Slippery Slope

You are probably right! But if HRNZ are transparent and report regularly how much this exercise (especially Auckland / Cambridge) is costing the industry, especally compared to what we were already overspending before the change this month, then there is at least hope that they are up for a debate and change of course if proves to be financially as bad as we all think it is. Should be blindingly obvious even with the FNL results. It's nobody's absolute "fault" that in a racing sense Alexandra Park is a poor betting product and Addington is one of the best, it's just history, economics and community interest all melded together. Why can't HRNZ just accept that most Australasian punters have already made their choice, and the young Auckland market are already betting and gaming elsewhere? No amount of heavily subsidised second rate racing is going to change that very much at all, in fact over time it may even be detrimental to harness racing's share of betting revenue overall. Only the numbers will tell us.

Just to be clear, whilst I agree with the observation about 16 vs 12 in general, as a one off what Gammalite's forgetting is the higher class of the race and the familarity of so many horses to punters will give a really large offset to uplift betting (just like a Country Cups full field) vs an everyday R50 race where 12 is as he observes to be preferred to 16. HRNZ and Entain have all the historical data and modelling to work this out- rest assured the upcoming Friday night feature will be a way more profitable race for harness racing vs the alternative of 2 fields of 8,and the latter would have been twice exposed to scratching risk thus dragging return the field size down still further. Another recent thread references correctly to the good work the brains trust in the Utilisation Reference Group have just released. Two key quotes: "maximising wagering turnover will be the principle consideration" and "we should be aiming to achieve annual annual and increasing minimum average of 10 to 11 starters". Sorry but splitting 12 acceptances of R50 or lower classified horses into two fields of 6 has proven over the long term based on HRNZ's own data analysis to give a lesser return (betting revenue less stakes subsidy) to the industry and thus its owners. Given HRNZ is already overspending its available stakes subsidy funds relative to where we be in 4 more years I'd hope it should listen to its brains trust. Alternatively explain why it thinks (knows) based on the actual financial results that 2x6 horse fields with the scratching risk that follows is a lesser and/or sustainable cost to the industry vs one field of 12, which they have already proven to be in the band of the optimum field size for maximising net revenue for the industry.

Friday 23rd will mark 3 weeks of the new Tuesday Cambridge/ Friday Alexandra Park setup. By end of tomorrow night we will have had 44 races across the 6 meetings at the two venues. Only 6 of those races will have achieved the minimum optimal fields size for betting revenue, 10 or more. But sadly the generally least optimal (highest cost) field sizes 6 or less will have occurred in at best 15 of those 44 races, assuming no more scratchings for Alexandra Park tomorrow night. I mention this because next Tuesday Cambridge have a few more nominations than the last two weeks- 66. If HRNZ are still on top of the data and equations of betting revenue earned relative to stakes subsidies paid as they were for the last couple of years they will already know how much dividing nominations of 12 to 14 before scratchings into fields of 5/6/7 is costing the industry immediately more money in terms of excess stakes subsidy to betting revenue. So watch out if they still keep doing field splitting next week as they have for the last two meetings. At the moment this is just a narrow and more short term question of trying to understand why HRNZ are apparently consciously splitting fields at a greater cost. No commentary has been made to date, and maybe they are still just experimenting, which may be fair enough if they are properly monitoring the outcomes from this experimentation. We just don't know. In making this observation there's also the bigger picture and longer term question of what the relatively poorer quality of product simply due to field size that we are now offering in the north vs the south will do to relative Australasian punter interest on meetings in the North? If R60 and below class racing is our core product offer for c.80%+ of all races but then in the North its predominatly dished up in fields of 7 or less vs 10 or more (plus on grass tracks) in the South, that seems a tough place to grow overall punter interest in Auckland and Waikato harness racing. Lots of questions still to be answered, hopefully HRNZ are monitoring and analysing outcomes as they go.

May be so, 81 started there last year, and the first meeting of the year earlier in the month at Ascot Park was 10% down on numbers vs 2023. Hope it's not a sign of things to come in Southland otherwise our overall share of turnover could be hanging by a (Canterbury) thread even more than it is already.

