Light Up Racing is assembling approximately 20 individuals from every aspect of the horse racing industry, across all demographics, united by their passion for positive change over two days of training.

“Our goal is to empower each participant with the confidence to share their stories and perspectives in horse racing,” said Vicky Leonard of Kick Collective. “We believe that by building these skills and generating confidence, we can collectively start shifting how the sport is perceived and talked about.”

The days are planned to equip a diverse group of participants with the tools they need to make an impact. While the first focuses on personal branding, leveraging social media and confidence in media interview techniques, day two advances into content creation and strategies for maximizing engagement.

“By the end of this program, participants will not just have skills; they'll have the confidence to use their voices and showcase the industry from their perspective,” Leonard said. “They'll also have a community supporting their journey.”

This training marks the beginning of a larger movement towards a more open and forward-thinking horse racing community, sharing the positive elements to the wider public.

“When an industry isn't talking, people assume it has something to hide,” added Leonard. “The antidote to fixing the perception and trust issues is by opening the door and inviting people in–both in person and online. Your voice matters, and together, we have the power to redefine the narrative,” said Leonard.

Additional training will soon be announced across the country, reflecting Light Up Racing's commitment to fostering a nationwide community of empowered racing advocates.

“These two days will empower the Kentucky cohort to go out into the community, both in person and online, to engage in fact-based, transparent dialogue about horse racing during a crucial time on our calendar,” said board member Christina Blacker. “We need to share the good stories and we must stop uninformed opinions from driving the narrative of our sport. I look forward to participating in the training myself when it comes to California.”

Click here for more information about the training or email hello@lightupracing.com.

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Over 300 people, spanning across all aspects of the Thoroughbred industry, gathered in Keeneland's Limestone Café to learn about how their own voices and platforms can be used to collectively transform negative opinions about racing into positive messaging through accurate information, transparency, authenticity and professional language.

Building on what she shared during the inaugural event, which covered six critical concepts that can help industry members reshape the public's perception of horse racing, presenter Vicky Leonard discussed turning challenges into opportunities through strategic communication and social media engagement.

“We can use the collective insights of everybody here and the deep knowledge that you all have. You have amazing stories, you know the industry better than anybody, and we can use that to ensure that the content we're putting outside of the industry is more creative than it ever could be if you weren't living it and breathing it,” said Leonard. “Of course, it's going to be more trusted. You guys have the voice that will be authentically representing the industry.”

In 2022, Leonard's Australian-based marketing agency Kick Collective launched Kick Up For Racing. Inspired to establish something similar stateside, Price Bell, Roderick Wachman, Jason Litt and Dr. Jeff Berk spearheaded the launch of Light Up Racing late last year.

With a foundation based on four key pillars of transparency, awareness, community and accountability, Light Up Racing offers three levels of engagement: network, community and cohort.

Beginning at the first tier, members within the Light Up Racing network will have access to resources via email and the initiative's website that will equip them with essential resources, key messages and talking points to address any difficult questions.

Light Up Racing's website has culminated a bank of common questions from the public regarding aftercare, racetracks, racing and welfare, and answers to those questions based on scientific research and expert vet advice. The website's research hub also provides access to various relevant scientific studies that can help in these responses.

“We just need you to be an educated advocate for the industry, in person and online. We want you to be our eyes and ears out there. When you spot something and you're not comfortable responding, let us know. And we also need you to share our information,” said Leonard.

From there, involvement would be expanded to the community level, which aims to bring together a social network of 1,000 industry members and supporters to combat misinformation about the industry with timely, educated responses, while also distributing positive racing content.

“Social media is where inflammatory content gets the most engagement, so people who are often quite irrational tend to get the most limelight and that's a little bit challenging and it's pretty scary. But you don't need to get in a tit-for-tat argument,” said Leonard. “It's just about responding to things that are completely incorrect with what is correct. When you've done that once, or perhaps clarified something once more, you don't need to get involved again.

“It's really important that people who are only there for the comments do see that there's been an educated response to a piece of misinformation.”

Light Up Racing's Vicky Leonard | Sara Gordon

Diving deeper into how best to handle any contentious conversations concerning the industry, Leonard encourages approaching from a mindset of curiosity, not defensiveness. She suggests using two important questions–'What makes you think that?' and then, 'Where does your information come from?'–in response to someone who poses a difficult question in order to discern what their value system is and how best to address the question.

