I have said it a million times Katie, if you have to get people to go to the trots before there is a chance of them buying a horse
Printable View
I think they should be taking some pony trotters and retrained HERO horses around the schools in the larger cities just to show young people that harness racing exists. Also taking students on tours of leading stables and rides in the double seated cart. Maybe some will get their parents to take them to the trots. I don't think the face painting and carnival rides are getting young people interested in horses.
HRV hero horses are at Ballarat this Friday night. We are running a number of experience nights throughout the year where people can get up and personal with our participants.
Good idea Paul. I think the HERO program and the pony trots are two things that will help our sports future.
Compare Shep (Fri) with Thursday's Cranbourne meet. We really have to decide how we are going to help/keep the East
Interesting to note for Shep that the 1690 races have a max of 11 runners while the 2190 races can have 12
http://www.harness.org.au/racing/fie...&fromstate=vic
http://www.harness.org.au/racing/fie...&fromstate=vic
I think it is bloody important.
One way that HRV can make meetings/races at Cranbourne and Warragul more attractive is by making them worth more.
They have used money to make different types of races more attractive - they can use money to make harness thrive and become more attractive to a huge chunk of our state
90 horses across 12 races on the first two meets for the season at Cranbourne compared to 151 acceptors across 18 races at the two meets last year.
Ouch!
The removal of regular Saturday racing at Cranbourne will see these figures further drop this season in my opinion.
Not being a local but how does traffic affect numbers at Cranbourne & Warragul? Example like from the west of Melbourne travelling across town. I'm guessing weekdays would be a hassle.
Yes. Trainers out here may also allow 3 hrs to make a 90 min trip to Melton.
I believe we need to work towards a weekly race meet between YV, Cran and Wgl in five years. People will scoff but the current trend indicates it will be pretty grim in five years without something like this.
Plenty of spare boxes at Cranbourne but hobbyists have to relocate their job, house, family etc which is hard and those wanting to earn an income from the game need a weekly event within easy travel time as you can get at Melton to make the move viable.
Need to reduce the depend on visitors to the region like Shep and Mildura with more participants on the ground locally, in my humble opinion of course.