
Issue No 70		07 September 2000

LaborNET	Ask Neale	Tool of the Week

Sport

Boom Mare Skips Mug Town

By Joe McLoughlin

Horse racing is in trouble, sadly, but it has to be admitted that, in the state of NSW at least, it is the author of many of its own misfortunes.

Last Wednesday's Canterbury Park debacle should never have happened at this level of what is not only a sport but a major industry. Fans who roused themselves to the bugle of night racing would not have appreciated the meeting being called off without a race being run.

Punters, being punters, are used to misfortune. They accept that weather and all sorts of unforseen circumstances can play havoc with their sport but when it comes down to something as simple as a major metropolitan club not having a back-up generator in place, forbearance, quite rightly, is thin on the ground.

This STC cock-up came just weeks after cross-town "friends" at the AJC procrastinated over the unsatisfactory surface at Warwick Farm just long enough to write modern-day superstar Sunline out of their spring script.

The champion mare's Kiwi connections always planned to start her campaign in Sydney, as they had in autumn and, indeed, the year before that, when she bewitched crowds at Rosehill, Warwick Farm and Randwick on her way to the Cox Plate.

They were never going to risk her on a surface that was already bringing cries of anguish from owners and trainers of far-less valuable beasts. But the AJC messed around for so long that the Sunline camp felt compelled to re-chart a course without a NSW stop-over.

Already she has toyed with opponents in black-type weight-for-age clashes at Sandown and Caulfield.

Silly me, but I thought it was generally accepted that racing needed its superstars more than ever - not in NSW apparently.

Then there's the small question of the NSW TAB and it's over-powering influence on programing. It can't be easy to be a giant - even a jolly, green one - but there are finite limits to the excuses available.

Their insatiable lust for turnover has ensured that quality runs a very distant second to quantity. Those who suffer are the clubs, the bookmakers, owners, fans and, of course, the punters.

Horse players are now being treated like the mugs who jam their money into slot machines. There are far too many events and venues for most to keep any reasonable record of form. By and large, fields are too small to get anything approaching value for your dollar.

Still, if you're patient and prepared to put in the work, horse playing can be just as lucrative for the small-medium investor as any other form of punting, the sharemarket included.

If you're serious, though, you must go to the track and be prepared to invest through the bag-men, no matter what the spin-meisters from the JGG might say.

Two examples from a close friend over the last three weeks just about sum the situation up. On the day Sunline resumed at Sandown he put $1500 on her snorer at 2/1 with a bookie returning a gross figure of $4500, the same investment through the NSW TAB ($2.20) would have yielded $3300.

The following Saturday he went to Rosehill and, along with four losing bets, scored with Condotti (10/1) and Sea Breeze (6/1). Our friend made a profit of $700 on the day, whereas exactly the same investments with the JGG would have meant a loss of $40.

Variations of those magnititudes can mean, over a year, the difference between comfort and abject penury.

View entire issue - print all of the articles!

Issue 70 contents

Interview: New Internationalism
In its battle with Rio Tinto the CFMEU has pioneered global campaigning. National Secretary John Maitland talks to Workers Online about globalisation, a union response and using new technologies to organise .

History: Pickets and Police
S11 protestors would do well to be wary. Fred Paterson, CPA member of the Qld Parliament, was bashed by the Queensland police on St Patrick's Day 1948, when a Labor Government was in power in that state.

Education: The WEF -Why Should We Care?
An event like the World Economic Forum attracts all the spin doctors for every interest, often obscuring real issues. For educators the issues may seem remote but a closer look shows that services like public education could be dramatically affected by the unfolding agenda of global trade liberalisation says Rob Durbridge.

Economics: A Vandalised Economy
Since New Zealand was opened up to the forces of globalisation, it has performed dismally, both economically and socially. NZCTU Economist Peter Conway reports.

Unions: Our Vital Role in Society
Eight months into his new role as ACTU Secretary Greg Combet reflects on the challenges facing Australian unions.

International: Turning Up The Heat
John Sweeney of the AFL-CIO says the union movement can and will reform the global economy, for as Dr Martin Luther King taught us, the moral arc of history is long but it bends towards justice.

Satire: Threat to withhold pocket money derails S11 protest
MELBOURNE, Tuesday: Members of the activist collective S11 announced today that they had decided to cancel their protest at the upcoming World Economic Forum meeting at Crown Casino.

» Nike Slammed Over Indonesian Factories

» Fairfax Joins Ferals

» Federal Government Blocks Rail Merger

» Auditor-General Blows Whistle On Outsourcing Madness

» Fly By Night Labour Takes Off

» CFMEU Rejects Reith Mischief

» The Organised Olympics

» Killjoy Reith Targets Picnics and Fun

» New Economy Spawns New Plagues

» Multi-national Stymies Peace Talks

» Greed of the Fatcats

» Women Challenge Prejudice in Maritime Industry

» Building Union Raises $42,000 For Paralympians

» Get Organised! NZ Unions Tell Army