From the 1 May 2004 edition of Cloughmore News
It’s an emotional business, racing. You know that there are ups and downs and optimists like yours truly would even argue that the inevitable downs make those moments of success even sweeter.
However, it occurred to me recently that one thing our industry could do much better is to educate newcomers to racing about the realities: there’s nothing more exciting on the planet than to win a race with a horse you own or have bred, but you’ve got to be aware of the downside.
How often are people lost to racing after one unsuccessful experience? It’s not getting people into racing that’s the problem, the difficulty lies in keeping them involved.
We need our PR people to focus on this: to generate stories about people who have stuck at it, without costing them a fortune, and eventually gain the thrills of success.
Those of us who have been around for a while know that the thrills outweigh the disappointments. Maybe we could all do our best to get this across to friends, relatives, and colleagues.
