When the Charlton Cup meeting on Sunday includes four $4k races - I think you can safely say that the industry has been successfully conditioned to accept $4k races
I have posted about these elsewhere but want to say that I believe HRV are ethically obliged to tell/show all the young participants that they are encouraging and promoting What Their Future Will Look Like
They have to be telling them more than 'how well the cuts are going'
Our participants have been so accepting of Administration Failure for decades
I think the latest acceptance would seem to be that Vics are now conditioned to $4k racing
I hope the Roadshow can convince me that they have some vision - that they have been going into work every day and thinking about "How are we going to get out of this shit?"
Huge ideas need to be thrown around. Considering the Thoroughbreds to be the Big Pond, in Vic we are no longer a puddle - we are a drop
Should we be a country Vic sport, country people seem to be more aware of our existence (as much as the gallops) - many of our participants live in country communities
How do we make our product more exciting?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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 need to appeal to Europe again.
We need Duncan or Pat to breed a world champion so that the media will come crawling back
Don't get me wrong - I know how hard it is now that the whole world of sport is our competition
But DO NOT GIVE us another round of budgetary explanations
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.
Greg Sugars was a Champion harness racing person
When the Charlton Cup meeting on Sunday includes four $4k races - I think you can safely say that the industry has been successfully conditioned to accept $4k races
Greg Sugars was a Champion harness racing person
I hope I will not be the only one tuning into TrotsVision for the Roadshow at 7pm tonight - if Live Captions does not work, I may not be much of a scribe for everyone.
Did anyone attend the first Roadshow at Mildura yesterday?
Greg Sugars was a Champion harness racing person
Approx 70 attendees I was told this morning
Approx 60 attendees there tonight - sadly you do not need one hand to count the under 50yo's
Then again young people would wonder why you would attend something you can watch on your phone - so I hope some of them were because it is THEIR future that we are discussing
It was mostly about Budgeting. I will write it all up tomorrow
There was definitely a vibe that we could leave Melton for MV (if we still get some equity from it from the gov)
Greg Sugars was a Champion harness racing person
There was definitely a vibe that we could leave Melton for MV .
MV was great racing . Loved it there .
What the hec, I will write it up now in point form
HRV revenue has been static for 10yrs !
Even after cuts and gov't help HRV will make a LOSS of $12m this year
Statutory Bodies like HRV have been told that they now have to live within their means (no more Gov subsidy)
We are lucky that the Joint Venture partners - Gallops and Doggies are letting us take $90m more than we are entitled to (over the next 9yrs)
Stated that rationalizing the racing calendar was the only lever they had to improve revenue (How about some ideas men!?)
My first snip of one of their overheads didn't copy well but stated some small savings and improvements such as staff costs now back to 2017 levels
This is the next one which is more interesting (before I continue)
Greg Sugars was a Champion harness racing person
CEO Matthew Isaacs had done most of the speaking before Chairman Bernard Saundry took questions
He started by saying that the 26(?) clubs model is broken. We need to grow the number of people racing horses, we need to grow turnover, Participants need to support the sport on Social Media
The balance has to be found between supporting communities and improving turnover
He said there would be 52 less race meetings next year due to declining horse population and that at least 80% of meetings will be at the tracks that produce higher returns
(Later on it was revealed that Wednesday meetings would be disappearing in favour of Monday meetings)
Another Overhead
Greg Sugars was a Champion harness racing person
Matthew and Bernard both answered questions plus another staff who addressed a couple of questions about Integrity
He said HRV had been disappointed about some VRT rulings on things such as stays but on the question of sporadic checks (raids) he said they now have a good system of knowing where to target these. He also stated that participants need to pass on their knowledge of wrongful goings on if we are serious about improving image.
Ginger Gleeson asked about the touted training facility for Melton but was told that Melton was now too valuable for such a facility
Another attendee who identified himself as a participant from only the last couple of years suggested that staying in Melton based on it being a growth corridor was not necessarily true. He asked how the gallops gets over 5,000 young people at MV, I may have misheard this as sometimes 2 mikes in operation for questions produced poor audio, but I definitely didn't mishear his relevant point that everybody not in this room (that is the young!) does everything on their phone.
Another overhead
Last edited by Messenger; 03-18-2025 at 12:36 AM.
Greg Sugars was a Champion harness racing person