THE FORECAST: MSG

THE FORECAST: TIME FOR THE MSG

A thought occurred to me while sitting through a particularly mundane session at a racing and wagering conference during the week. If you’re going to bring on an expert panel to talk about some boring-ass regulatory topic, at least introduce them with a bit of pizzaz.

“Ladies and gentlemen. You know him as the Mac Daddy of regulatory law, he’s the OG of wagering reform and he’s here to talk to us about compliance, it’s John Smith!”

Enter suitably nerdy looking 60-year-old bloke in a tweed jacket, BUT to this tune…

Crowd gets to its feet, people start grinding, just for a moment it’s about to pop right off.

Music is like MSG – it makes EVERYTHING better.

I’m not saying racing isn’t exciting, but how much better could it be if we run some big show entertainment style action into the mounting yard or as the winner returns to scale. Do me a favour and completely forget that horses are shit scared of loud noises and just humour me, OK?

GROWING EMPIRE could be the best sprinting three-year-old in Australia. The way this colt puts rivals away in a stride has you grabbing your crotch like 50 Cent in the Candy Shop film clip. Watch him smash up the joint in Race 4 and tighten his grip on the Coolmore Stud Stakes market. If only he came back down the lane to this…

Flemington becomes a mosh pit.

Imagine if PRIDE OF JENNI gets off the canvas and beats VIA SISTINA in the Makybe Diva Stakes. Two super mares doing battle in the race named after one of the very best mares of all time – madness! And as they come back to the yard, Jenni turns her head to the runner-up as Phil Jamieson asks…

Losing. My. Mind.

Sydney racing is halfway there but they can dial it up. Give Sweet Caroline the arse, call Ken Done in and add some bloody colour to it. STORM BOY runs them ragged in the Run To The Rose, Gai leans over hits play on the boom box, flicks the shades down and reminds us again that she’s the Queen…

You literally cannot go wrong with this plan – unless of course Storm Boy takes fright and freaks out jumps the mounting yard fence and goes on a rampage through the crowd – but apart from that this is rolled gold marketing genius.

The big dogs are out this Saturday. It’s all warming up now punters!

BEST: Flemington R4 No. 1 GROWING EMPIRE

BEST EACH-WAY: Flemington R9 No. 5 SPACEWALK

BEST ROUGHIE: Randwick R8 No. 6 FEARLESS