About that. Last season first 2 Manawatu meetings - 23 Oct average field size 8.4, 5 races. 4 favourites won, $ 252k turnover, Gross betting revenue a loss of $51k because of favourites predominating, HRNZ stakes subsidy $51k, net difference ($102k). Not something we would want repeated very often! - 13 Nov better result. average field size 9, 6 races. 4 favourites won but other 2 were 6th favourites. $234k turnover (but good export), Gross betting revenue a surplus of $28k, HRNZ stakes subsidy $62k, net difference ($34k), so that was c. 3 races stakes subsidies covered. Cambridge on Tuesday had 3 favourites, 2 2nd favourites a 4th and 5th favourite win the seven races. Less turnover than Manawatu's 6 races last year and with much smaller fields this year. With that mix of favourites hard to see how total meeting GBR gets above $20k- that would be 3 races at best. For Cambridge its a sad watch and a sad financial outcome if we don't have the horses. As I've said already why HRNZ would split 12 horses in two fields of 6 to lose more money I don't understand. But unless we get transparency from HRNZ on financial outcomes by meeting further down the line like they've given us for the last couple of years we'll just be making an educated guess on how much this new approach comparitively performs over time.

One other big picture observation and question. Harness racing is already not New Zealand wide, and unfortunately amongst the numerous reasons that this has happened is that in the 2 main centres that now no longer have harness racing (Wellington and Dunedin) the product that was offered simply wasn't attractive enough for punters and owners (the venues weren't either). Cambridge is a top venue for harness racing on and off course. Unlike Wellington and Dunedin (and CBD Auckland) it is in the centre of the equine industry in this country. The explosion in choice for Australasian punters in 2025 with gaming and sports betting as well as wall to wall racing compared to just 10 years ago necessitates harness racing delivering a quality competitive product. Harness Racing New Zealand are consciously and deliberately putting a product offer at Cambridge that looks likely (apart from 1 month in the year) to be worse than the offer that was at Hutt Park and Forbury Park and they have gone forever. Regular selling of a poor product on the worst day of the week to sell it (apart maybe from Mondays) will do what to the reputation and attractiveness of that product at that venue over the long term, for both wagering and ownership?

Here's a novel idea. If you refer to my analysis of yesterday, you'll see that for a virtually equivalent number of races 224 vs 244, for the year ended 31 July Alexandra Park needed approximately $6,800 more in stakes subsidy per race from HRNZ than Cambridge to run each of those races, despite its better race dates (Friday nights). Of course part of that extra would have been group race subsidies, but I eliminated the 3 biggest / most costliest race days across both venues to be as like for like as possible in that analysis But for comparison purposes let's allow Alexandra Park to keep $1800 of that $6800 per race excess subsidy ($400k + p.a.) for the rest of the group races costs but then to even up the return for owners racing at both venues we rebalance the remaining $5000 50/50 and so Cambridge races for $2,500 more- $10,500 every race, and average Alexandra Park races for $2,500 less c.$14,500. Note that this distribution becomes very very similar to the Addington stakes vs the rest of Canterbury venues like Methven and Motukarara Friday/Sunday balance that has worked well there for years. Do this and then ask whether you have to do any of the other stuff on Cambridge R35 bottom up/ Auckland R40 minimum etc the Utilisation Working Group are coming up with to deal with the enforced Cambridge/ Alexandra Park stakes disparity HRNZ set up from 1 August. If Entain forces Cambridge to keep racing on Tuesdays and Alexandra Park won't let them have any Friday nights for their "Cambridge Rewards" events then so be it. But at least with the above you've: 1.Given Cambridge, relative to Alexandra Park at least, AND ALL THE WAIKATO OWNERS AND TRAINERS, a fair share of the stakes subsidy pool. Then HRNZ don't have to keep asking that group to "take one for the team" in terms of the reduction in their access locally to a fair stake level and having to now incur the cost (Going to Alexandra Park!) to anything more than $8k. 2.Required Alexandra Park to operate more closely to the betting revenue that their turnover generates. Thus they can be much more accurately and fairly judged on how attractive and financially sustainable they really are relative to the the bulk of owners at stake levels that are closer to those that we will have to live with in 4 years, rather than just the top 5 or 10% chasing Group status races. 3. Got a similar comparison of performance of Auckland / Cambridge to Addington/Canterbury country to work on over the long term. 4. Hopefully removed a key barrier to enabling Cambridge to get back on Fridays on a structured basis (just once a month please!), and maybe even for both venues to work to putting up a decent product to bet on relative to Addington at least on every Friday. Thoughts?

And in addition to Chief Stipe, linked to 1. measure progress and performance as we go, so we don't keep throwing $ millions of money to where it generates the least return for the spend.

