Royal Ascot and a right royal marketing opportunity for horse racing goes walkies.
With my partner halfway around the world with her family and girlfriends, some of whom have a vested interest in certain runners at the races at Chantilly and Royal Ascot, I have been with friends watching everything happening halfway around the world unfold from home base in Hong Kong and thoroughly enjoying the racing albeit vicariously.
There’s been the pageantry and sense of history and style that comes so effortlessly to the French with France being the home of Chanel, Dior, Luis Vuitton and so many fashion brands. But as with anything, enjoying any experience always comes down to being with people and how much they bring to the table in ways that cannot be explained. They just do and it’s about them having that je ne sais quoi often mentioned, and how class and style are things that money cannot buy.
It’s why how having something like dress sense really is an art, perhaps something inborn, and how everything about marketing and branding anything is understanding a city’s brand personality and using this to enhance something like, in this case, the racing product.
Can something like this be taught- this “class” thing? Of course not. This would be as ludicrous as once being asked by someone if I could teach someone he had hired to head up marketing about what “good music” is.
I still think how, my then wife Trina was head of the global marketing for Amanresorts while in her late twenties and created an amazing brand in line with owner Adrian Zecha’s vision for the luxury resorts, because she simply got it and intuitively understood what was needed.
This was achieved in an understated way and with zero marketing spend. It was about creating the “Aman junkie” sub brand through word of mouth advertising and having luxury magazines like Vogue and Conde Nast Traveller wanting to be media partners by offering 6-8 free pages of pictorials that targeted their very specific demographic.
With horse racing, perhaps how I feel about the Prix de Diane in Chantilly and Royal Ascot has much to do with the allure of names like Oisin Murphy, Aiden O’Brian, William Buick, the rock star appeal of jockey Billy Loughnane plus being an unabashed Ryan Moore fan boy. He is the GOAT. But there must be, well, more.
It’s 2026, chaps. What might Bob Geldof have done? Or Steve Jobs? Or any game changer who wants to change the game, because the overall marketing of horse racing with its “establishment luxury” is looking somewhat staid and rickety and nothing like the excitement on the track. There’s a huge disconnect. It’s old school trying to be new school, but going flaccid before the winning post.
No matter how hard one might try to give it style and upgrade things a notch, the horse racing product and experience experienced up close and personal in Deauville, Longchamps and Chantilly over the years are very different to going racing in Australia, Hong Kong and Japan.
Some might say that it’s this difference that gives racing jurisdictions their unique personalities, and they would be right. I am, however, talking about how to make the big race days far more memorable not only for the racing and something unexpected that won’t be missed by the mainstream media. The other race days can be everything that’s uniquely local and interesting to local racing fans and the racing media.
The question about aiming higher than racing has been doing is whether there are enough smart marketing people in the game with multi dimensional communications skills and the foresight to EFFECTIVELY market the global world of horse racing in this day and age of ‘live’ streaming and so many different online platforms?
Or is horse racing waiting for something to happen that still isn’t here?
I was thinking about this and just how so many people have such little interest today in reading anything that “looks long”. What is read are sound bites on X and maybe watching some TikTok videos. I have a friend who even watches movies and interviews on fast forward? Why? Lack of an attention span and distracted by clickbait clutter.
Could this mean the lack of an inquisitive mind and missing out on a video like the one below where jockeys William Buick and a very talkative and very funny Ryan Moore talk about a number of things.
Both mention the passion of Japanese racing fans, but, for me, what’s interesting is how much Ryan Moore loves Japanese cuisine.
It’s a strange, but extremely enjoyable interview that shows a different side to the GOAT and something that must surely be of interest to even a mainstream audience?
During the first day of Royal Ascot, the CEO of the Hong Kong Jockey Club suddenly popped up on the ‘live’ feed we were watching and talked about his heavy travel itinerary, his CEO blog, before travelling down that well trodden path about the success of the World Pool he and his team created to pump up turnover, which is apparently doing extremely well, and something or another about how this addition to the wagering landscape is the envy of some other racing jurisdictions.
Really?
Horses for courses and all that, but, at least for my money, where horse racing always goes walkies is in thinking it’s the only game in town and not looking closely enough at the lopsided world in which we are all living in.
Today’s world is where one-time global superpowers have become losers, where there’s a country in tatters and very much divided with many of those “younger people” horse racing goes on and on and on about marching to their own beat armed with their mobile phones.
For what? For a shot of dopamine if their videos go viral. And so what do they do? They are out there provoking anger by picking fights and filming and posting all this “content” on platforms like X.
It’s not something found in any McKinsey report or something that can be researched. You just need to know how to read the play, and as a marketing professional, intuitively know what’s needed.
There’s a need to be as passionate about finding the answers to this just as Ryan Moore and every jockey and trainer are committed to winning.
An example of how divided the world is was the recent UFC fight taking place on the White House lawn and an insult thrown at Michelle Obama while the 80 year old president of the United States sat there smirking.
On the same day, a wonderful painting of the Obamas was being unveiled at the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago whereas the FIFA World Cup appears to have already lost its footing and might be shown the red card.
It’s against this backdrop that life stumbles on and horse racing events like Royal Ascot are taking place with appearances by King Charles and Queen Camilla.
What’s wrong with this picture and how can it be fixed so that horse racing becomes more important and relevant to the non racing world than it is?
Are opportunities to change the perception of horse racing being a gambling driven product with a Warning sign and is a turn off to those on the outside looking in and potential sponsors be slipping away?
Why not a simple non preachy message from King Charles calling for global Unity and delivered at Royal Ascot?
Not to encroach on John Lennon’s beautiful message of peace, but you may say I’m a dreamer, but I don’t believe that I am the only one who wants to create a better world for the next generation to inherit.
In its own small way, the horse racing world can be part of this big picture movement and show how it can help by leading by example instead of singing the same old song like repetitive old choir boys singing off the same hymn sheet.
After Royal Ascot is over what’s next? What’s there to show the world about something perceived as an elitist sport having achieved something full of positivity because it went out on a limb and just did it- not in the name of turnover, but as inspiration for the future of the world.
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