Tradition is having a bad week. Saturday's J.J. Liston Stakes at Caulfield is getting a name change and the Australian Turf Club logo has been labelled the ''heart of Sydney racing''.
When it comes to time-honoured, the Australian Jockey Club, having a 150-year history, beats the Liston by more than a century and was a brand recognised worldwide. Alas, it was ditched due to the merger of the AJC and Sydney Turf Club.
''There were certain names we couldn't use because of legislation,'' a meeting of racing intelligentsia, perhaps more marketing than hard punt, was told in Randwick's ancient AJC committee room where hardcore appeals were heard and industry-changing decisions made.
Meanwhile, down south, the Liston, foaled in 1949, was renamed the P.B. Lawrence. PB who? At first, most figured it was a sponsor.
''As a racegoer since 1949, I'm disgusted with the way famous, traditional race names are disappearing,'' trainer Ron Maund emailed to Racenet. ''It was great to remember previous big-race winners by the original titles.
''Why do these Melbourne clubs insist on changing the names of their great races?'' wailed Keith Ray. ''The Liston Stakes has always meant something to a punter. Now it's the P.B. Lawrence Stakes. That means absolutely nothing to me. The plethora of sponsor names is adding to the confusion …
''The people who run the clubs these days are obviously not punters. The game has been taken over by the bureaucrats and other ego-massagers.''
Peter Lawrence, a former chairman and board member of the Melbourne Racing Club, switched from the Victorian Amateur Turf Club and has been a effective administrator. But J.J. Liston's form reads well, too.
Maybe it was his experience as a barber and publican before entrepreneur, involving being a politician, that impresses. Liston served seven terms as mayor of Williamstown between 1901 and the 1920s, and later nine years on the Melbourne City Council. He was chairman of the Williamstown Racing Club from 1931 until the course was closed in 1940 due to the Second World War. It never reopened. Also big in the Victorian Football Association, his memory was honoured by two sports, the association's best and fairest award, the Liston Trophy, and racing's Liston Stakes.
No doubt Maund and Ray are more my style than Wednesday's field, knowledgeable when it came to colours and brands, in the AJC committee room. ''The ATC prides itself in being one of the world's most desirable destinations for the thoroughbred,'' came an address. Not if the course proper is like Randwick last Saturday.
''Born from a proud and iconic heritage of racing and entertainment, the ATC is a uniting celebration for what Sydney truly has to offer. We bring together the past with the future, pedigree with performance … Welcome to the heart of Sydney racing.''
It was mentioned as a ''sneak peek'' with fine-tuning to come … a special brand is sought to have the ''flexibility to travel [in time] to territory that is still unknown … more contemporary rather than old-fashioned''.
Yet critics on Wednesday felt colour and possible clarity were askew with a telling warning: ''As an industry, we live or die in the next five years on whether we get people back to racing, a lot has to happen.''
The ATC executive general manager, marketing, Melinda Madigan, said Mark McInnes, the former weight-for-age performer in the same category at David Jones, now on the ATC board, was in favour.
''He's highly respected at the ATC board level,'' she said. ''What we set out to do is to say the Australian Turf Club is very much about Sydney racing. We really wanted to have a mark that was simple, that didn't look like another race club with a horseshoe or whip …
''How do we get them back to the track, what facilities do we need, we keep talking about younger audiences, we've been there, done that.''
You had to admire her style. The likes of ''Big'' Jack Ingham, Bill Rutledge, Ray Alexander, Jim Comans and even Arthur Fitzgerald, big contributors to racing at the AJC, the ''soul of Australian racing'', would have been impressed.
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