Dan

I also take issue with this. In fact, you could not be more wrong. The commercial breeder doesnt gain anything from this. The whole purpose of the original report( some 18 months ago) was to try and stimulate the HOBBY breeder. Hobby breeders account for around 90% of all foals born and they have been leaving the industry in droves or simply not breeding. The breeders panel report made numerous suggestions as to how to possibly reverse this trend. These included creating a national mares credit scheme, more fillies and mares races, increased bonuses for fillies and mares winning their first race etc.

Unfortunately, HRA and the various state bodies decided to implement higher import fees without any detail as to how the resulting revenue is to be used other than to say for "breeding iniatives". This is very disappointing, as the panel members including myself, have now been attacked as having been the brains behind the import tax, when in fact all we proposed was measures to try and get more foals on the ground and create more opportunities for fillies and mares so that people are more likely to breed from them.