Racing has a rich history - it's time to breathe a bit of life and vision into highlighting it

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The retirement of Olivier Peslier last week set me brooding on a familiar discontent. Let's say you're a relatively new fan of the sport, based in Britain. Even if you've been paying attention for the last ten years, you won't have seen or heard an enormous amount from Peslier.

Then he quits and, from the extent of the coverage, you're suddenly aware that he's a really big deal, a man who's achieved fantastic things. You'd like to know more and especially you'd like to see some highlights from his career, some races in which he is generally acknowledged to have ridden well, so that you can have your own thoughts about him and compare him to your established idols.

Where, in the wide world of the internet, do you go for that? It's not a rhetorical question. If there's an easy answer, I'd really like to know what it is.

If he were some old footballer, Wikipedia would have screeds of information on him, leading off in loads of different directions to profiles and interviews and video highlights. Life is pretty easy for fans of the dominant sport.

Peslier's Wikipedia page is barely more than a list of major races won, which is pretty standard for a racing personality. If you're a determined sort of fan, you might then take that list to YouTube in search for some of those big wins and of course some of them are there, like High-Rise's Derby and Xaar's Dewhurst. But the publicly available footage of Cockney Rebel's Guineas starts halfway through. If you want to see Goldikova's Falmouth Stakes, you're out of luck.

There was a time when the rights-holders made it clear that they hated to see their work turning up on someone else's website, being given away to the whole world. Anyone can sympathise with the point but it seemed heavy-handed to insist on a cull of footage of races from many years before, the commercial value of which must have been close to zero, but which could bring joy to the hearts of fans the sport would like to retain.

These days, Racing TV, Sky Sports Racing, the Jockey Club and others throw footage into the public domain with seeming enthusiasm. But surprising gaps remain when it comes to quality races from seasons gone by. Every so often, a fan will produce some race from 35 years ago that none of us have seen since the day it took place and for a few moments it's like meeting an old friend. In that funny way that memory works, it can dredge up all sorts of long-forgotten associations.

This is work the sport itself should be doing. Putting together highlight reels and publishing film of entire old races, given a new significance by some current event, is a basic idea that should have been pounced on eons ago.

It shouldn't be a case of waiting until some private company sees the commercial value. Some official should be making sure it happens, one way or another, as a way of holding the attention of fans, of bonding us all with the great game, perhaps even of attracting new people.

The non-use made of racing's heritage really distresses me. It's one of the details that makes me think the people making decisions at the top of this sport are not actually fans themselves. Every year, we watch all these fascinating races and then allow them to just drift off into the past. It's a pity and a waste. It means that racing lore is hard for newcomers to assimilate, when some sort of curated collection could give them a flying start.

At least Flat racing has an online Hall of Fame these days and there's some good material in there. But it builds at such a slow pace – I think there's still only 20 people and horses in there, three years after it began. It can't be generating much traffic and it's not easy to use. Where's the contents page, listing who's in there? Do I have to scroll through them all to find out?

Some of the induction videos are very enjoyable but even then there are frustrations. In Willie Carson's one, 90 seconds pass before we see any racing footage. I don't think that counts as giving the people what they want.

Racing used to take its following for granted. Recent years have brought nervousness on that score but little in the way of identifiable action. And yet it has so many great stories to tell, or retell. Time to get on with that.

Read these next:

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What's on this week: Galopin Des Champs among the stars at Punchestown festival before City Of Troy kicks off Guineas weekend 

The Front Runner is our unmissable email newsletter available exclusively to Members' Club Ultimate subscribers. Chris Cook, the reigning Racing Writer of the Year, provides his take on the day's biggest stories and tips for the upcoming racing every morning from Monday to Friday. Not a Members' Club Ultimate subscriber? Click here to join today and also receive our Ultimate Daily emails plus our full range of fantastic website and newspaper content.