I received an interesting assessment of the Tiered Racing initiative of HRV from Ray Chaplin
Ray suggests that Administrators have been failing for decades because they have been unsuccessfully focusing upon the Melton centric big end of town participants while the sport needs every single grass roots participant to prosper and more new participants in order to survive let alone grow

It made me think about my wish for harness racing to have its own 'Melbourne Cup' type day and I have not changed my opinion on the value of the spin-offs that such a day has but Ray's stressing of the importance of our grass roots participants made me think that there is an easier opportunity than staging a Melbourne Cup that may be just as valuable and is there for the taking. I have always appreciated the importance of country harness racing and have often posted about what they are doing right/doing wrong but I have probably not seen their main events as the opportunity that they are

The country shows have declined in Victoria but the gallops have been smart enough to jump into the breach with their Let's Go Racing/Country Cups circuit. Nowadays you will find some country towns having a half day holiday for their Cup instead of a show. Country towns across Vic love a get-together and are crying out for more events so while I still hope to see a Metro Harness event become a talking point like the Melbourne Cup is, in the meantime we can soup up the Country Cups circuit just like the gallops did.

Some may say that they are already well promoted but I think not. We have to take it to the next level - I want to see more ads on TV and other forms of media. I dont know whether I want people booking on line as the fact that many of ours are free should be a huge selling point BUT I do want people receiving email/texts etc about the next one coming up (which is what happens if you book tickets for a country gallops cup).

I am guilty of not being a big events person (never been interested in the crush of Melbourne Cup day) but last year I did attend some Country Gallops Cups because of a family member's horse.
I also attended Breeders Challenge day at Menangle and thought their efforts were great and probably appreciated that while their numbers were good there was no crush. This year I am going to make sure I attend all the local Cups - Stawell, Horsham, Ararat, Hamilton, St Arnaud, maybe Charlton and Maryborough and see how we are performing.

In the lead up to them I hope other posters are going to tell me how well they are being promoted - I am at a disadvantage there as I rely on VAST and Foxtel for TV reception - thanks to VAST I will be able to tell you when the Darwin and outback gallops cups are on LOL