STAND STILL AND YOU DON’T STAND OUT.
Once upon a time in the West in 2009, there was a reality series called “Jockeys” that featured Steve Smith, Chantal Sutherland, Aussie rider Kayla Stra, Aaron Grider, Joe Palamo and Corey Nakatami with cameos by Gary Stevens, Julie Krone etc which was fairly successful and probably ahead of its time.
Fast forward to today and there are those either in or on the periphery talking about streaming service Netflix working with horse racing and how huge this partnership would be.
Sure, if the story followed the plight of two grifters off to see the world or losers like the two main characters in Joe Pytka’s extremely underrated and fabulously entertaining “Let It Ride”.
But before any of this, when making the time to understand the business model of Netflix and their business strategy when it comes to creating new content or purchasing existing content, one would know that it has everything to do with how big an audience it can attract.
For example, last year saw the Sony produced and Netflix distributed series K-Pop Demon Hunters account for almost 600 million streams and become an amazing multi media success.
How? Why? A multi million dollar marketing campaign and a simple enough storyline about good triumphing over evil in the shape of three singing, dancing, fashionable and K-Pop action warrior animated characters.
As mentioned before, it’s time for horse racing to stop being what horse racing has come to mean and be seen as since the days of neanderthal man and instead be something TOTALLY different in the way of storytelling and selling its new story.
The old world has already seen movies like “Seabiscuit”, and all those videos produced by racing clubs about what it’s like to be a jockey- the will to win and the stress and strain of race riding etc etc- plus all the other cliché riddled stuff that’s been trotted out over the past couple of decades.
Whether it’s Netflix or any other streaming service looking at a project to do with horse racing, what they would immediately think of is something to do with the game’s underbelly and which would do nothing for horse racing’s brand image- something still hazy to a mainstream audience.
Even if someone would, for whatever reason, finance a darker version of “Let It Ride”, who would have final approval of the script and the edit and green light the project?
Or has something like the above actually been in the works from the days when racing in Macau was coming to a close, footage surreptitiously filmed with the plot being a fictionalised horse racing version of something not that different to “Crazy Rich Asians” about two warring families in the casino business with interests in horse racing? Hmmmmm.
It’s often not what anyone wants, but what’s needed today in a world that needs to be entertained and enjoy almost mindlessly playful Feel Good moments.
For horse racing, it’s time to realise that time doesn’t stand still, and the need for the element of surprise and how this game of chance needs to look outside of the saddling enclosure.
One project some of us were toying with last year was the lead up to the race known as the Everest and with Hong Kong’s equine superstar Ka Ying Rising returning to Royal Randwick to defend his crown. But time waits for no one and it’s way too late to produce something of this magnitude now.
Where there IS time is to start working on the lead-ups to one major race- or maybe 2-3 major horse races- and which attract a global audience like the 2027 Melbourne Cup, or the 2027 Hong Kong Derby.
The climax would be the ‘live’ streaming of the big race.
For myself, having written the script, I am determined to produce a White Lotus type mystery series taking place in my motherland of Sri Lanka and against the backdrop of the country racing in Newra Elya.
Either that, or the team here will produce very very out there TikTok horse racing content and with new media partnerships.
And just to show how Netflix is diversifying its business model, there’s this…
……
RYAN MOORE ACTUALLY LAUGHING AND SEEMINGLY TAKING LE PISSOIR OUT OF WILLIAM BUICK BANGING ON ABOUT CHERRY BLOSSOMS AND THEN TALKING VERY EARNESTLY ABOUT HIS LOVE AFFAIR WITH JAPANESE RACING FANS AND MASSIVE JAPANESE GRAPES…
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