Horse racing: Fans get more coverage and new pop-up channel

New Zealand Cup week will see more coverage. Photo / Photosport

New Zealand racing fans are in for more comprehensive coverage of major meetings as the TAB looks to double down on huge recent results around the Everest.

The TAB, now run by Entain, aggressively promoted the A$20 million Everest at Randwick on October 14 and reaped the rewards with betting on the actual race and the Randwick card increasing by over 100 per cent on last year.

One of the key elements in that strategy was more targeted Everest broadcasting on the TAB’s TV channel Trackside through an Everest build-up show in the weeks heading into the race and the launch of a Trackside Premier pop-up channel to highlight the biggest meetings without the distraction of wall-to-wall racing.

With the latter deemed a success, TAB bosses will extend the Premier Channel to boost New Zealand’s major carnivals over summer.

The new channel (Sky Ch64) will next be in operation for the three biggest days of New Zealand Cup week: November 11, 14 and 18.

The boosting of coverage of racing’s biggest days comes as the TAB/Entain will start returning more presenters to the track, a move which worked successfully at the recent Hastings carnival and Ashburton’s huge harness meeting on Monday.

That will return the channel to something closer to its pre-Covid broadcasting model which had a lot of on-track coverage, much of which was axed because of Covid restrictions and subsequent budget cuts for the TAB’s broadcasting arm.

Comprehensive coverage of domestic racing is crucial to make it an appealing betting product and competitive for the eyeballs of Kiwi punters, as most of the world’s most successful racing jurisdictions have increased coverage, including on-track presenters and shows, in the past two years.

The new approach is made possible by Entain’s financial investment but also because that company’s Australian arm has established an excellent reputation for producing shows or bite-sized content and that business model now looks set to reinvigorate Trackside.

“With all the investment we’re putting into supporting racing in New Zealand, across all three codes, it’s going to be great to see it come alive on our screens,” says Entain NZ managing director Cameron Rodger.

“We need to continue to make Trackside more accessible to fans, a stronger presence on social media and in short-form content will help us attract younger fans into the sport.”

A new relationship with TVNZ1 will also not only see the Melbourne Cup covered on the channel again but TVNZ+ showing more racing coverage.

●Superstar New Zealand sprinter Imperatriz appears to have drawn perfectly for Saturday’s Manikato Stakes at The Valley.

The Matamata mare will start from barrier 4 in the seven-horse field, which should enable jockey Opie Bosson to keep her off the rail and ready to swoop when he wants in the Group 1.

Australian bookies reacted by tightening Imperatriz into $1.45 to win the A$2m sprint on Cox Plate day.

Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.