The ASBP Report: How can they be serious? Bad news for harness owners

[Love Of Courage]

Hello All,

Not sure if it has been mentioned previously, however I would have thought that a sliding fee would have had merit. If you pay 5K on a 10K import this is worse than 5k on a 100k import.Probably a few issues with this but to me seems a little fairer.

I would have thought a good way to help standardbred breeders would be to target some buyers that normally buy thoroughbreds. 50 K is going to get a topline standardbred yearling, but the same money will get a handy thoroughbred.

[aussiebreno]

I have to jump in here just for a second. Not to argue the merits of what was proposed, but rather to alert some of you as to why action was needed.

Fact 1: Harness racing is dependant upon horses yep, so why charge an extra $5000 for these horses.

Fact 2: Harness racing prizemoney is dependent upon turnover derived from racing. Racing requires HORSES Yep, so why charge an extra $5000 for these horses?

Fact 3: The amount of HORSES being bred each year is dropping at a significant rate There is too many possibilities for this for me to go into.

Fact 4: Unless more horses are bred, we will not be able to fill fields and there will be less races which will result in less prizemoney and which will ultimately lead to less owners and harness racing will die a slow, painful death. You have started to make inferences and opinion here despite prefacing your comments as FACT. Lessened field and less horses = more chances of winning; which will cycle in more horses being introduced through breeding/purchases. Take NSW for example. With the increased prizemoney and trainers coming to the region yes there may be more horses and fuller fields but this isnt promoting or particularly useful for hobby trainers. The full fields will push small time particpants out. (VVV thats called the supply/demand gravitating towards the market equillbrium right?). Some small time hobby trainers have made a killing recently and been able to purchase more horses but that will slow down soon.

In order to address these issues, HRA seeing that we need more horses decided to commission a panel to try and INCREASE THE NUMBER OF AUSTRALIAN FOALS .

Now to date, very few, if any people have argued that the recommendations put forward are not fantastic iniatives. These proposals need to be funded by the INDUSTRY as a whole(breeders, stallion owners and owners). To date, a very small section has voiced their disapproval at some of the suggested measures and that is perfectly fine. My suggestion is that if you dont like something come up with a viable alternative.

Hopefully, this will bring the debate back to the critical issues.

PS - if you feel strongly and have some good ideas, put them in writing. I can assure you that they will be given serious consideration

If foal numbers are down then doesn't that mean demand is down? If the demand was there the foals would be being purchased. Another point saying demand is down is that even with lower foal numbers breeders are still complaining of low sale prices. So if MORE foals are born under this initiative then breeders will lose out more as supply will outweight demand too heavily and sale prices will go down. Either the industry and overpopulated or consumer demand needs to increase.
They are trying to increase consumer demand of Aust foals by taxing imports. Yes this will work. But the side affects are not worth it (a stagnant breed, a fishbowl)
The other way to increase demand is create a better product. This will create a better breed of horse. Side affects will be increase costs for breeders.
Another alternative is for breeders to accept lower prices. But this means breeders lose out on sales and the breed is stagnant.
So my conclusion is the breeding industry is either over-populated or a dying industry. You don't see the pie shop getting taxed by the sausage roll shop just because the pie shop is more popular. Breed to race; and as I said earlier; if field numbers go down then there will always be owners importing in and trying to take advantage of easier competition.

[aussiebreno]

yes, Aussie breno that is correct, but guess what. You pay more for a Telstra service than an Optus service and more for bourbon than beer!

Yep, and I will pay more for a Village Jasper/5LTW mare then I will for a River Khan/Maiden Mare.
But too many breeders (I'm led to believe you are not one of those though) wonder why their 1LTW win mare being bred to Pass The Mustard didnt fetch 10K.
You're fixed costs are always going to be same, feeding, breaking in, agistment etc but the variable cost and the cost that can help you get rewards isnt valued enough. That being the service fee. And I am well aware even higher end stallions progeny don't fetch much more than their stud fee. I've never seen a studmaster shopping at Vinnies so maybe service fees are too high? What are your thoughts

[mango]

Hi Mightymo

Fact 1: Harness Rcaing is dependant on horses. By adding a $5k import fee could lessen the number of imports which means less horses racing.

Fact 2: Harness Racing prizemoney is dependant on turnover derived from racing. Racing require's horses. This is why we need imports to fill fields.

Fact 3: The number of horses being bred each year is dropping at a significant rate. I think service fee's have been partly to blame for this and i commend the stud's for there reduction in fee's. I also think a payment plan would be the way to help assist mare owner's breed more as paying 3 service fee's at once is costly maybe studs could say pay 1 now 1 in 3 months and the 3rd 90 day's of foaling date.

Fact 4: I agree fully

These proposals need to be funded by the industry as a whole (Breeder's, stallion owner, owners)

So when i look at the proposal i read that there is approx 600 imports per year which with these new fee's will equate to $1,702,843 to this breeding fund. But i also read Stallion Registration is $587,952 where in the 09/10 season live foal service's were $16.3mil. What else do studs and stallion owner's contribute to the industry because if people expect import fee's to rise to that level i think owner's will be asking the question why arn't the studs/stallion owner's matching it.

[The Big Mile]

Mightymo wrote:

I like this idea of coloured responses Thank you for coming along and enaging in this.

