Quote Originally Posted by David Martin View Post
Great discussion tonight everyone. Richard, I'll respond to your points if I may.


You are correct that the HRV strategy is about ensuring we give everyone and every horse a chance to be a part of our industry. We have implemented a number of initiatives that demonstrate our desire to retain existing trainers, drivers, owners and horses, in what are clearly challenging times for our industry. As explained at the public forums in 2017, we need all levels of our industry for it to be successful.


Some of our measures of success relate to the level of horse participation (up 3% over the last 12 months), the number of races (up 4% over the last 12 months - which equates to 109 more winners of a race than the prior 12 months), turnover generated (up approx 10% over the last 12 months) and ultimately profitability of our industry that will enable us to better support participants and clubs into the future. Beyond that, we have flagged our desire to start work on the infrastructure needed to retain and attract the next generation of participants. There's some big challenges within all of that, not the least being the multi-year decline in foal numbers that is being discussed on another social media platform.


I understand Anne's frustration, but in comparison to both gallops and dogs, harness racing has too many short priced favourites. If a PBD approach can help to reduce that and level the playing field, then we must explore that.


Cheers, David
PBD to level the playing field is a fallacy. If something is head and shoulders above them it will still be odds on. Stop trying to artificially even fields up. PBD just keeps shorter priced faves down in grade a bit longer creating more races with shorter priced faves. Let the better horses have RBD and they can race through the grades quicker and stop being at such short prices quicker. It will also open up the lower class races because the good ones wont spend as much starts in them.