The Irish Field carried a major interview with Rob Hartnett of Sport for Business over the weekend.

Spread out over three pages we looked at the way the sport of horse racing is structured and at some of the ideas that it might adopt to reach out to a wider audience.

You can read the full article and interview here with registration allowing you full access to the site with a limited number of free articles.

We will carry the full interview here in a couple of weeks but for the moment here are a couple of quotes.

“Something is only impossible if you think it is.”

“I love some of the partnerships that Horse Racing Ireland has drawn up. You see the lads in Off The Ball, they are mad into sport of all kinds but Johnny Ward is a key member of that team. They talk about racing now not just in an hour spot on a Friday. Racing runs through all of their programming so their target audience of young men looking for entertainment or of older couples with kids, you are getting that message out there that racing is kind of cool.”

“If there was one thing that would potentially transform racing it is the growth of syndicates.”

“You need to push rewards around being a member of a community or a club. Give little benefits and lots of information. It works in retail, in hospitality and in sport. Talk to people and give them a reason to actually come and experience what is a great day out. And don’t be afraid that they might not like it.”

We also discussed media rights, scheduling and much more, and gave away a little bit of family history that indicates this is a subject very close to our hearts.

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