Quote Originally Posted by arlington View Post
From the article, the quote from APG General Manager David Boydell "As far as the sale goes, probably the biggest disappointment was that we didn't see as many of the smaller hobby trainers in attendance as I would have liked".


Answer???
The Hobby Trainers were the lifeblood of the industry, they sustained it, provided the numbers, bred their own, occasionly bought a few at the sales, but in effect kept the industry strong. They have been phased out through some pretty poor decision making at the top which took an "american" view of how the industry should be run. It is cost prohibitive for someone to enter the industry now without some sort of base. Some of the race carts are now around $10k, you need to have pretty deep pockets to be able to dabble in the game as a hobby when 30-40 years ago everyone did it. I did a quick set of sums of all the trainers that formerly trained in the Terang region versus what is left. I got to 35-40 individual trainers, now there are less than 10 spread a lot further.

Personally, I think that the hobbyists are virtually gone from both codes. Syndicates are the go but perhaps we should explore the amatuer driving route as done in NZ. Standardbreds are a much more kinder animal to handle than their Thoroughbred cousins, the trick is to allow people to get to know them, but with current OH&S and Insurance regulations, there are barriers preventing that connection.

It's not a bright outlook, but that's nothing new, and we must remember that "Give Up" never won a race so we have to keep looking for new ways to market the industry to the general population. We used to get dedicated press in news papers but that ceased years ago. Social Media is great but we need to hit the mainstream with good stories if we can.