Early Starts On Saturday Nights

[broncobrad]

Whats the go with these early starts on harness racings biggest night of the week, Saturday? Why the hell does the first at Menangle now go BEFORE 5PM. Purely from a stay at home punters perspective, they have lost any interest from me on these early races...some of us actually have a life. That includes a bit of family time, eating some dinner, putting the feet up and relaxing before launching into an evening that should be wall to wall trotting.

Is the plan to try to hold on to the left-over desperate gallops punters at TAB outlets who might try their luck on the trots before heading home? Is it to squeeze the smaller twilight meetings out of existence? Is it to cater for trainers to allow them to get home before midnight? In essence, these early starts are asking some of us to make lifestyle changes that I for one won't be making. The washup of this for me is simply that I will have invested WAY LESS than I would normally have in years gone by.

After all, the industry runs on the gambling dollar...are they maximising turnover with this programming?

[Mitch]

Correct me if I'm wrong someone but I thought it was due to the fact that Menangle can be subject to bad fog throughout the colder months?? Hence the earlier start to mitigate this risk.

I'm sure there are probably other reasons as well.

[doinmabest]

Hi Guys,
As Mitch has suggested the primary reason is due to the weather scenario's that can play out in the area during winter. The track is bounded to the west by the Nepean River, with vast expanses of land to the North and South. This results in heavy fog and very cold conditions in the midst of the winter months, if the right conditions prevail.
Also, I think Brad may be part right in that the Menangle meetings usually start within a certain timeframe of the last Eastern Seaboard race being run. If this means that some punters who are chasing a dollar or a winning a motza might reinvest on the first two or three races at Menangle then that is a good thing for the industry in terms of dollars returned. In fact, I might be wrong (often am) but a check of total turnover is far superior on a Saturday in the first 3 races than the back end...... Whether this is attributable to the commencement times is problematic but it may just be so.....

[broncobrad]

So last Saturday I had a crack at those early races. Result ... a couple of blowouts intermingled with a couple too short for me. At Albion Park it was just a bloodbath, the first one 30/1, okay could live with that but the next, watching Karter Brown swamp Emporer Montana at 70/1 put me to the sword. Result...early night watching some bad Saturday night movie.

Going to Albion Park on Saturday night to see if Karter Brown can show the same intestinal fortitude up against Forever Gold and Devil Dodger ... predicting another early night.