- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Australian batsman Andrew Symonds in the Twenty20 match, Australia v New Zealand - AAP Image/Tony McDonough
I guess it’s the society we live in today – everything is instant gratification. If someone or something can’t get your attention in the first five to ten seconds, you’re outta here!
While playing around on Google, I looked up the US Breeders Cup horse racing series, looking for some related info for a possible upcoming article.
I noticed they have a new race called the BC Marathon, run over 1 and 3/4 miles, or about 2800 metres.
It would be a marathon for American horses, because the only graded race over that distance in the States is the grade (group) 2 San Juan Capistrano Handicap run at Santa Anita.
In the US, they have no races run over the Melbourne Cup distance of 3200 metres (about two miles). Not yet a marathon for our horses, but probably will become so in due course.
Once upon a time, the capital city cup in each state was run over this distance – 3200 metres – in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth.
But now the Adelaide and Perth cups are back to 2400 metres.
Sydney and Brisbane are in danger of doing same. Additionally, the Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane cups have been down graded to group 2.
Like the US, Australia is moving towards miles and sprints races. Staying races could be a thing of the past. For breeders and owners, shorter races provide a quicker return on investments.
Bugger the aesthetics of racing!
In cricket, the Test format is dying from boredom and lack of love. Leading all-rounders Andy Flintoff (England) and Jacob Oram (New Zealand) have retired from Test cricket, but intend to continue playing LOM & T20.
Both are still young enough to continue playing Test cricket for another four or five years. But there’s too much money to be had in Twenty20 especially.
In rugby, the Sevens version has been admitted into the Olympic games. With the broad dissatisfaction with 15 man rugby, especially in Australia, 7s rugby might become the new king.
Quite unexpectedly, it might also provide a ‘coming together’ point for both union and league, at the expense of both the 15 and 13 man games.
Even netball is experimenting with an abridged form of their game. And years ago, tennis came up with the tie-breaker to shorten games.
In twenty years time, the Sydney-Hobart ocean classic yacht race might become the Sydney Harbour to Port Hacking dash yacht race!
But just to confuse the issue of shorter sport attention spans, we’re being inundated on TV and radio with a multitude of erectile dysfunction ads.
Hello? Hello? Is anyone still reading this?
What’s your best bet? For great odds on all your favourite sports check out PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.