Tiered prizemoney in Victoria for new racing season

[arlington]

Although my concern with $3,500 meets is about participants receiving adequate prizemoney for putting on the show
an astute reader friend has pointed out to me that "we have to supplement feature races and juvenile races from somewhere"
while summarizing my concern as "R races shouldn't be paid trials for the best horses in the big stables"

HRV have conditioned a lot of the paid trials for the best horses in the big stables out of the $3500 races. Kudos there.

As for the concern with $3500 races being an inadequate prize money level, agreed, but they are non penalty( R penalty only) and that is an attraction for all participants if you don't need to travel far - the attraction for the professional Melton trainers to Melton R programs/races? Maybe they charge owners reduced rates for R races?

You also need to consider what D Martin has emphasised, HRV would be stretching it, at odds with HRA policy on increasing prize money levels for R, non penalty racing.

I would think, or would like to think, the recent announcement of the $1000 bonus for $5000 C races has been funded by the R races and not directed to funding feature races.
That $5000 tier is a big problem being a C penalty. Whether there could be more R, conditioned heats, leading to $7000 finals?

[David Martin]

HRV have conditioned a lot of the paid trials for the best horses in the big stables out of the $3500 races. Kudos there.

As for the concern with $3500 races being an inadequate prize money level, agreed, but they are non penalty( R penalty only) and that is an attraction for all participants if you don't need to travel far - the attraction for the professional Melton trainers to Melton R programs/races? Maybe they charge owners reduced rates for R races?

You also need to consider what D Martin has emphasised, HRV would be stretching it, at odds with HRA policy on increasing prize money levels for R, non penalty racing.

I would think, or would like to think, the recent announcement of the $1000 bonus for $5000 C races has been funded by the R races and not directed to funding feature races.
That $5000 tier is a big problem being a C penalty. Whether there could be more R, conditioned heats, leading to $7000 finals?

Thanks Wayne. The $1k bonus on $5k races in May/June, means that a win for these C penalty races will give prizemoney to winning connections similar to a $7k penalty race. Being $5k races, they are generally conditioned to give the lower class horses a run. We have also conditioned aprox 40 of these races to suit trainers who were less successful than others in the prior season (i.e. trainers with 2 or less wins and trainers with 25 or less wins).