No sign of experts

IT would have been nice to see one or two of the seen-it-all, know-it-all Racing Victoria Limited (RVL) ‘experts’ that are so keen to reduce Pakenham racecourse to a five-meeting-a-year shadow of itself, at the New Year’s Day picnic meeting.
Of course finding their way out of their metropolitan-based ivory tower and mixing with the real racing folk – the people whose passion for horse racing is the very reason they have a job – would be very low on their list of priorities.
Reading RVL’s vision for the future, strategically released just before Christmas to minimise criticism, it is obvious that picnic or amateur racing is little more than an annoyance to the big end of town.
Balnarring, one of the most picturesque and social amateur race clubs in the state, was savaged in the report, while it is doubtful that the RVL boffins even realise that Pakenham has a picnic racing club at all, despite it being more than 130 year old.
Well here’s some news for the RVL Chardonnay sippers to ponder – Pakenham’s salt-of-the-earth racing community will fight for their survival and that of their clubs (amateur and professional) from the president and committee down to the stable hands.
That was the message that came through loud and clear from most at the New Year’s Day picnic race meeting and RVL can ignore that at its peril.
Actually that would be a good thing, because there’s no better story than David slaying Goliath!