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

[montana]

It will benefit the WHOLE industry.

Therefore the WHOLE INUDSTRY NEEDS TO PAY. Very simple. Not a minority group whom do more for racing than has been alluded to on here (and in some sense, trivialised by the panels report).

you are correct.

however i can see where they are coming from , if they slow down imports perhaps more people will support the australian breeding industry as well as it partially funding this new scheme. i think 5k is too much though because it basically takes out the bottom end of the market and there is definitely a market for people wanting to buy a cheap up and running horse and the aussies are not sellers so this will be an issue.

a mix of an increased import fee , imported stallion owners contributions and owner breeder contributions would seem like a more logical way forward.

[eliteblood]

Perhaps they should look at a scheme where you can apply credits to buy yearlings/weanlings at the sales or privately that way the whole breeding industry could benefit from the potential market inflation rather than just the stallion owners.

Montana, you have fallen for the common misconception that the stallion owners will be the main beneficiaries. It is not the case -the broodmare owners will be the main beneficiaries. The stallion owners will derive some benefit but only equal to the marginal difference in breeding decisions resulting from the scheme. In most cases, the mare would have been bred from in any case and the broodmare owner will simply get his service fee for nothing rather then have to pay for it. In this instance, the most likely outcome IMO, the stallion owner has derived nothing extra.

[smithy]

the big mile - no i dont agree with the idea of the credit scheme for a couple of reasons,
we already have a stack of bonuses available for breeding horses
adding onto number 1 i dont think we need anymore bills added onto what it already costs to breed a horse and make it available for big money races
i think the bonuses will only encourage low quality stock being increased - mainly because the lower quality horses have low resale value and a lower potential for recouping their costs, less chance of making the races due to genetic issues being passed along, so obviously when things get tougher breeders will cull these mares, the credit scheme will bring these mares back into rotation
if it is as suggested on here, a participation scheme, it will encourage lower quality horses to be flogged around to gain these credits, this raises welfare issues and the general 'look' of the industry where horses are being beaten 50m to gain a few credits before retirement

so i think the first thing that needs to be done is race programming, begin with spilting metro class races in separate sex races (same as the lordship and ladyship races already programmed) as i believe these are the quality horses that should be encouraged to keep racing and if these races stand up gradually push the splitting of races down through the grades (top down)

i totally agree with other recommendations in the paper, taxation relief, education, transparency in costing, changes in handicapping

[smithy]

MONTANA - will you personally downscale your nz buying if it costs you 5k per horse,
and would just import more fillies from nz,
breed more
or purchase aussie horses

[montana]

MONTANA - will you personally downscale your nz buying if it costs you 5k per horse,
and would just import more fillies from nz,
breed more
or purchase aussie horses

well i bought 10 fillies last year so i am set for awhile :-)

now that i live on a property my long term intention is to breed more , over the years i have changed my strategies for no real reasons other than to try different things.

as far as costs go well this is my hobby and if i want to be honest with myself if i actually looked how much it all cost me i think i would take up playing chess instead.

to answer your question though i wouldnt buy a 20k horse if i had also to get it to AU and pay a 5k import fee , but i would for a 50k plus horse. i could probably live with a 10% surcharge capped at 5k.....

[montana]

Montana, you have fallen for the common misconception that the stallion owners will be the main beneficiaries. It is not the case -the broodmare owners will be the main beneficiaries. The stallion owners will derive some benefit but only equal to the marginal difference in breeding decisions resulting from the scheme. In most cases, the mare would have been bred from in any case and the broodmare owner will simply get his service fee for nothing rather then have to pay for it. In this instance, the most likely outcome IMO, the stallion owner has derived nothing extra.

maybe , but imo i think there would be no incentive for stallion owners to drop their fees such as they did this year if this scheme was in place. also i think broodmare owners would be more likely to select higher priced stallions if they are getting their fees fully or partially supplemented by this scheme. i can see there is obvious upside for the broodmare owners i am just saying there is for the stallion owners too.

