What is NZ's secrect?

Hello,

I am wondering what New Zealand is doing differently from other countries to help harness racing grow? Can anyone give me some insights?

The research I have done on NZ, harness racing looks like it is booming and you have the younger generations participating. That is fantastic.


Thank you in advance.

Hi Robin, I have serious doubts that NZ harness is booming - in fact it may be the opposite.
While this forum was once a very strong NZ forum - it no longer is, despite Harnesslink being NZ owned.
The exodus happened about 15yrs ago, pretty much before my time.
There is another NZ forum where you will find more NZers - Harness Cafe

https://www.racecafe.co.nz/forums/in...-harness-cafe/

It should be remembered that NZ is pretty much the size of Victoria, Australia - which until very recently was considered Australia's strongest harness state, now due to mismanagement some would argue that it is 4th. NSW is the strongest and at best Vic is in a battle for 2nd with WA and QLD. Vic's prizemoney has not kept up for a decade due to budget problems and is getting worse.

ps You might notice that nobody has made a post here for a few years, which is why I made a NZ thread on the Australia board

Thanks Kevin, for the response. Yes I noticed there are not many responses here. From NZ marketing it looks like they have successfully captured young adults who love harness racing. Guess photos can be deceiving.

You mentioned mismanagement, was that due to an association responsible for the industry? Its growth? I can see world wide that many of the associations that claim to represent harness racing are not doing their job to attract new fans.

Thanks for the NZ link.

R

Hi again Robin, apart from marketing failing to capture new fans, a Metro track which is on the fringe of the huge metro area of Melbourne and thus too far from the other side of the city, integrity doubts in the eyes of many fans and participants, worst of all was spending money that HRV did not have.

The downfall was cemented when the government passed legislation in 2019 that meant HRV did not own their metro track with excess land ie the proceeds of any sale would be the governments - most participants were completely unaware of this until last year (most viewed the excess land as our nest egg) so the board not only failed to successfully oppose this legislation but they also failed to communicate it to participants
Without getting political, the Vic government were/are looking for every dollar they can get their hands on as they too have been guilty of overspending