One of the great moments in Australian racing history was Makybe Diva’s thrilling Cox Plate win in 2005.
As the field spread across the Moonee Valley track at the 600m mark, nine horses shared the lead. In the end Makybe Diva pulled away for a famous victory. Her success means she is the only multiple Melbourne Cup winner to have also claimed a Cox Plate.
The race can be re-lived on YouTube but to fully appreciate the vision you’ll need to view the footage in mute or after completing language classes in Cantonese. (See below)
You see, there are only two versions of the race left on YouTube and both are commentated in Cantonese.
Television racing rights holder TVN has deleted all other versions because they breach copyright laws.
Most videos on Australian racing – race replays and documentaries alike – have been deleted on YouTube because of reported copyright breaches. Few have been replaced by the rights holder, TVN.
Last week, Roar Expert Andrew Hawkins felt the pain – his YouTube account was terminated because of reported copyright breaches. Many of his racing videos had been available to watch on the web for four or more years.
If racing was your standard mainstream sport, the removal of YouTube videos in breach of copyright laws wouldn’t be a problem.
But racing is so poorly documented that YouTube had become a main outlet for the visual portrayal of the history of the sport in this country.
And the main benefactor of YouTube’s portrayal of Australian racing history was the Australian racing industry.
By making racing more accessible to a wider audience, the sport surely won.
That’s why TVN’s strong stance on copyright is so perplexing and disappointing.
TVN is owned by Sydney and Melbourne-based racing clubs as well as Racing Victoria.
You would think TVN would view an educated and interested fan-base as a positive for their business.
I wouldn’t expect TVN to support breaches of their copyright but they should be able to understand the positives that can stem from it.
In any case, the racing industry isn’t in a strong position to be able to turn its back on people who want to engage with the sport. And by shutting down YouTube videos that is exactly what TVN is doing.
On YouTube, I watched documentaries about champions like Manikato, Kingston Town and Dulcify. Not only did they educate me but they enhanced my love of a champion thoroughbred racehorse.
Those documentaries are now deleted. TVN has the rights to those documentaries but they haven’t been shown on TVN since.
Manikato – ranked eighth in The Roar’s top 50 by Andrew Hawkins and myself – finished racing in the early 1980s and only one video of him remains on YouTube.
If I hadn’t seen the dominance of Manikato on TV or YouTube, there’s no way I would’ve ranked him as high as I did. My appreciation of the horse, his longevity and comebacks from injury wouldn’t be as great.
Without vision of racing – on TV, the web, live at the track or on replay, there’s no guarantee I’d be interested in racing at all.
So in the digital era, Australian racing’s increasing absence from YouTube will become a growing stumbling block for the sport.
Racing needs to showcase itself where it can. YouTube was a cheap way to do it.
Common sense needs to prevail here. The YouTube bans need to end.
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