Racing For Change

I recently wrote to The Sunday Times, as one does, in regard to RFC and the decimal odds experiment and how I did not agree with the idea.
The Racing Post today posed the question ‘What do you think has Racing For Change achieved so far?’ upon it’s website and the posted remarks were of interest.
The only positive was from a gentleman who liked ‘the large number cloths’ and that was it. Generally the comments were along the lines of ‘Publicity for itself.’ ‘Makes money for the marketing man’ ‘Not a great deal to be honest’ ‘They are a waste of space’ 'nothing more than a gimmick and have achieved nothing of note so far' and my personal favourite ‘Jockeys wearing ruddy football shirts? They'll have the horses name painted on its backside next!’
I have mentioned previously that the screening of Stewards Inquiries is one of the few RFC ideas that I have been behind from day one and the VisitEngland Quality Assured Racecourse scheme in which courses will be assessed on things such as toilets, catering and retail outlets at least on paper can’t be a bad idea. The Breast Cancer Care Pink Mile at Chester should also be applauded for the money raised, but I would have to agree with the good folk on the RP website that to date I can see little RFC has done for the benefit of the sport.
One of the initiatives, and I am not pulling your leg here, is the encouraging of students to become ‘Horseracing Ambassadors’. According to the RFC website:
‘There are 3.2 million students in the UK who are an important future market for racing, so with the assistance of Capitalize, a specialist consultancy, Racing for Change has commenced a programme to recruit college-based racing fans who can help to promote the sport on campus during the next academic year. The selected students will be given advice on how to set up a university racing society and provided with a toolkit of support materials which will help them to communicate with fellow racing fans in and around their campus. Capitalize is looking for ambitious students who have an interest in horseracing and are keen to gain invaluable experience in sports marketing. Each student will be set a number of projects which will include arranging regular trips to local racecourses, themed educational race nights to help people learn more about horseracing and stable visits to see horses working on the gallops.’
So that is a ‘specialist consultancy’ brought in to advise students on organising a day out.
Down my local, The Cricketers, we have a ‘racing society’ of sorts. My Uncle Bernie puts up a piece of paper on the wall with details of the race meeting of choice on it. If you fancy going racing that day you put your name on the list and your money in the pint pot. My uncle Bernie then books a coach and off we all go.
If the guys at RFC care to drop me a line I will put them in contact with my uncle who will happily, and no doubt at considerably less cost than Capitalize, give them a sheet of paper out of his notebook, a couple of bits of blue-tac and lend them his ballpoint pen!