HRV's Less meets but longer programs strategy

I thought of putting this in the Programming thread but decided it warranted a thread of its own as I want to be specific

I suppose it could be argued that if the number of races per annum stay the same and Wednesday is as they have stated - our worst day, then maybe it can result in an increase in Turnover.

But whether the extra races on the longer programs will result in more turnover remains to be seen. I am of course willing to look at the year in its entirety as there will be seasonal peaks and troughs.

I received an interesting email from Ray Chaplin and he made a good point about the gallops racing later in the better weather months and questions whether we will be able to have the sweet 5-6pm timeslot on Sky 1 for these extra races.

I have just had a look at the Wednesday timeslot and there have probably been about 30 day meetings a year on Wednesday which from memory is the number of meets they are talking about cutting a year.
I then thought that it should probably be ringing alarm bells for clubs like Horsham, Stawell, Maryborough, Charlton, Yarra Valley ... all clubs who have had Wednesday meets in the past and all clubs that do not have lights.

No doubt the info on who has lost what is somewhere but I decided to do my own research.
We have about 20 main tracks in Victoria so if the meetings cut back is being shared around (ie some of these regular Wednesday clubs receiving other slots and not simply bearing the brunt of the cutbacks themselves) then no club should lose more than 2 meets.

I decided to just look at the Wednesday clubs I listed above to see how they have fared in the coming months in comparison to last season. I have looked at Sept until June as this is all the Clubs list on their pages at this point in time

It looks like it is being spread around:

Horsham stays the same at 8 meetings for this period

Stawell stays the same at 7 meetings (although 7 last season may have been a little light due to the track upgrade, however this was done in incredibly quick time)

Maryborough -2 meets. I had not realized they have so many meets 23 down to 21

Charlton -2 meets. 10 to 8 is quite a hit

Yarra Valley stays the same at 12 meets

Hamilton -2. 9 to 7 is a big hit

I am sure somebody such as Kyle knows where to look and can tell us who is worst affected.

Doubt you will see 10 races at a Warragul meeting. The club has lost one meeting and the hope is those eight races will be "picked up" across the remaining eight.

But as it was pointed out to me recently...with only seven of the nine programmed races standing up at the July meet, should that trend continue that will be 16 less races on the track for the financial year, or a loss of two equivalent race meets.

The reduction of meets at a track means less use of a venue (some of these recently upgraded at great expense) plus smaller returns on a lower scale to casual staff, local businesses, course photographer, caterer etc IF the extra races don't get up!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amlin

Doubt you will see 10 races at a Warragul meeting. The club has lost one meeting and the hope is those eight races will be "picked up" across the remaining eight.

But as it was pointed out to me recently...with only seven of the nine programmed races standing up at the July meet, should that trend continue that will be 16 less races on the track for the financial year, or a loss of two equivalent race meets.

The reduction of meets at a track means less use of a venue (some of these recently upgraded at great expense) plus smaller returns on a lower scale to casual staff, local businesses, course photographer, caterer etc IF the extra races don't get up!

Your right Kyle so the onus now is on Hrv and its programming team to program meetings so that clubs in the same zone aren't racing close together eg. Warragul/Cranbourne. Also programs need to be matched to suit the class of horses in the zone and more importantly to the available horse population at the time. Therefore allowing for maximum field sizes of evenly matched horses with as many races on the program as possible. It shouldn't be that hard!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Njcstables

Your right Kyle so the onus now is on Hrv and its programming team to program meetings so that clubs in the same zone aren't racing close together eg. Warragul/Cranbourne. Also programs need to be matched to suit the class of horses in the zone and more importantly to the available horse population at the time. Therefore allowing for maximum field sizes of evenly matched horses with as many races on the program as possible. It shouldn't be that hard!

It seems to be a huge challenge as Warragul has been experiencing this drop off in field sizes since around 2004 when they had 13 meets a year.

Further observations:

The regions horse population is highest during the period Warragul races

There is apparently a 3 week gap in the calendar with no meet between Wgl/Crb/Yarra

It seems about one third local to two thirds visitors at Wgl/Crb meets so if the visitors don't come your numbers will be down

The C4-6 race has been programmed 6 times this year at Wgl and has been deleted three times, the three times it has stood up it has had less than eight starters. It is programmed again in August!

The north east link would help things but holding your breath for that...

The concentration of the harness industry at Melton and the growth of Melbourne and consequent increased traffic, has not helped Warragul as some trainers are not inclined to make that trip across the city and it is going to be a long time before one of the Ring Rd - Eastlink connection proposals is built

I have done the maths
It is all the bigger clubs ie those who race more frequently that are bearing the cutback
- 9 Melton
-3 Bendigo
-3 Ballarat
-2 Cranbourne
-2 Kilmore
-2 Maryborough

and 9 clubs are -1 (losing one)

(My earlier maths suggesting Charlton and Hamilton were losing 2 must have been wrong)

Stawell harness racing club has much better facilities than Stawell gallops so I sometimes briefly forget how much the gallops industry dwarfs us.
Knowing that Wednesday day meets have been a weakness for harness (and having attended today's meet at Stawell) I decided to do a little more maths and compared the turnover with the gallops at Geelong today
It was weak day for harness with the first 4 races only having fields of 6 BUT it was also a weak Wednesday for gallops as the meeting was at Geelong not a Metro track (and the class and prizemoney was accordingly less)

As I can probably count on my digits (maybe fingers and toes) how many times a year I punt (and this has been the case for the last couple of decades) I have not really compared pools for a long time
It can be summarized by the following fact:

They finished early today at Geelong but Race 10 at 4.30pm, just a benchmark 64 with 13 starters, held the same amount of money on the TAB as the whole of the Stawell meeting of 8 races. Of course I am not including the gallops Quaddie in this pool, as it alone held more than the whole Stawell meeting.

My first reaction was that I felt like a bit of an idiot for not seeing why we are considered irrelevant by some.
But on reflection I wondered if it really matters. Is there a possibility that they are going to crush us or is it simply a case of us playing in a different 'league' to them.
Maybe it is like one person liking Volleyball, while another follows Football. One might be small bikkies compared to the other but does it matter if that is what we like

Maybe turnover is not the only measure, maybe in growing Melton a survey would find that harness 'rates' up there with the gallops (maybe even in Stawell) but I guess there has to be the question of being viable - warranting the expenditure that supports the industry as we now know it

If you were wanting the industry to grow, you could also look at the positive/upside - just how much turnover there is out there for us to woo!

Amazing to think that France has more turnover on Trotting than gallops

Time for bed - I'm waffling