Trackside Television Blues

David Ellis comments:

I am just shell shocked at the moment with the way Trackside is promoting our business. On Saturday morning I made sure that all of the farm work and the horse work was completed so that I could come in and watch the first race at Ellerslie and what do I get?

I get the Geraldine trots from the Orari Racecourse so I switched to the other channel that had a blank that said an Australian racing programme will start at 2.00pm.

On Weigh In last Monday evening Butch Castles and Paul Shailer discussed Trackside One and Two and the way they are being used. They then had Michael Dore from the TAB trying to justify the most stupid system imaginable.

Surely the TAB knows by now that practically every hotel in New Zealand only has one channel it will show for a Trackside programme (if indeed it shows any Trackside - another bugbear of ours which the marketing people at the Racing Board should get on to).

So wouldn't it be a far better exercise on a Saturday to have two or three galloping meetings on one channel from go to woah, and on the other channel have the trots?

As I have said on countless occasions I really enjoy watching quality harness racing and have many friends in the harness code but I have absolutely no interest in watching the Geraldine trots on a Saturday when I could be watching racing at Ellerslie.

Surely it's a bit like rugby - most people I know are either interested in watching rugby union, rugby league or soccer. I am a rugby union man but yet still really enjoyed watching the Kiwi team beat the Australian rugby league team a few weeks ago.  However I don't want to watch it all the time and it is the same with everyone I know with Trackside.

The TAB is pushing greyhounds and the harness code down our throats and if the TAB wants to take racing to another level it's high time it woke up to this. There are many advantages to having galloping on one channel, it could promote betting at Ellerslie and Wanganui in greater depth by interviewing really good form analysts all of whom are at Ellerslie and Wanganui. Then on the trotting channel it could spend time going into each horse in detail and giving the harness code a far better bang for its buck.

Lets hope that John Allen, the new Chief Executive who joins the Racing Board next year from heading up MFAT (the  Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and who is a previous CEO of NZ Post) can see the stupidity of Trackside 1 and Trackside 2 and fix this ridiculous situation.

The other day I was staying in a hotel with Karyn in Auckland and I spent an hour talking the hotel into putting Trackside 1 on its television. No sooner have the hotel done that than the galloping programme for that venue had been switched to Trackside 2 it's just so ridiculous and needs urgent action.