds. They are not directed at the vast majority of Race Club members and elderly punters who like to see young faces at functions or in the betting ring at their local racecourse.)

Let me tell you who I am "the-shortened-version-of-Richard", I am a proud racegoer, I work at the track, and would probably do so for nothing, because that is what the sport means to me. Racing is the first thing I look for in the sport section of the paper and racing history and analogies are regular fodder for the verbose ramblings (samples on this blog) that effuse from my mouth on regular occasions when I am both sober and tipsy.

I have my theories about racing and theories about horses; I have my favourite trainers and my favourite jockeys and believe that if everyone in the world were like racing people then three-quarters of the world’s problems would not be problems any more, such is my respect for the sport and its players.

I go to the track on big days and I wear my best suit, I wear a matching shirt and tie and the tie is made from silk and tied in a Double Windsor. I have never vomited at a race course or urinated behind a tree at one (although there are racetracks in Brisbane and Sydney that should fix their facilities so I don't have to start.)

Yet for some reason, some reason that was not enunciated in your article, "the-shortened-version-of-Richard", the event is "your" event before it is "my" event. That if I go to Derby Day at Flemington you have more right to be there than I do. That I am out of place there, despite the fact that marketing of the day and events on course are geared towards my age bracket.

But how would these kids like it if we started turning up at the Big Day Out dressed like Fifty Cent or Beyonce, filled ourselves to the eyeballs with ecstasy and started jigging around embarrassingly while losing our lunch at their event?

This idea of “our” event and “your” event, it is ridiculous, it makes no business sense, it possesses no logic from a social perspective and quite honestly it is an affront to basic decency and civility and is one of the most damaging things a reporter can write about a sport he apparently loves, unless he wants to cripple it.

And racing would be crippled if it didn't appeal to the younger market! Racing is an industry of many facets and its ability to pull young people through the door with glamour, gambling, girls and guys is brilliant considering that it is the event, and not the actual horses, that draws the crowds in.

Further, one of two things can be read into "the-shortened-version-of-Richard" Hind's sarcastic piffle: Either young people turn up to the races filled to eyeballs with ecstasy, or they do it at the Big Day Out. One thing that cannot be denied is that the above passage casts aspersions on ALL young people, painting them as drug dealing barnacles on the pylons that stand in society’s river.

Am I going to say that some no young person abuses illicit substances? Of course not. However, this pathetically petulant "old killjoy" tantrum that sensationalises the abuse of drugs to levels that make out that all those at the races who wear a revealing dress and can do so without the aid of cosmetic surgery are on drugs is a scurrilous, ageist abuse of one’s position as an "informed" opinion maker/giver.

I say to anyone who doesn't like this type of marketing designed to attract young people, don't come to the racetrack! If there are enough of you out there and it is so important to racing as a whole that the portion of the older generation that hate young people are able to be on course without having to worry about the evils of the under 30s, then racetracks will ban under 30s; the market will determine that.

I personally think that young people are good for racing, for turnover and for the industry's image. Young people and the vibe they bring as a marketed group put on courses a range of extras that make racing vibrant and attractive. They include fashions on the field, lucrative sponsorships and a young generation of punters that will be tomorrow's commentators, bookmakers and owners. These are essential to the longevity of the sport. And I am sure I am joined in that opinion by every CEO and person of worth who knows the figures and the positive consequences of having young people at racetracks.

Certainly the current vibrant nature of racing is more attractive than the alternative outcome that would result from "the-shortened-version-of-Richard" Hinds getting his way: A race day that would see the tumbleweed beat the favourite home.

I think I might go and fetch my silk tie now, I don't know which one to choose, Fendi? Versace? Oroton? All of these are ties with a bit of style as well as class.

Maybe there are positive lessons to be learnt from the youth after all Mr Hinds!