Originally Posted by
Mister JayKO
Hi Kev
I read your posts with interest and great empathy, but sadly, people of your ilk and many on this board are few and far between. Harness Racing is in terminal decline, the sport here mirrors what happens in the US and that unfortunately is solely based on wagering. Hobbyists once the backbone of the industry will soon be eradicated. Country tracks will gradually go out of commission. I was once a member of Harold Park, but the type of action and excitement that witnessed there every Friday night has long since passed. I can recall far from the glory days of HP with an ensemble of wags and punters and bookmakers that made it a very entertaining night, where the recently resigned CEO (then in another guise) would interact with us freely as we all sought to identify a winner and who was going and who was not.
It's not hard to see where the sport is heading, the shift to Menangle & Melton have long term implications that will only see the replication of US racing, which in general lacks the engagement of half mile / five eighths tracks. I know you love Stawell, may I suggest Mt Gambier on a Saturday night - very hard to beat.
The biggest issue facing the industry is unquestionably the drug question. If Lance Armstrong didn't set off alarm bells in the industry then nothing well. I applaud the work being done here, but you don't need to be Einstein to work out that the chemists remain way ahead of the testers. The recent publication of cobalt threshold tests cast further doubt on what is already a questionable area. The "horsemen" who can magically "improve" horses within weeks must be feeding and working there horses very differently to everyone else.
I feel for the honest hard working hobbyists and semi pro participants who actually keep the game alive only to be effectively cheated out of a chance to race on a level playing field, it's a disgrace. Perhaps they should have built that straight one mile track at Maryborough with no access for patrons, pretty soon that's all you will have left.
As for the move from HP to Menangle, I know the facility is probably fantastic, but I've only been once and I found it soulless and so far away from HP that I never went back. When I was frequenting HP, Mr V'Landys was in charge and he was only interested in one thing and that was getting every dollar he could from you, his offsider used to be referred to as Dumb and Dumber, now he is the CEO of HRNSW! Realistically, Harold Park was becoming increasingly hard to get to for participants but there should have been a middle earth option.
I suppose the rock bottom for me occurred on Tuesday morning, I switched on the box to check the news and saw a couple of people at Bankstown with a mob of camels, I then started reading some of the propaganda emanating from the Directors and just shook my head, that's what it's come to.
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