Covid 19 Racing

[Messenger]

Menangle prizemoney is largely derived by NSWHRC not HRNSW.

Not having one funding body is far from ideal IMO
(Hey Brenno are you watching Trots Vision tonight - fantastic)

[aussiebreno]

Not having one funding body is far from ideal IMO
(Hey Brenno are you watching Trots Vision tonight - fantastic)

I've barely ever watched it tbh. Multi tasking a couple things on my laptop like last minute form reading and wanting to watch Wagga and Menangle so it doesn't really suit me. Even with the gallops I will just watch Sky 1 rather than the other dedicated channels.

[Messenger]

It just goes to show why we need choices, I hate Sky 1 (it may be ok if they got rid of the dogs)
There is certainly plenty of form info being aired on Vision

[Messenger]

Michael Guerin on NSW's prizemoney reduction referring to Club Menangle:

CM cut stakes by 20 per cent and reduced the stake for the Miracle Mile from A$1million to A$600,000 for next season.
They will still retain a A$30,000 race at every Saturday night meeting because that triggers a higher Race Fields percentage from corporate bookmakers for the whole card, which means CM make more money having that $30,000 race than reducing it by say $10,000 to add $2000 to five other races.

Menangle boss Bruce Christison was as disappointed as anybody in announcing the cuts to stakes and said while the Miracle Mile deserves to be A$1million his club couldn’t maintain that and then cut lower grade stakes more.

http://www.harnesslink.com/Internati...SW-stake-money

I am assuming they have the figures to support this. I find the stated benefit of a $30k race somewhat surprising, I thought about keeping an eye on their turnover (particularly the $30k race) but they are talking about Corporate Bookmakers

Answer found in earlier article: "The retention of the $30,000 race is important as the race meeting is then classified as premium status, which attracts a much higher return through the racefields revenue.

http://www.harnesslink.com/Australia...ct-of-COVID-19

[Messenger]

https://nationaltrotguide.com.au/req...-championship/

It seems a month or two too early to cancel in my book

The Inter was not due to start until November 28

[Showgrounds]

I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I have serious doubts as to how well Menangle is travelling financially and its ability to fund the series. Stakemoney for run of the mill races there have effectively been cut since the day the track opened.

[Messenger]

Vic field size to increase to 10 and more news later this week (I hope it is reducing regions to 3 - see post 134)

https://www.thetrots.com.au/news/art...from-thursday/

[Messenger]

It is too late to change the regions, as I have suggested above
BUT not too late to combine some to make 3 stronger regions
Let's combine
1. Bendigo + Stawell-Terang + Mildura (Central + West + North West)
2 Shepparton + Cranbourne-Kilmore (North East + East)
3 Ballarat-Melton (Inner West) stays as is
It would be easy to do and could be brought in almost immediately as a preliminary step towards a return to normal racing

They didn't pick the same regions but we are going to 3 regions on May 24

https://www.thetrots.com.au/news/art...ing-to-resume/

And the 19/20 season is extended until the end of the calendar year

http://www.harness.org.au/media-room...?news_id=43718

[Beltane]

Inter Dominion 2020: all is not lost as organisers confident event can go ahead despite NSW call to postpone the daily Telegraph reported on 13th May:

All is This year’s Inter Dominion has a heartbeat again.

Just days after NSW officials formally requested harness racing’s marquee event be postponed for 12 months, the Inter Dominion Event Committee (IDEC) has vowed to do “everything it can” to ensure the series is run this year.

“The Inter Dominion is the biggest brand the sport has and vitally important, it’s absolutely IDEC’s want to have it run annually rather than postpone it,” IDEC chairman Michael Taranto said.

“Yes, Harness Racing NSW and the NSW Harness Racing Club have requested a postponement, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be an Inter Dominion in 2020.

“We have options, starting with talking to the other two parties involved in the current hosting roster, Harness Racing Victoria and Harness Racing NZ, to see if they have interest in hosting it instead.

“Beyond that, we can go outside of those in the current roster … we’ve had interest expressed from Racing Queensland and other parties in WA.

“Even NSW may not be out of the question because we could look at other funding options.

“The key is, it’s premature and maybe even erroneous to say there won’t be an Inter Dominion this year. IDEC will do everything it can to see if we can have one.”

Under the current roster, NSW was host this year’s series in November/December, but cited the “impact and uncertainty of COVID” as driving reasons for requesting a postponement.

Harness Racing Victoria hosted the series in 2018 and is due to do so again in 2021.

Taranto said IDEC was due to meet again this week to further explore options and added a deadline of cementing Inter Dominion of June 30 was likely.

“Some may say that’s too late, but it’s still almost five months before the series is due to be run and, given the circumstances, still plenty of time for everyone to plan around it,” he said.

“I don’t think this is something we can make a snap decision about, the Inter Dominion is too important to the industry.”

[Messenger]

It will be good when we can get back to normal - some serious offenders are winning way more than they should in their little regions