Wouldn't it be refreshing if HRNZ explained why, given how we are depending on them to maximise turnover with their handicapping and field size policies, they chose to split fields and gave us 7 races with an average field size of 6.6. One less race would have given us 7 and 8 horse fields throughout, not great but the bare minimum surely.

Keeping Alexandra Park afloat at all costs, even if Cambridge goes under? If I was forced to choose which one reflects the right location and strategic positioning for where the harness racing industry will in reality be in the future it wouldn't be my choice, but that's going to be determined by the industry and where the money comes from. At the very least for now (the next 4 years) if I was HRNZ I'd make sure I had enough competitive tension in this project between the two venues, and key milestones to measure how it is going. Instead they seem to be simply hanging Cambridge out to dry at a time when Alexandra Park isn't even certain to be a going concern. As you say, it seems a strange idea, and for HRNZ somewhat divorced from reality during a period when they are spending excess $ vs turnover and betting revenue in the North which they have absolutely no guarantee will still be there 4 years from now.

Gammalite your preference is what HRNZ is delivering. But to try to explain the misguided approach to Alexandra Park vs Cambridge, here are key quotes from the just released HRNZ Utlisation Working Group 2nd report outlining what they want to do at these venues. It proposes: 1. Auckland should offer racing at R40 and above 2. Cambridge.. select fields bottom up R35 and above 3. Cambridge horses... regularly... race at Auckland in "Cambridge rewards" races for higher stakes. Why this is unfortunately misguided, putting aside all the other commentary about the huge $ cost to the whole industry of subsidising the Auckland venue: 1. Auckland meetings regularly only get off the ground in terms of this class of horse if Cambridge and South Island horse are in attendance- there are otherwise not enough horses trained anywhere near this venue. 2. The Waikato region, which Cambridge is in the heart of, is the biggest and wealthiest horse orientated part of New Zealand- it is not Tasmania! And up until now harness racing because of Cambridge was doing a good job of maintaining cross code interest in our sport, including ownership. Being shunted to Tuesdays and being forced to "select fields bottom up" will quite quickly kill this interest and ownership drop off will follow. 3. The Cambridge owners and trainers are going to be asked to race for "Cambridge Rewards" races every month, not at their own venue say 1 Friday a month (which could have addressed point 2 above) , but by trucking two hours each way to race at Alexandra Park, at more cost to everyone. I can't even begin to say how nuts it is to treat harness racing's 3rd biggest venue after Addington and Alexandra park this way. It is in the middle of horse racing's biggest and best area nationwide. It is not and never should be compared to Birnie, Devonport or Launceston, but if the above is the plan that is what is likely to happen over time. The harness racing industry has much more relative strength in Canterbury and Southland because it is local and interconnected week in week out. Auckland could have been required by HRNZ to ensure Cambridge had the opportunity to keep doing exactly the same, and keep racing those "Cambridge Rewards" events or whatever else it is termed locally at least 1 Friday night a month. It didn't, and that says a lot about how well connected they seem to be to where the bulk of the industry's owners and trainers come from.

"Deliberate distorting of the market can only lead to one thing- market failure". Just a reminder on the scale of market distortion in favour of Alexandra Park and to disavantage Cambridge that already existed before we saw the triple combo of FNL kick off, two meetings a week and Cambridge shunted to Tuesdays start in earnest this month. For the 11 months 3 Aug '23 to 5 July '24, the numbers of meetings and races between the two venues were similar. But the relative cost to the industry and return from betting definitely was not. Let's exclude the 3 big autumn race nights with the largest HRNZ subsidies/ stakes at Cambridge and Alexandra Park (12 Apr Cambridge Slots, 10 and 17 May Alexandra Pk Auckld & Rowe Cup and leadups) and thus focus on the bulk of races/ meetings/ betting revenue and subsidies being related mainly to "every day" racing. Excluding these 3 meetings in the 11 months here's the comparison: Cambridge, 26 meetings , 7 on Fridays. 224 races. Gross betting revenue, $2.310m $10,312 per race. HRNZ subsidies $3.454m, $15,420 per race. Shortfall $1.144m, $5,108 per race. Alexandra Pk, 27 meetings, 16 on Fridays, 244 races. Gross betting revenue, $3.057m $12,530 per race. HRNZ subsidies $5.979m, $24,505 per race. Shortfall $2.922m, $11,975 per race. Most in this forum are fully aware that it's really hard understanding the HRNZ justification for shifting so many $ millions of subsidy to the north vs the south year on year. And its even harder to understand on the comparison above, why HRNZ then further favour Alexandra Park so exclusively versus Cambridge, a situation that will only worsen under the new Tuesday/Friday structure. The ATC was already being favoured with both most of the Fridays and most of the group races and their associated subsidies, and they weren't performing better relative to Cambridge. Why does FNL always have to be Alexandra Park should remain a very live question for HRNZ. This is especially the case as it's likely the horse population shortage with the resulting lousy betting choices presented for both Alexandra Park and Cambridge will simply cause the $ they have to spend to subsidise Northern harness racing to grow still further. There's no such thing as a free lunch!

