Quote Originally Posted by Midfrew View Post
TBM, do not disagree about the big fields. What the wagering turnover figures do prove conclusively is that you need 12+ equally rated horses in a field to maximise turnover. Drop even one or two below 12 and the wagering drops by a greater proportion.

Your second point is on the money. My personal biggest concern is not the lack of foal numbers but the diminishing number of owners. This is one reason why I think HRA is crazy to deter cheap purchases of going horses from NZ with the Import Fee because access to NZ enables current and new owners to get into and/or stay in the industry relatively cheaply, and have a chance of a win!

One figure I would like to see published is total number of NZ imports that had at least one start in a race v. total number that recorded a win for the last five years. I suspect that the percentage is very high. We all know, as you pointed out in an earlier post, that the sport/industry is for enthusiasts who like to win races. An NZ import increases your chances of winning.
Firstly Midfrew I find your insights to the NZ side of things really interesting so thanks for posting them.

From what I understand here in Australia 12 is roughly considered the near optimal level of runners in a race. Personally I think 12 is too many, 10 for mine but if the general punting public vote with their dollars it must be closer to 12. I just don't get these 14-15-16-17 horse fields. I really don't. Where's the good for the sport in the eyes of the punter if your horse is buried 8 fence?

I have said it so many times before over the years but the biggest failings of harness racing has been the simple neglect of keeping owners in the sport or enticing new ones.
The only time people hear about harness racing is when there is scandal like whats going on in NSW. Its the only time people hear about it. The problem with promotion is that the local papers now seem to demand payment for carrying printed material related to racing. A massive change from the olden days where if your paper didn't carry a form guide, then its popularity would diminish. Apparently TABcorp pay for the racing supplements and so forth to appear in the major papers. Thats why harness racing gets so little coverage, it is a backwater and the TAB seem to revel in promoting it as that (because they love the churn and burn of greyhound races at every available second).

Harness racing has failed to play to its great strengths - affordability and proximity to the races. The fact that the horses go slower due to their gate means you can actually catch the last 400m and revel in it against the gallops that start as blips on the horizon and go past you so fast you barely know whom has won (live on track that is).

Harness racing as part of the sporting and social landscape has diminshed so so quickly. We have to realise that. I think foal numbers reflect that, the massive drops in registered people (about to get bigger in NSW ) and drop in the numbers of owners is simply a sign of the times. Problem is - as the report suggests with the foal drops - is that it could become a self-fulfilling prophecy if things are not arrested on all fronts.

The brilliant increases in prizemoney at Menangle only paper over the cracks in the greater harness racing fabric. If the sport did not own Harold Park, it would be dead and buried in NSW within 30 years.

I think we all have to wake up and realise thar harness racing simply isn't as popular as it was, it is clearly and ageing sport with no overtures to entice younger people into the game and with the competition for the entertainment dollar the ability to entice new people into it is rapidly diminishing.

This is why anything that potentially decreases the possiblity of ownership has to be opposed. I sympathise with the breeders plight, I have made that known on more than one occassion. But when you have an avenue - that I will stake my life on has brought more people into the sport than the purchase of yearlings, being partially shut off, it quite simply cannot be good for the sport.

I was not born into the sport. I fell into it by accident. The amount of people that happens to these days is rarer than an iceberg in the Sahara. The greatest shame is, when you showcase it to people whom haven't experienced it before, greater than 90% say how much they love it. Biggest problem - and I lay the blame squarely at the feet of the sports administrators - is the failure to capitalise on those initial impressions. Its left to current owners themselves to do all the work if they can be bothered.

This very subject grates me badly......