Quote Originally Posted by Excursion View Post
Kev, it would be pretty hard to find a more accurate summary of where things are currently at in harness racing than what you have just so eloquently put. Administrators seem to excel at window dressing, management speak and shuffling deck chairs but have no real idea how to attract the public back. Could what has happened in Queensland and South Australia be a preview of what is to come? The sport has become a victim of it's own success - there is more racing than ever with less horses than ever. Maybe this success will eventually consume the sport and consign it to a novelty act at agricultural shows?
Interesting that you should say that David because Ray summarized the report he wrote this month as follows

A once great vibrant harness racing industry now finds itself in terminal decline with the hopes and dreams of many younger participants never to
materialise

All because of incompetent management which still prevails today, the greed of those that cheat to gain advantage and some of the larger studs who gained benefit from unlimited books to the demise of the smaller studs

Australian harness racing executives followed a flawed North American model which has seen a massive decline in public interest followed by a corresponding decline in industry participation

Had any of Australia’s top brass had the intelligence to study the North American model they would have quickly discovered that an industry model subsidized by huge poker machine incomes or massive government grants could not be replicated in Australia

There is now little left that Australian participants can do other than to try and slow down the ultimate demise of a professional sporting industry into an expensive “hobby” pastime

To do this means that in Donald Trump terms the participants must call for the draining of the swamp

The only way to achieve this is for concerned participants to create on–line petitions in their home States to call on Governments for a full review into the Governance of their sport with the objective of establishing a proven professional management regime model to strategically reposition the harness racing brand to meet the needs and wants of the public at large

Anything less will see harness racing as we now know it disappear within the next decade and the gap filled by thoroughbred and greyhound racing