Now to date, very few, if any people have argued that the recommendations put forward are not fantastic iniatives. These proposals need to be funded by the INDUSTRY as a whole(breeders, stallion owners and owners). To date, a very small section has voiced their disapproval at some of the suggested measures and that is perfectly fine. My suggestion is that if you dont like something come up with a viable alternative.

Lets put this in perspective Mightymo shall we. Of course you are going to be showered with compliments and praise, because the claer majority of breeders will be cock-a-hoop because they see their costs potentially go down. Why wouldn't you be happy. The fact that it comes at the expense of another group within in the indsutry doesn't matter to those doing cartwheels. so long as their costs are lowered, to hell where it comes from.

For the sake of alternatives, can you do us a favour.

The panel obviously explored a whole plethora of different potential funding options / scenarios. To come up with the one in your final recommendation, you would think that several options / scenarios were unable to be pursued.

I am wondering if you could list these and the reasons as to why they were not made part of the final recommendation.

I would be very interested in to the reasoning as to why there was such brick wall stance to some funding being sourced from 'within' the breeding industry. Maybe you could enlighten us.?

Hopefully, this will bring the debate back to the critical issues.

Now Mightymo I hope you are not attempting to trivialise the fact that there is a $5000 Import Fee being pushed forward as part of the final recommendation? Maybe trivial to some, but certainly not to others. Critical issues for some might not be critical issues for others and by the way I reckon I could put forward a pretty good argument as to why the Import Fee actually contradicts some of what you are trying to achieve from what is written above.

In fact, I think parts of 5.1 in your paper contradicts part 5.6? Especially the first two lines of 5.6.

PS - if you feel strongly and have some good ideas, put them in writing. I can assure you that they will be given serious consideration

'....thank you for your submission but we have already decided to go with an import fee....'

[gregcattell]

bring back sires stakes races where you do not have to pay $287 each year to be elledgable breeders challange & state bred bonus races it is not just service fees its all other cost for horse elledgability races owners/breeders have to pay to get top $
for there horses when they sell

[Greg Hando]

If foal numbers are down then doesn't that mean demand is down? If the demand was there the foals would be being purchased. Another point saying demand is down is that even with lower foal numbers breeders are still complaining of low sale prices. So if MORE foals are born under this initiative then breeders will lose out more as supply will outweight demand too heavily and sale prices will go down. Either the industry and overpopulated or consumer demand needs to increase.
They are trying to increase consumer demand of Aust foals by taxing imports. Yes this will work. But the side affects are not worth it (a stagnant breed, a fishbowl)
The other way to increase demand is create a better product. This will create a better breed of horse. Side affects will be increase costs for breeders.
Another alternative is for breeders to accept lower prices. But this means breeders lose out on sales and the breed is stagnant.
So my conclusion is the breeding industry is either over-populated or a dying industry. You don't see the pie shop getting taxed by the sausage roll shop just because the pie shop is more popular. Breed to race; and as I said earlier; if field numbers go down then there will always be owners importing in and trying to take advantage of easier competition.

Refer to no #54 is this what you mean by producing a better product.You say if the demand was there the foal's would be purchased. if the demand is not there to buy the foal's then why are we importing as many NZ horse's ?
Just a bit confused by what you mean

[gutwagon]

600 imported horses adding $1.7million to the fund each year.
The report fails to take into account that this figure may drop because of the increased fee. If only 300 come next year thats only $850,000. They don't say what they would do if this happened .
$16 million spent on service fees. I agree that the stallion owners could contribute more to this fund. I think many stallions are over priced. I don't think any of them are worth more than $5000. But people keep sending their mares to the $10,000+ stallions so the price will stay up.
Some of you are saying we need to improve our breed, we use most of the same stallions as nz breeders now, so how do we improve our breed ? I know you will say stop breeding with rubbish mares. I'm sure NZ has plenty of rubbish mares also, it's just that we only see the better NZ horses over here. The rubbish is culled and doesn't make it to Aus. Even Mark Purdon has started coming to our sales and has been very successful with his purchases.
From what I can see the only reason NSW harness racing is doing ok is because of the sale of Harold Park, and that was just lucky that land values have incresed. The 1400m track at Menangle was also a great idea, so was getting rid of V"Landys.

[The Big Mile]

Hello All,

Not sure if it has been mentioned previously, however I would have thought that a sliding fee would have had merit. If you pay 5K on a 10K import this is worse than 5k on a 100k import.Probably a few issues with this but to me seems a little fairer.

Hey Love Of Courage. Yes on face value it would appear that a tiered or sliding scale of Import Fee would at least appear more equitable amongst those getting slugged.

Maybe mightymo could inform us why this wasn't considered so everyone is clear?

I know the answer but feel it is high time for the panel to let us know the alternative funding models explored and why they were rejected, just like a tiered system being rejected in favour of a flat fee.

[aussiebreno]

Refer to no #54 is this what you mean by producing a better product.You say if the demand was there the foal's would be purchased. if the demand is not there to buy the foal's then why are we importing as many NZ horse's ?
Just a bit confused by what you mean

Demand for an inferior product (some Aust foals) isn't parallel with demand for superior product (some imports).
If I go down to Harvey Norman to buy a big screen TV lets say 60inches, the $5000 tax may mean I change my mind about it (eg I won't buy the import). But I will simply I will go without the TV; rather than buying a small 5inch tv (eg I wont buy any horses at all instead of downgrading to the Aust foal).
The imports and foals are two different markets with two different demands.