Outside of those interactions, Leonard encourages every industry member to simply be more cognizant of the language they use when discussing the industry. Though many phrases or terms are easily understood internally, they can take on a whole new meaning when heard by someone outside of the industry.

“In the media too, we can also be a bit relaxed. We use terms like 'breaking its maiden' or 'breaking from the barriers,' and again, we don't realize that people that don't know the industry well, it's actually a poor way to be putting our sport out there,” she said.

Continuing on, the top tier would be the cohort, which Leonard explained would be the most time-consuming level of involvement. Within this level, Light Up Racing aims to establish a group of 100 people who have gone through official social media and media training.

The goal is to establish and support a team of people willing to become authentic influencers, forming a grassroots network of spokespeople for the industry.

“When a crisis happens, we don't just always have to turn to our CEOs. If we have the right people in the grassroots, you're always going to be far more trusted than somebody being told that they have to do that interview,” said Leonard. “Our job is to empower you, but ultimately, you have to do it. Whilst we can give you all the tools in the world and the strategy, along with giving you the support and the resources, we do need you, the people in this room, to make sure that it works.”

Outside of providing the resources for those industry advocates to be able to address the media, Light Up Racing hopes to inspire all industry members to use their personal experiences and share that on social media, giving the public a 'behind-the-scenes' look at everyday life in the racing industry. Online content that 'pulls back the curtain' not only garners an audience, but educates that audience as well, which in turn organically improves public perception.

“The time of looking towards just the elite has passed. We really look for relatable people in everyday life. People who know someone in an industry, even if just on social media, are far more likely to trust that industry,” said Leonard. “What's vital with social media is that authenticity trumps perfection. We need to stop worrying about being perfect and start being real.”

Light Up Racing is developing a curriculum that will be released in the next couple of weeks as they bring together their first group of 20 people, based out of Kentucky, to go through the media training. They will do five of these training sessions over the next several months based in different areas.

A full recording of the two community presentations will be available online. To learn more about Light Up Racing and how you can get involved, visit LightUpRacing.com.

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The initial public forum for Light Up Racing at Fasig-Tipton in Lexington Monday night kicked off the most encouraging effort I've seen in my 44 years in horse racing. Vicky Leonard, the Kiwi PR pro who spearheaded a similar effort in Australia after a spate of tragic accidents in the Melbourne Cup, cogently outlined this grass roots campaign to a packed house and was greeted with thunderous applause.

I taught the capstone course in public relations for several years at the University of Kentucky with a systems approach stressing internal publics are just as important as external publics and PR is not simply spin, it is an agent for positive change. Light Up Racing is an exemplar.

In meetings like the ones being held in Lexington, through seminars planned in person and on-line, and through the resources provided by the excellent website up and running at lightupracing.com, the people who make our industry run can seize the day and transform tragedy into transcendence to build a sustainable sport that demonstrates daily our love for the horse.

Monday's meeting was standing room only with a broad spectrum of grizzled industry insiders and enthusiastic young up-and-comers ready to be the change our sport needs. Thank you Price Bell and Jason Litt for your efforts to get this off the ground. I can't wait for the Mar. 5 meeting at Keeneland so we can get started.

Brian Malloy, who is the former managing editor of Thoroughbred Times and ran the Lexington, Ky., office of Shandwick, Intl., then the world's largest PR firm, is now a Thoroughbred breeder in Central Kentucky.

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Held Monday, Feb. 26 at Fasig-Tipton, the event drew over 200 industry members who gathered to learn about how Light Up Racing was founded and what it has already accomplished around different parts of the globe, what the organization aims to achieve in the U.S. going forward, and how individuals can play a role in social change to work toward reshaping the public's perception of horse racing.

It was a diverse group of attendees, with leaders of some of the top Kentucky farms on hand as well as representatives from various racing organizations, bloodstock agents, consignors and breeders. But it wasn't so much about the entities that were represented as it was the individuals who attended because, as the event's presenter Vicky Leonard explained to the group, the public is much more likely to respond to a community of individuals rather than an institution.

