Racing Victoria claimed the decision not to broadcast Monday’s Foxcatcher Pandora’s Fox program on racing.com was made because of ”misleading” turnover figures, and not because of criticism of the ongoing problem with the Caulfield track.
The well-regarded Foxcatcher content is headed by respected analysts Julian Vallance, Clint Hutchison and Nic Ashman runs in a paid spot on racing.com for major sponsor Pointsbet, a couple of times a week.
The Monday show, which reviews Saturday racing, was not shown by racing.com after social posts promoting it quoted turnover figures from Pointsbet only.
Racing Victoria declined to make official comment on the situation but confirmed the show was withdrawn by racing.com.
The concerns held by Racing Victoria and racing.com centred on turnover figures from the Sandown meeting on May 23 and last Saturday’s Caulfield meeting, which were significantly down at Pointsbet.
Those with knowledge of the situation said it had nothing to do with wider criticism of the racing surfaces presented.
It is understood Racing.com asked Foxcatcher to correct the turnover graphics shared on social media to reflect that they were Pointsbet-only figures and not an industry-wide trend. Racing.com decided not to run the show when the figures weren’t able to be immediately changed.
The program is available on Youtube and made some points about the way the Caulfield track played on Saturday.
Ashman used different data points to criticise the track.
He said the MRC, which he praised for being forward thinking and an industry leader, had been offered the chance to appear on the program and declined.
Ashman offered there were three steps to fix any problem and that were, “acknowledgement, responsibility, solution”.
“Acknowledge that there’s a problem, not saying they haven’t,” Ashman started
“Take responsibility say this is what we’ve done ….. and then solution this is how we’re going to fix it.”
He continued, “this show is on racing.com, owned by Racing Victoria, what better platform to come on they should be opening themselves up to any form of media, particularly on their own channel on racing.com, to chat about this.”
