October
JulyDoesn't add up
Of the last 20 horses killed in jumps racing, 15 won more money on the flat than over the jumps. Sometimes a couple of hundred thousand dollars more.
All Square won $247,000, Hassle $358,000, Nitonic $170,000 and Black Oak $96,000. They were put over the jumps and died without earning a dollar more for their owners.
Some horses run a hundred normal races before their connections decide to make them jump. Given the money now on offer it’s not all that surprising. The current state government is financially backing jumps racing.
Last week’s race meeting at Warrnambool had four jumps races offering prizes totalling $250,000. Nevertheless this "big four" attracted Victorian TAB betting investments of only $223,017. Spending $250,000 to attract $223,017 is hardly a sound financial strategy.
The final three races of the meeting were "highweights" (i.e. older, staying horses and heavier jockeys, racing on the flat) with modest prizemoney of $12,000 per race. These races attracted a Victorian TAB investment of $234,895, financially out-performing their government-bankrolled cousins by a very healthy margin.
Jumps racing is neither a rational nor ethical option for a modern sports-racing industry. Conversely, highweight flat racing offers a continuing career in racing for most jumps jockeys and horses where the risks, though not absent, are reasonable.
It’s racing’s job to configure itself in such a way as to ensure its participants, all of them, have an ethical workplace where suffering and death is not accepted as unremarkable.
North Carlton (Vic)