What the hell WAS all that nothingness about???
Though the weather gods ganged up to rain on the parade of an oddity named “Eight For Glory”, which was part of the equally oddball fusion of horse racing and football and themed “Racing with Football”, and now that the dust has settled, it would be fair to say that Wednesday night’s racing fixture turned out to be a cross between Tree Huggers Anonymous, Brokeback Mountain, The Rocky Horror Show and Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
It was pretty much like an exploding cheeseburger party with so much of everything stuffed into a taco shell with so much of nothing happening that mere mortals watching from home very probably started having serious anxiety attacks.
What was on display was definitely DIFFERENT, but being different doesn’t mean being good or relevant or making sense.
It could mean rampant and cheesy self indulgence and serial hypocrisy, chitlins.
To each their own, but it appears that the once aspirational driven Hong Kong Jockey Club has fallen prey to the low end of the quality spectrum along with the Hong Kong government’s new love affair with cartoon character marketing.
“Eight To Glory” could easily have come from the confused mind of the Swamp Thing currently resting in the White House.
As for the somewhat bizarre cartoon race video for the Trainers Championship with animated versions of the three trainers in line for the title bringing together Caspar Fownes running with a hammer, Mark Newman looking rather menacing and seemingly wearing one of David Hayes’ hats and with a pigeon on his shoulder, and Danny Shum transforming into some mutant green broccoli warrior.
This whole shebang ends as a cliffhanger, but with Caspar Fownes having trained three winners on the night, and all ridden by Joao Moreira aka Thor, and with just two race meetings to go, one doubts that the cliff is hanging anymore.
If what was on display is a gauge of where horse racing is heading, if he hasn’t already, Peter V’Landys, below, will be saying adieu to Racing New South Wales and focusing on building on his $5.3 billion dollar success in securing television rights for the NRL.
Pete’s extremely bigly success in America makes the World Pool look like a faucet with a dripping problem with those having even a soupçon of smarts staying with those things that are fixed.
The only thing of some interest that we got outta the love fest at Happy Valley aboard the Wednesday night love train is that after the warm embraces from Mr CEO for the Brazilian magic man, he will be back next season- if he wants to-whereas one understands that the Revolving Door policy at the HKJC might already be working overtime.
This video explores the decline of critical thinking in modern society and the emergence of what the creators call "collective stupidity." It argues that while we are surrounded by more information than ever, our capacity for discernment is being eroded by system design, digital habits, and psychological traps.
Comments