October
JuneJump cuts, please
It is good business practice to periodically review all expenditure, particularly middle management and similar areas, but in our industry we should not and must not infringe on active safety areas such as clerks of course, barrier attendants and so on.
If Racing Victoria Ltd (which last week announced proposed annual expenditure savings of $7 million) is serious about saving money, it must consider cuts to jumps racing support and prizemoney (a few races only).
The RVL’s view is that the financial experiment that is now jump racing would lead to growth in number of horses and new (young?) owners entering the industry to build a large, profitable section of racing. This view simply has not shown any signs of being vindicated. Fields are small, new owner numbers even smaller, betting turnover non-existent.
Average racing industry fans, of which I am one, do not have an interest in either keeping or eliminating jumps racing. We simply don’t care, although we choose not to bet.
Yet we are told, by racing journalists (and one club president), that each year we have new "champions", which in most cases are ordinary horses, racing the same opposition at advantageous weights and being rewarded with prizemoney many times what they are worth.
A constructive solution to satisfy most industry players would seem to lie in a total reconstruction, which could locate this "niche" section of our sport in a concentrated area (such as Victoria’s Western District), with prizemoney levels appropriate to country racing. (After all, most flat horses race for country-level prizemoney.)
This could give trainers and racecourse administrators a platform to work with whilst lowering industry costs (via centralisation) and making savings in prizemoney.
Caulfield South (Vic)