Are HRV broke?

[Messenger]

I have been told that today's Geelong meeting was supposed to be a night meeting (and their cup) but having been informed by Sky that they would be on Sky 2 they have postponed the cup and swapped today's meet to the Day to be on Sky1

Also told that there was supposed to be a Swan Hill meet on Monday but so few noms it was cancelled - Are trainers boycotting the $4k meetings or simply not prepared to travel for so few bucks

[Messenger]

HRV roadshows to provide industry update, answer questions

https://www.thetrots.com.au/news/art...wer-questions/

For those who can’t attend in person, the Melton roadshow on Monday, March 17, will be streamed live on www.trotsvision.com.au.

[Messenger]

The question that needs answering is "Why do we attract so little interest compared to gallops racing?"

We have 8 races at Ballarat tonight for a total of $43k in prizemoney
There is 8 races at Pakenham tonight for a total of $355k in prizemoney (that is an average of over $44k per single race)

[trish]

That's a great question.
In some ways harness racing is very different to the gallops. The huge majority of people punting & watching the gallops have absolutely nothing to do with the industry , whereas , the huge majority of punters & interested parties in harness racing have a direct connection to the industry . Or are associated with someone that is . Therefore , as people leave the industry so do they .
Question that should be asked is why are they leaving .
You could ask us that because we left!

[Messenger]

Of course we could also turn that around Trish in that
Gallops have plenty of fans other than those involved while Harness does not

[trish]

Exactly right & its so easy to see why.

[Messenger]

It is a public holiday Monday in Vic - how can we afford to NOT have any trots meeting today????

[Gammalite]

Plenty of talk about lack of meetings an money but the core issue is reflected here in this forum as well. People interested in Harness Racing. The interest has waned and so has the punting dollar.
The first step back is selling the product. There is virtually no coverage in mainstream media or radio. It is out of mind out of site. We can do nothing about the fact that Melton is not the best place to get to by public transport
so it is less attractive to go for a lot of families but we do need to get the message out. That involves some thinking outside the box. We get one small column in the HS on Fridays. Maybe as a sponsorship deal with the HS we can
get a few more spots in the paper in exchange for the HS having their spot on the sponsor board and naming rights of some races rather than actual cash. Same with Radio. Adds for up coming meetings on some FM stations for a bit of advertising spots.
Also better coverage on SEN who are the sports radio. Interest boosts turnover. Turnover increases prize money.

[Messenger]

True Anthony but they have employed people to think outside the box for 50yrs now
It is the chicken and the egg - there is no coverage because there is no interest / there is no interest because there is no coverage

We have become fairly miniscule and other miniscule sports like hockey, boxing, athletics, cycling, even golf, netball and soccer would all be wanting more coverage
I am not sure HS are going to excited about naming rights, I think we may pay for what little we get now and remember the TAB were not even interested in the naming rights to Melton anymore

There is heaps more competition nowadays - not that long ago you could not even bet on football, cricket, tennis. You did not have everything beamed into your lounge
We also have to remember that Australia has a tiny, tiny population and they now have the whole world's sport at their fingertips
Locally Gallops and 20 second dog races have encroached on the nights that used to be ours and where we look our best

If you look at history you will find that the gallops hierarchy have always been our enemy and this infiltrated into the media

I think that the best idea we had in the last couple of decades was to try and tap into the French trots public but somehow we let that flounder

We have a couple of small hopes IMO - producing an International world champion horse which brings the media on board (it would have to be a trotter for this to happen and there are a couple of stalwarts that have been working away at this)

Reinvent our product to be far more exciting in the eyes of all that are not enthusiasts - go out of the box here eg Figure 8 track, ......

I am rehashing now. You might like this thread here Anthony, it is 39 pages of musings from the last decade

https://www.harnessracingforum.com/s...Harness-Racing

I hope like hell that you can think of something for us because somebody has to - it may be too late for Vic

[Messenger]

Are we losing participants? We are definitely seeing a lot more 6 race meetings
It could just be more 6's but I remember that they were going with 10's not long ago as they said they were more cost effective