Legendary racing journalist Jack “Bulging” Elliott was a friend of punters, politicians and especially T J Smith. His pen was mightier than the sword which is why the Melbourne Cup was run at 2.40pm (not the now 3pm) so, as they crossed the line, Elliot would be thunderously dictating his copy to ensure his Cup story would be on the streets in the Melbourne Herald by 4pm – the social media of sorts of its day.
Jack Elliott, Herald Sun chief racing writer just prior to his retirement in 1987. Picture: HWT Staff.
But Elliot was a racing man, gallops that is, and the chance of a trip to the Melbourne Showgrounds or Moonee Valley for a night at the “red hots” in days when crowds heaved to heroes like Hondo Grattan or Gammalite, was as remote as him apologising to the VATC of the day (now MRC) for calling them Very Amateur Turf Club.
It was once apparently mentioned it was harness racing’s “Grand Final” – Inter Dominion time - to which Elliott is said to have bristled with the gruflled retort – “if that ran it through my loungeroom I wouldn’t be watching it.”
Gammalite in 1984 at Globe Derby Park after winning his second successive Inter Dominion with reinsman Bruce Clarke (no relation to me) and owner/trainer Leo O'Connor. The race was worth $165,000. Picture: Unidentified staff photographer
Well, they ran the Inter Dominion on Saturday night, not at the Showgrounds or the Valley but at the new cultural home (since 2009) of harness racing in Victoria at Melton, before a quoted “bumper” crowd of around 5000, mainly locals in what is one of Australia’s fastest growing corridors.
But a mention of Melton, well before Elliott’s time of course, might have seen him reprise another old journo’s description along the lines – “where’s that, is it an emergency landing places for crows flying between Melbourne and Ballarat?”
There were times where crowds at Moonee Valley for the Inter Dominion final outnumbered Cox Plate Day and Popular Alm and Vinnie Knight or Courage Under Fire, Preux Chevalier, Our Sir Vancelot, Scotch Notch, Gavin Lang and Gordon Rothacker and anyone named Hancock or Turnbull were household names. Paleface Adios, perhaps the biggest name of all won, eight ID (as we call it today and add the hashtag) heats, but never a final.
Just as the trots have moved on from the city, so too has the Inter Dominion evolved. It was a point made by Harness Racing Victoria Chairman Dale Monteith on Saturday night as the final culminated heats that had been run at Ballarat, Shepparton and Geelong, regional Victoria was now harness racing’s heartland.
It started in 1936 (Gloucester Park in Perth) with a rotation across six Australian harness racing states and the north and south Islands of New Zealand. It moves to Queensland next year, Albion Park, it too on the move, and Menangle after that, where once Harold Park was home before land values became better than the punt and the experience.
“It’s not even our richest race anymore,” respected harness racing commentator and unabashed fan Adam Hamilton said of the Inter Dominion – it’s a series not a race of course.
But then neither is the holy grail of the turf, Melbourne Cup, Australia’s richest race.
“New Zealand is out of the (ID) roster, they had financial challenges in staging it, the series has also suffered because states have focussed on their own events which is understandable as well but ask anyone involved in the sport what race they want to win and it’s the Inter Dominion, it is the Melbourne Cup of harness racing, it’s the key brand of the sport.”
Hamilton admits tinkering is needed, relevance perhaps tested, but not wavering.
The industry leaders can sort the best outcomes ahead for Inter Dominion series - whether it stays at three heats and a final, timing – why run it before your features like a Hunter Cup and Miracle Mile, especially Albion Park in a sweltering Brisbane summer, and prizemoney – simple answer – raise it - the (Miracle Mile is worth $1m), the ID Pacing Final, $500,000, the trotters $250,000.
“The Inter Dominion is our strongest brand,” as we return to Hamilton, “It creates its own stories, there is no other another sport in the world where men and women compete on such a level playing field. Women won all nine of the pacing heats, had 10 of the 12 runners in the final and won the trotting final. That’s worth telling.”
