Racing Victoria CEO Andrew Jones says he isn't worried about making the tough calls and offending racing participants in his quest to improve racing in Victoria.
These comments come on the back of a major uproar from the racing community after RV announced a plethora of potential ideas to try engage more racing fans.
Ideas like micing up our jockeys during a race, the potential for whip-free racing and even a Big Bash-inspired teams-based competition.
Trainers, owners and jockeys have since come out and slammed the proposed ideas.
But Jones has defended Racing Victoria’s innovation strategy.
“It doesn’t worry me at all,” Jones told SENTrack’s Giddy Up.
“I don’t do this for self-preservation I do this because my job, career and profession is doing strategy in sport and working out how to grow sports and I think our team has a very clear idea of how to grow racing and we just have to get that message across.
“I’ve learnt very quickly in racing that there’s almost no topic that everyone has the same point of view on unless it involves Racing Victoria paying for something.
“Unless it’s a topic that gets consensus, people disagree on almost every issue.
“I was talking to the Australian Trainers Association committee last week about later starts to training and I said it’d be really helpful if you guys as a committee and trainers association could give Racing Victoria an agreed position and the committee members said ‘we will never be able to agree with each other so you’ll have to make the decision’.
“We’re in that scenario a lot.”
Gareth Hall: "Are you concerned that you are losing the faith of the industry participants?"
— SENTrack (@SEN_track) August 9, 2023
Andrew Jones: "No, it doesn't worry me."
🤔 pic.twitter.com/l8q8QmHm6t
The potential for mic’d up riders has received both support and pushback.
Melbourne Cup-winning jockey Michelle Payne says she would support the idea.
“I think it would be entertaining,” Payne said on Twitter.
“I would love to be a part of it or watch it. Don’t think it would be dangerous if it was done right.”
Jones says it would be a “huge mistake” to completely discredit the idea.
“It’s a matter of degree and that’s why we’re talking to people and that’s why we’ll try anything before we do it in a race,” Jones added.
“The huge mistake would be to shut the door and say ‘this is a terrible idea and we shouldn’t do it’.
“A, that’s naïve, B, it means racing is lagging behind every other sport in the world and C, there might be a middle ground that really works.
“For example, when you watch a race you just see the horses coming around the turn and you don’t hear the sound of the hooves, the jockeys talking to each other, so even having a microphone carrying a microphone and not talking would be a step forward in the broadcast.
“Why wouldn’t we try those things? Jockeys wear cameras successfully, you could make the same argument about a camera, the microphone is the natural next step to try noting we want to make racing more safer and less dangerous.”
"The huge mistake would be to shut the door and say this is a terrible idea."
— SENTrack (@SEN_track) August 8, 2023
Racing Victoria CEO Andrew Jones doubles down on the idea of jockeys wearing ear pieces & mics during a race! pic.twitter.com/xc7DAF33XB
Image thanks to Racenet.