It was June 2, 2007, the day Authorized stormed up the Epsom rise to Derby glory under Frankie Dettori: leaving Epsom Downs in the warm glow of that hazy summer evening, a young woman who had been working at the racecourse, employed as a performing stilt walker in silvery costume and face paint, was asked a question.
“How was your first Derby day?”
“Horrible. People here are awful.”
She said she’d walked the stilts at many big events, including London’s Leicester Square on New Year’s Eve, and had never encountered such foul-mouthed drunks – men and women – as at Epsom racecourse. She was shocked by the boorish comments and obscene suggestions that were fired her way on that long afternoon as she ‘entertained’ the crowd paddock-side.
“I won’t be coming to the horse races again,” she said.
A short while later on the walk to Tattenham Corner station, with the stress of the day behind her, she commented: “Those horses were beautiful, weren’t they?”
The stilt walker’s experience isn’t that of most racegoers – and it’s a long time past – yet it’s telling and relevant in some ways.
You see, the marketing and promotion of British racing as a whole has mostly plodded around in circles missing the point for at least a quarter of a century. The point being that some kind of connection with or admiration for the main participants is vital in any sport if you want to develop a strong fan base: horses to the fore, jockeys close up. Wearing hats and boozing at racecourse bars isn’t what connects people with race horses – which are indeed beautiful animals with character – or their brave riders.
But when it comes to those spending marketing budgets, too often they are pre-occupied with the sport’s peripheral elements.
The recently released promotional content from British racing’s marketing arm, Great British Racing (GBR), has its place but if this is the thrust of what is to come, it seems to be continuing the circuitous plod. ‘The Going Is Good’ campaign, with a spend from Levy Board funding of £3.6 million, feels a bit ‘Here we go again’ despite Simon Michaelides, interim chief customer officer at GBR, saying: “We’re very excited by this fresh advertising approach to the sport, showcasing the experiences of 4.8 million existing racegoers to inspire more people to follow suit.”
GBR’s 40-second campaign kick-off video keeps the biggest stars, the horses, out of the spotlight, with a quick nod to jockey Hollie Doyle, at least. It is interesting to observe that the video has been viewed 578,000 times on YouTube but received only three ‘likes’.
As for the campaign as a whole, it’s early days, of course, and the spotlight might shift to the heroes as the promo rolls on through the summer, and we might see a successful campaign – GBR is keeping quiet about what comes next – but one thing is striking: as we look to the Derby this Saturday, there is no big promotion of what should be the sport’s most marketable race.
There is no noticeable national push by GBR, Epsom or its parent The Jockey Club around Derby heroes past or present. There is little beyond near-reaching social media posts to connect the broader public to a race that used to be central to Britain’s entire sporting culture: once upon a time Derby Day meant a half-day off work.
Yet this year’s Derby is as fascinating as ever. It features Ruling Court, winner of the first classic, the G1 2,000 Guineas: if he wins the Derby, he’ll be the first in 13 years to achieve that classic double.
Then there’s the puzzle of the Derby trials, dominated by Aidan O’Brien-trained colts: that’s the same O’Brien who has won the race a record 10 times. He has the exciting race favourite Delacroix; he also has the deposed longtime favourite, The Lion In Winter, whose reputation took a knock when he raced too exuberantly in the G2 Dante Stakes at York and was well beaten. Or was that just a City Of Troy-like blip before glory?
The Dante winner Pride Of Arras is two from two in his career. Unlike the O’Brien crew, owned by the mighty Coolmore partners and the pick of them ridden by one of the world’s greats, Ryan Moore, Pride Of Arras is from a smaller scale owner-breeder operation, out of the growing powerbase of Ralph Beckett’s stable and ridden by the still rising star Rossa Ryan.
As Thady Gosden – co-trainer with his father John to two Derby candidates this year – said last week: “It’s the defining race of the season and for many people their careers.”
That makes the lack of a national promotional campaign around the Derby and its participants disappointing and absurd.
It’s different in Japan. The Japan Racing Association (JRA)’s current Derby campaign includes eye-grabbing posters and billboards around the country’s public transport networks, plus a very visible video promo that can be seen streetside on the big screen in downtown Tokyo – tagline ‘Hello, special times’ – which is sharp, conveys occasion, yet puts the horses front and centre. It has a montage of past winners including Vodka who won her famous Derby six days before Authorized, and there’s a spinetingling sweep of about 100,000 connected fans roaring the Derby finish from the packed Tokyo grandstand.
If the English Derby, being the original, lays claim to being the preeminent due to its heritage going back to 1780, Japan’s Derby is making strong headway to being the 21st century’s most important.
The Tokyo Yushun’s prize money is ¥651 million (US$4.5 million), making it the richest Derby in the world, compared to cash-strapped Epsom’s £1.25 million (US$1.6 million). And the fact that Japan’s Derby winner will ordinarily stay in training for an extra year or two while the English Derby winner will likely be retired a couple of races later, means the Tokyo Yushun is already more relevant to the global racing circuit.
One of the things the JRA does well is connect fans emotionally with those horses and jockeys: the ‘Hero Is Coming’ campaign of recent years did it successfully.
The JRA’s marketing, and its merchandise in particular, puts Europe and North America in the shade. And that is mimicked in Hong Kong – which has its own unique Derby for four-year-olds – with its rallying once-in-a-lifetime soundbite.
Recent years have seen the Hong Kong Jockey Club’s marketing team push forward the hero element, much like in Japan. Go past Happy Valley racecourse and you’ll meet four giant poster images of Hong Kong’s four best horses plus eight more of its top jockeys. Its stars, like Romantic Warrior and before him Golden Sixty, are familiar sights on billboards around the city, and, following Japan’s lead, it has turned its hero horses into plushy toys that are popular with fans.
Expect to see versions of last Sunday’s Tokyo Yushun winner Croix Du Nord in the JRA’s Turfy shops later this year if he continues to excite the crowds.
Japan and Hong Kong are culturally different to Britain, but Hong Kong is different to Japan, too. British cynicism might well baulk at cuddly toy versions of City Of Troy, but it’s not so long ago that the same would have been said of Hong Kong with its core fans’ fixation on cold, hard betting and an insular view of the racing world.
The set-ups in Japan’s JRA and NAR (National Association of Racing) circuits and in Hong Kong, each with operators enjoying singular control of their product and high turnover, helps produce sizable marketing spend on meaningful campaigns. But that’s no excuse for the sport’s marketers elsewhere.
Good promotions that connect stars and fans change mindsets and nurture true fandom: fans who want to go to the races not only to bet, drink and be seen, but also to see their heroes, be close to them and share in their triumphs and defeats. That’s what sport is; that’s what racing should be; connection to the athletes strengthens engagement.
Champion the horses, their character and their stories, showcase the people connected to them, and then all the rest, the other fun stuff, the dressing up, the eating and the drinking, the post-racing music, the essential business of betting, will fall in around it. But continue to give the heroes a back seat role in the promotion and we’ll never get past the once-a-year racegoers turning up to get drunk on Derby day. ∎