But sports need their stars, such fragmentation of the Inter Dominion has meant the likes of potential headliners Copy That, Self Assured, Rock N Roll Doo and Magnificent Storm, were all missing from the industry’s showpiece for varying reasons across travel, costs, series and the like.
There is no challenge to the passion of harness racing in its own, just like any sport, it’s how to engage in those in a challenging wagering environment (where greyhounds have usurped, inhaled and Wiley Coyote like sped past) trot’s market share.
I was at Melton Saturday night to enjoy the Inter Dominion, it’s family atmosphere and celebrating harness racing’s elite. Bossy, Glen Boss, was there and embraced the occasion and the winning pacing driver Cam Hart and revealed his inner Cam as a driver.
And of-course it was “special’ for Bruce McAvaney to be there and that chat with Dan Milecki where they rattled off names and superstars and memories as if they were yesterday showed how real it was and what the trots means and can translate.
You must love that passion. Let me quote from the official form guide for just the pacing grand final provide by Jason Bonnington and I’m not sure of any religious persuasion but this will do: “the universe which we inhabit may be infinite in nature, yet it still seems small compared to the potential scenarios in this year’s….” Got it right. Kneel and pray brothers and sisters then sing “Kumbaya”.
It is as if we expect that the Deep-Sea Scrolls are being released or the Shroud of Turin found. Such passion, truly harness racing.
This is the tipping sheet not the hymn list. There is no Reader’s Digest version of the harness form guide, it’s chapter and verse and hopefully revelation, and if that doesn’t follow, hey, then there is always the next race.
Each sport has its dare I say, modern day “click” and as always, they survive best on its stories and the telling and sharing of them but making sure they are well told and better shared. And www.thetrots.com.au is doing a mighty job of that as witnessed by anyone tuned in Saturday night or via piggybacking racing.com’s free-to-air channel 78.
Without passing aside that Junee lad from the Riverina Jason Grimson won his back-to-back pacer’s Final with I Cast No Shadow, (Boncel Benjamin) won on protest last years, but think of this, both were claimers, the equivalent of an Inglis Digital by wining the Cup twice.
I Cast No Shadow was beaten in claimers a year ago, started off in New Zealand with four straight wins, found his way here won 2 of 23 last year and $47,000 but transformed by Grimson into an ID machine with 7 wins from 21 starts and keeping owner Dianne Rielly, 60 years in the game very happy, and with the unexpected gear change of pulling down the sliding blocks – and I know I haven’t got that right.
Put the sprint lane argument aside to that of the whip rule in racing, I Cast No Shadow won. As did Greg Sugars, a James McDonald of a driver (it was his 500th G1 drive for G1 win 54), on Just Believe for wife Jess Tubbs in the trotters.
But as the Cup carnival and the caravan of day-to-day racing moves on, so does the highs of the Inter Dominion to Sugars tweeting his Sunday celebrations mucking out yards and Grimson off to Cranbourne trots for $3000 in prizemoney races.
That’s harness racing, long hours, long travel, less returns, but passionately so for all involved.
“Harness has the greatest challenge of any of the three codes,” Hamilton says.
“We are a traditional product that needs to evolve, we aren’t slick or turnaround, we need to be nimbler and more exciting and adapt to the modern world with bites to their attention span.”
Which is why TrotsVision and the free to air coverage shared on racing.com is more than just an elephant stamp and the message is clear. It’s the immediacy, engagement, and knowledge as key. No egos.
“TV is the future of our sports, participants to their best to help, but our coverage is how we best take out sport to the future. We have no room for ego, we don’t want to service the same glue-on audience, we want to build on our own."
“We are out there to educate and grow out audience, that’s the message, anything but condescending, it’s not about us. We have great stories to tell and tell our audience about it.”
As HRV CEO Fiona Mellor said turnover was around $10m on the night, but “socials” are now more measurable, some 3.3m “impressions”, and add 12,000 hours of consumption in doing so.
I’m not sure that would impress “Bulging”or he even understand. He’d be impressed consuming something else perhaps.
And the #ID23 starts December 1 at Albion Park next year.
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