-
History at the Races
As a consultant at Precedent, every now and then, you get to work for a client with a very different business to those we would normally consider to be in our core areas. Newmarket Racecourses is just such a client. Many aspects of its business are familiar, such as venue hire and event promotion, and the actual horse racing is not unknown to anyone who has had a flutter on the National, but never have I worked for a commercial client with such a rich history and heritage.
You can find out about the site we planned, designed and produced for Newmarket elsewhere, but for me the beauty of the job was, as advertising execs like to put it, ‘living the product’.
When Newmarket first came to us they made it quite clear - the new website had to be delivered before the first race meeting of the season. And so it was. Everyone at Newmarket was really pleased, and I was invited to attend the first race meeting of the season as a guest. Arriving via the ‘posh’ entrance, I was introduced to numerous employees as ‘the man who sorted out our website’. They had all had a look at the new site and they were delighted with it too. This felt a little strange, since in normal circumstances the only feedback we receive about our work is from our direct client contacts. Even stranger however, were the hourly announcements over the public address system informing the ten thousand or so, racing fans in attendance, of the launch of the new Newmarket website, a site that not only contained all the latest news from Newmarket but also ‘celebrated the rich history and heritage of everything that is Newmarket’. I prayed the site hadn’t gone down.
Which brings me to the point about the history and heritage of Newmarket, since up until this point I had only seen pictures of Newmarket, talked at length to the client about marketing objectives, and read all about why it is considered ‘The Home of Racing’.
But there I was, living the history. A history that goes back to when Charles II realised that the heath land around Newmarket, and in particular the mile long straight now known as the Rowley Mile, was ideal for racing horses. This same straight, alongside which me and many others were losing our shirts, has been used continuously since the 17th Century, and is still used today for classic races such as the 1000 Guineas – named after Charles’ liking for betting 1000 Guineas on a single race, a sum that at the time would have bought the whole of the town of Newmarket, and a substantial part of the surrounding Suffolk countryside, if not the whole county. And I was there, in the thick of it.
But it wasn’t just the ancient history that I was a part of, what about the modern history? Who among the crowd will remember the day that they looked across the parade ring to the ‘VIP’ area, near the weighing room, and remarked to their friends, “Heh look, there’s Michael Owen talking to Frankie Dettori”? I mused on my way home that evening that maybe one of these celebrity spotters might have then asked “And who’s that other tall bloke in the brown jacket?” and one of the Newmarket staff, on hearing the question replied - “ That’s the man who sorted out our website”.