Why is it so hard for the ATC president (or anyone else in harness racing leadership to be fair) to be honest about the total amount of cross subsidisation to Alexandra Park in particular that has been going on for years, and still is? To cherry pick a comparison of two racs the Derby and Oaks but totally ignore the extra $000's his venue gets for every other non-Group race every week of the year is depressing!

And when you put these two products side by side and give the punter a choice (versus having no need to make a choice 24 hours apart) the punter with limited money to spend in then evening will presumably usually choose the product which offers best value for a return on their form study and their $- that is the bigger field, the better dividends, the track with the better setup to give more horses a chance to win etc etc. BUT To be fair to Entain, the two products side by side virtually every Friday night may attract more regular punter support and thus more turnover overall, too early to know. But if the average Addington race has c.10 starters whilst Alexandra Park can only get an average of 8, as you say Brodie its likely to be Addington that pulls most of those extra $, and if so the subsidy from South to North to pay equivalent stakes at each venue will only grow. Addington could keep bringing in even more $ as share of turnover vs Alexandra Park, if FNL does bring in more punters and $. But if so just to keep Alexandra Park afloat and give stakeholders up there more than $4k per race of their stakemoney that extra $ would all be coming out of the increased profit from betting on Addington. This seems a truly weird way to run a business. It will be really bad if no transparency comes from HRNZ 6/ 12 months from now on what cross subsidy $ have been thrown into Alexandra Park and Cambirdge out of Canterbury, under new dates model vs old,and what the outcome from this change is overall especially between the two venues and North vs South with ref to share of betting revenue earned vs stakes subsidies paid out. Not holding my breath, but reporting on the FNL project should be both regular and transparent.

Some of the most depressing and concerning things about all this is that: 1. HRNZ will have or should have known all this when they supported both publicly and to the extent of $ millions of industry funds being taken out of Crusaders country betting revenue each and every year to fund Alexandra Park stakes. They are the controlling body for the industry and they surely have the right (and indeed obligation) to be all over the financial position of the ATC like a rash, and to thus explain why this doesn't seem to worry them. 2, HRNZ committed to all of this again publicly for the next 3 years (rather than 3 months!) BEFORE November's property settlement outcome is known. So no certainty as of today that they aren't putting all our industry money down the drain until that settlement outcome is known, whilst at the same time also prematurely relegating Cambridge who have challenges of their own to low class racing on Tuesday with very little hope of their turnover recovering the cost of stakes subsidies, and treating the arguably more strategically important Waikato harness racing community with disdain in terms of being able to maintain let alone grow owner support there. 3. The now publicly announced this week lobby from the ATC to unbelievably want even more of the $ millions of surplus revenue that Crusaders country harness racing generates , to fund a training venue they probably can't afford, to replace the one they sold off !! Sorry HRNZ, but this has the potential to be an incredibly embarassing few months for our code, and the treatment of owners and trainers in the South Island, and probably Cambridge as well, who are supporting this whole exercise with their money. Doesn't doing so in advance of the Auckland Trotting Club being able to prove to all of us that it is in fact a going concern disrespect us all? I'm looking forward to HRNZ recovering its commitment to being transparent on when / how you will report progress with "the Future starts now" within the next 3 to 6 months. Especially to tell us how we are doing on turnover/ betting revenue being earned with the new strategy vs stakes paid and the reality vs the spin of the situation in Auckland and the Waikato, and what that is costing the rest of the industry as an investment for the future. Please don't think keeping us in the dark for 3 years is in your and our interest.