Light Up Racing's Vicky Leonard | Photos by Z

“A lot of people don't believe what institutions say and they really struggle to trust companies,” Leonard said. “In fact, it's at the point now that a friend on social media–even if you've never met them–is twice as credible as a government leader or a business. The reason for that is we have such an access to information that we expect it and institutions can be very poor at giving it so therefore if they don't, we immediately distrust them.”

Leonard's Australian-based marketing agency Kick Collective launched Kick Up For Racing in 2022 after a string of breakdowns at the Melbourne Cup led to an increased negative perception of racing in Australia. Kick Up For Racing provided a resource for Australian racing participants to properly address common concerns about the sport so that they could go into conversations equipped with accurate information. Over the past two years, Kick Up's social media platform has distributed engaging, educational media content and has worked with industry participants to address misinformation by giving fact-checked responses.

With the anti-racing voice growing louder in the U.S., Light Up for Racing was founded with the goal of emulating Kick Up's success. Spearheaded by Price Bell, Roderick Wachman, Jason Litt and Dr. Jeff Berk, Light Up for Racing was launched late last year.

Monday's event focused on the science of social change, diving into the psychology behind how public perception is formed and how it can be molded over time.

Leonard explained that in general, people look to their peers to form their opinions.

“We believe people who believe what we believe,” she said. “We want to be able to trust information from people who are like us. If they have the same value system, it's far more likely that we will trust and believe what they tell us.”

Examining social movements like the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge in 2014 and the Black Lives Matter social media movement in 2020, Leonard said that diversity is another important factor. An individual is more likely to believe a subject to be legitimate when they see people from several different social groups share an opinion on the topic rather than multiple peers from the same social group.

“This is awesome for our industry because we have people working for minimum wage and we have billionaires. We have people everywhere in between…That widespread reinforcement is crucial.”

According to Leonard, the level of transparency behind a movement also has a major impact on it's effectiveness, as well as access to consistent data and information.

The question, 'Isn't horse racing cruel?' is one that every racing participant has been confronted with at one point or another. Leonard broke down how individuals can address the topic through science, data and research by asking the other person how they have arrived at their conclusions about the sport.

“90% of people come from the perspective where they actually don't know,” she said. “They don't have a clue what's going on and they're taking one tiny piece of information [to form their opinion].”

Leonard said that people often base their opinions on topics like fatalities, whip usage, and 2-year-old racing. For these subjects and others, Light Up Racing has curated concise, science-driven responses on their 'Common Questions' page that can serve as a launching point to engage in meaningful conversation.

In the coming months, Light Up Racing will be hosting workshops and community groups to train people on how to have effective in-person conversations and social media engagement.

“We need to get proud, we need to stand strong and we need to represent our industry in the best way we possibly can because ultimately, the power is with you,” Leonard told the audience.

Following the presentation, many attendees remarked on the massive turnout and their optimism for similar numbers at future events. One person said they were surprised and encouraged by the diversity of those in attendance and another said the fact that Light Up Racing has seen so much success already in Australia gives them confidence that their strategies can have a powerful impact here as long as the program continues to receive the industry's support.

Light Up Racing's next event will be held Tuesday, March 5 at Keeneland and will focus on transforming negative opinions into positive opinions through strategic communication and social media engagement.

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Born and raised in the UK but now based in Tipperary, Ireland, Steele graduated from University of Edinburgh before gaining a place on the Godolphin Flying Start programme in 2013. She then worked as a marketing executive for Tattersalls in Newmarket for five years and has contributed in a freelance capacity to the racing publications Thoroughbred Daily News and the Irish Field.

Regarding her new role at Kick Collective, Steele said, “It's hugely exciting to be joining such a dynamic team at Kick Collective during a pivotal point of international growth. I am delighted to be a part of Kick Collective's global expansion and being able to offer their services to the European market.”

Established by Vicky Leonard in 2018, Kick Collective has developed marketing strategies for international thoroughbred businesses over the last five years.

“I am thrilled to welcome Melissa to the Kick Collective team, as she will play a pivotal role in expanding our presence in Europe,” said Leonard. “Melissa's expertise and passion align perfectly with our values at Kick, enhancing our commitment to excellence in thoroughbred marketing. With Melissa now on board and our team growing, we are excited for the next chapter of our journey.”

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