The front page of The Australian, Tuesday October 15. Two figures, one atop a horse, emerge from the pure black ground in perfect silhouette. Above them, a painterly dawn sky of vivid reds and blues. At a glance you could forgiven for thinking it was for a story about our brave Anzacs, as if perhaps the culture wars around Anzac Day are, like Christmas, entering the public square earlier and earlier each year.
As it turns out, the national broadsheet was dedicating roughly a third of its front page to a feature interview with horse trainer Tony McEvoy, and his contention that “the Melbourne Cup has lost its Australian-ness” and that The Everest is “our big race now”.
It’s just part of a flurry of coverage the race has managed to inexplicably get in the news section of Australia’s papers. The Oz has continued today, putting an Everest story — this time about the projections of the jockey’s silks onto the Sydney Harbour Bridge (“a dazzling light show”) — on page three.
Meanwhile page three of today’s edition of The Age featured a spirited defence of the Melbourne Cup from various racing luminaries. This includes owner Lloyd Williams who said, in an interview that seems to have been conducted over text message: “Iconic events are created over centuries. Australia has two: the Melbourne Cup and the Ashes. I find the comments amazing. Tradition we need. Don’t destroy it.” (Helpfully, Williams has cited two iconic events that have not been around for centuries). All interview subjects agree, however, that The Everest is a “great contest”.
Today’s Daily Telegraph dedicated a front-page pointer and page six and seven splash to the arrival in Australia of Everest headliner Kelly Rowland, as well as the bridge light show.
This follows the Nine papers having NSW racing CEO Peter V’landys spruiking Everest in yesterday’s opinion pages. He argued Victoria’s decision to block Everest from group one status had backfired, saying it had “contributed to the success of the race with the younger demographic. Young people don’t want to do the same things as their parents. When their parents joined Facebook, they started using Instagram. If a parent is seen wearing a particular brand of clothing, the sales to the younger generation plummet.”
So true. I’ve lost count of the number of TikToks I’ve seen featuring kids straight-up yeeting at the prospect of the world’s richest on-turf horse race.
On Monday, the Tele dedicated a typically breathless front page to the ongoing issues between Racing Victoria and The Everest, after Victoria offered the event group one status in return for The Everest changing the date.
Of course, this is not the first time the papers of Australia have filled their pages with promotions for the event. As V’Landys mentioned in his piece, “last year, I managed to upset certain groups with Racing NSW’s proposal to beam The Everest barrier draw onto the sails of the Opera House”. That controversy resulted in nearly a full working week of front-page stories in both Sydney daily papers, amounting to millions and millions of dollars worth of free publicity.
This time, it didn’t even take a decidedly middle-class protest featuring celebrity guests to get the front pages. Despite the fact there has been no comparable outcry, the coverage of a horse race is still making it into the “news” section. We don’t know how they do it.
During the school holidays, I took my ten year old granddaughter to an afternoon screening of Ride Like a Girl at Cremorne Orpheum. There were a lot of children in the audience. Imagine my reaction when the pre-movie advertising included promotion of a betting agency. My dismay increased when a very slick video began that caught everyone’s attention – the cinema immediately went quiet – it appeared to be the start of the movie. But we were all sucked in – it was a promo for The Everest Race. As far as I know you cannot advertise gambling during a daytime sports broadcast, but you can clearly target young people who go to see a PG rated movie. Very disillusioned!!
Ahh. The “Jones-Harvey Opera House” (“It’s not yours it’s ours”?)? …..Why didn’t they just put a red-light outside the door?
A ‘Faded Parrot hangover’, from last year.
I don’t understand this “Jones-group think”. Sure cash can buy you(r) positive comment/PR after a period of your studied, targetted slagging-off of that previous mark for vitriol – but how does it buy tradition.
A pox on the racing industry. The recent events regarding Darren Weir demonstrate the cruelty and corruption that wrack it from top to bottom. My grandfather was among other things a sports columnist in his younger days. He was highly educated with an MA from Oxford but when my father came to ask permission to marry his daughter ( dad left school at 14) his only question was “Do you have anything to do with horses?” Dad’s surprised answer was “Only the ones we use on the farm”. “That will be perfectly all right then,” the old gent replied. The difference between the much maligned greyhound industry and thoroughbred racing is simply the wealth of the participants.
Money makes it happen. I expect Everest to fade away due to lack of enthusiasm.
As for Greyhound Racing. It is pure gambling. I hate any animal being exploited by humans, but to see beautiful, gentle, polite Greyhounds being abused by punters and such, because they didn’t win is revolting in the extreme.
Since the year 2000 I had the honour of adopting three Greyhounds at various times from GAP Victoria. I also fostered quite a few. Greyhounds are as vicious as any dog that has been taught to be so. Basically, they are gentle creatures who deserve our love. Did you know that Greyhounds are the only breed of dog to be mentioned in both the bible and Shakespeare? That speaks for their longevity as a well-loved breed.
How do they do it? Too much money spent on ephemera, a do nothing government that let’s sport become front page news (even you, Crikey), stupid inter-city rivalries about who is best (again, brash Sydney v marginally more stately Melbourne).
Gotta love front page Advertorials