[triplev123]

there will be no fee increase! breeders do not run harness racing.. you are not bigger then the game

HRNSW have just changed the rules to let MORE nz bred horses in the nsw breeding scheme, clearly they have different priorities to this breeding paper

They have indeed changed the eligibility of the NSW Breeders Challenge to allow foals at the foot of imported NZ mares to be made eligible... and they do indeed have different priorities but I'll hazard a guess & suggest that they are somewhat different to those that you may be thinking of.
Instead, they've done so because they've quite rightly assumed that such mares will be at the upper end of the scale...nobody in their right mind is going to shell out the amount of $$$ required in order to ship over over lesser lights. Having been imported it is rightly expected that those mares, for the most part, will subsequently remain in NSW and so bolster the quality of the State's broodmare band.

[The Big Mile]

you are correct.
i think 5k is too much though because it basically takes out the bottom end of the market and there is definitely a market for people wanting to buy a cheap up and running horse and the aussies are not sellers so this will be an issue.

Hey Montana. Good to see someone with the interest in the sport like you have getting that oar wet. You (and I am sure you will admit this yourself) play at the 'top end' of the Kiwi market. The lower echelons are so important as it is the cheapest possible entry point into the sport barring sourcing horses locally. We have flogged it to death as to why we don't source them locally, so the next entry point is a very important one. The inequality of the import fee as a flat fee for mine is the biggest sticking point.

a mix of an increased import fee , imported stallion owners contributions and owner breeder contributions would seem like a more logical way forward.

Some interesting documentation has emerged re the legality of the import fee overall so it will be interesting to see how it plays out. Would HATE to see something introduced like an import fee with the caveat 'Take us to court then' hoping the prospect of legal fees will stop that happening at the Aussie buyers end of the market.

Everyone needs to contribute. Been the argument from post 1. EVERYBODY. Not a select few decided on the whim of committee people whom want to limit decision impact upon their vested interests.

[triplev123]

Another point worth considering: Don't you think that if similar horses could be purchased domestically they would be?

I am sure many, if not all purchasers of horses from NZ would actually like to spend the $5k it costs for transport and associated costs to go straight into 4 legs, a head and a tail.

Problem is many horses for sale in Oz actually lack one of those 3 essentials.

There are 4 main reasons why similar going horses of a given class can be purchased to advantage in NZ and why those same horses are basically not available here in Oz.

(1) Excess production-Way more foals bred in NZ than needed to fill race fields.
(2) The NZ handicapping system- Harsh. Horses basically reach their marks faster.
(3) Lack of racing opportunities in NZ- There are more races in Oz in a single day than there are in 1 week in NZ.
(4) Advantageous Exchange Rate- Ranging between 26-30% up your sleave on any given day.

If those factors were reversed the same horses would be flowing out of Oz into NZ. It's as simple as that.

[The Big Mile]

The stallion owners will derive some benefit but only equal to the marginal difference in breeding decisions resulting from the scheme.

Eliteblood do you really think the impact of the NBCS will be marginal? If this is the case, then why are we bothering going down this path?

In most cases, the mare would have been bred from in any case and the broodmare owner will simply get his service fee for nothing rather then have to pay for it. In this instance, the most likely outcome IMO, the stallion owner has derived nothing extra.

If what you are saying here is true, then the scheme has failed abysmally. The idea is to encourage breeding through NBCS credits, accumulated through a prolonged track career. Maybe this is why the credits cannot be allocated to the owner for the exact reason you mentioned.

The net benefit of the scheme is to pump an additional $2.2 million into service fees. This is where it will end up. How much of that overlaps (in terms of mares whom accumulated credits but would have been bred with anyway) well that is anyones guess and no one will ever know the actual answer, even after looking back on data, let alone looking forward.

This is maybe why credits need to be allocated to lower echelon races. This then will contradict with wanting to ensure improvement of the breed as the scheme effectively entices the quality to be diluted simply to get more foals on the ground. I can see how that is problematic.

I do feel though that to suggest there will be marginal benefit to stallion owners overall from the scheme is a bit short of the mark.