It's almost the end of January and Vic has just had its first 2yo race. Just 6 runners. Normally they would have started in early December and then been 2 or 3 a week, so we would have normally had 10 to 15 2yo races by now.
This will follow through to next seasons 3yo's, this is the result of the reduction in mares being bred and the lack of encouragement to breed horses.
I don't think the people running the show seem to realize the severity of this problem. Within the next few years fields bigger than 6 runners will be rare and they will be lucky to be able to fill 6 races per meeting .
I think they need to start rewarding people for breeding their mares before it's too late. They need to do something to get every broodmare owner to breed this season.
I've been in the sport for over 30 years and this is by far the worst start to the 2yo season I have seen.