Quote Originally Posted by mightymo View Post
Trish

Martin is no spring chicken anymore. I would guess he is well into his 70's. People are allowed to retire!

The problem we have is that there are not enough younger breeders replacings the Lombardos, hartnetts etc...
Harvey lets get real mate, You obviously have a good job or bussiness( good on you if thats the case, orthough its none of my bussiness what you do, I'm only saying it to make my point) but how to you expect anyone to start breeding a horse or keep breeding when that average race is worth in vic $6000. As you would well know their are very few baby blings and bling it ons in the world, their in most cases once in a life time horses. On average from what I can work out from the couple of people I know that bred the ood horse, it can in most cases cost anywhere between 20-40thousland dollars to get a horse to the race when you add it all up. If you dont have your own place your paying agistment for the mare, so you get it in foal pay all your vet bills, you then have to spend 11 months paying to feed the mare untill she foals, you then have to pay someone to foal here down, then your have to feed the mare and foal untill weaning age, then keep feeding the foal untill a yearling and the mare to bred again. The yearling then get broken in, you then have who knows how many prepartions to get to the races if you do at all and on top of that all these fees in you want to pay up for races. And you wonder why there are no young people wanting to breed or get involved in the sport. You look at all the young trainers and drivers coming though, all most all are born into it or have some connection. So the reailty is in the real world(not the bullshit facts hrv give out) their has been no grow in the sport. You only have to look at the facts, harness racing ouitside of the sport in the main stream media and world is irrelevant, know one know its exits. From what your posted on here in the past and when I'll heard you speak on tv, you strike me as a highly intelligent man. So you tell me in your honest opinion, hand on the bible how is possible that the current ceo of hrv is still their? In no other bussiness in the world would a ceo last 1 year let alone 10 years when they had done such a diabolical job, that has return no real profit the industry, has failed to grow the indusrty, has failed to manage the industrys money and grow the finances or the profile of the sport and given the sport a shocking facilitie like melton. The only real grow in the vic industry has been government funded money and we all know how that work out for the car industry.