Unfortunately I think most of the knowledgeable contributors here know the industry needs real change, it is incredibly urgent, but it may already be too late. Right now there is limited clarity and detail coming out of a clearly resource challenged HRNZ since the managment losses back in January/ February on what happens next. Except for the somewhat debateable 2yo bonus incentive, we probably all have to be very concerned that the previous administration's effort to innovate in the calendar (good and bad admittedly), and provide transparency on performance reporting is going out the window. The month of May has come and gone, and the first new Tues/Fri northern dates combo is supposed to start in only 60 days from now. None of these dates changes have any chance of success (which means betting returns match or exceed cost of stakes) without a re-organised handicapping and stakes subsidy system. We are all no wiser as to how HRNZ will invest stakes subsidies differently for the good of the 75% of breeders/ owners/ trainers who can keep it alive. There has been nothing said about how the handicapping system may be modified. What is going to be different, and how can any owner and trainer (especially in the South Island) commit to and invest in the industry when its leadership is really battling to explain what its strategy is and how it will sustain the core of harness racing against the incredibly competitive world of online / digital gaming and gambling? The latest HRNZ Chair's update last week has specified end July to finalise code funding agreements and end September for completion of the horse utilisation work (presumably to implement asap thereafter?). Those dates all seem far too late don't they? So be ready for a very messy spring schedule of meetings with cancellations, especially in the North, and lesser betting returns from Sunday racing in the south with increased throughbred competition. Even more worrying times for the majority of our owners and trainers lie ahead. Our 4 leading training partnerships have all earned over $1m in stakes already this year, the next best have stakes earnings of less than $450,000. This is not a sustainable business model.

The $ and %'s come from HRNZ's own website- a section headed "Raceday Performances" which details for every single meeting how much they paid out for stakes subsidies and how much the betting on that meeting gave back to them to use for industry funding. HRNZ deserve a lot of credit for making this information available to everyone in the industry, I don't think NZTR do the same. The reasons Rangiora contributes more per race to harness racing funds than Auckland (a performance repeated by virtually every venue in the Crusaders catchment) will be a combination of the bigger fields giving bigger betting pools, resulting in both more attractive odds and more losses rather than wins for punters, so more $ come back to HRNZ rather than going into our TAB accounts. I'd also argue, and this is just an opinion, that Canterbury harness racing generally has more customer interest nationally and even internationally. One absolute fact to support this is that you'll also find from that same Raceday Performance information that Auckland's export turnover (betting in Australia) is also very little different to Rangiora, despite the supposed way higher profile that Alexandra Park has across Australasia. If in the same 7 month period Rangiora's 7 lower class meetings can get $243k average export tunrover per meeting, vs Auckland $265k for their 18 and Addington $355k for their 22 excluding Cup Week, that surely tells you the venues offshore punters are choosing to follow as well. You are right about the pressure on Sunday turnovers especially with the extra thoroughbred competition coming into that day. And if we keep shortchanging the clubs that provide the bulk of our Sunday income we will only make this competitive challenge even harder to overcome. And yes I wasn't expecting it to be possible to have a short response time to substituting meetings between Islands. I was only hoping HRNZ may now be looking ahead a few months, recognise the horse population won't support many of these meetings, and plan accordingly. "Hope" is still a good thing until proven otherwise! (interest of punters,

And just to build on this explanation for Gammalite, heres a simple comparison of how much Auckland is cross subsidised by all those maiden and lower class race meetings in Canterbury, that punters nationwide choose to bet on in preference to Alexandra Park,and which actually return surplus money to the industry every time they are held. From the start of August last year to 3 March '24: -Rangiora Trotting Club has raced 7 times. Their 72 races had average stakes of c. $11,750, 11.4 average starters per race, and those 72 races generated tunrover of $6.141m, >$85k per race, and after dividends payout they returned betting revenue of $1.334m to the industry (21.7% of turnover), $293k more than the stakes subsidy of $1.041m paid by HRNZ for those races. -Auckland Trotting Club raced 18 times in the same period. Their 162 races and average stakes of $20,800 were approximately double Rangiora, but HRNZ's subsidy of Auckland's stakes ($3.514m)was MORE THAN TRIPLE the subsidy to Rangiora ( double when measured on a per starter basis). That subsidy was given to a club that attracted an average of only 8.6 starters per race for those 162 races, and primarily because of those woeful horse numbers the turnover achieved ($12.409m),per race ($77k) which was less than Rangiora and after dividends payout they returned betting revenue of $2.224m to the industry (17.95% of turnover), $1.290m less than the stakes subsidy paid by HRNZ for those races. Rangiora 821 starters in 72 races, HRNZ provides c.$1270 per starter in stakes subsidies, and punters give HRNZ back $1625 per starter in betting revenue. +$355 per starter Auckland 1391 starters in 162 races, HRNZ provides c. $2525 per starter in stakes subsidies, and punters give HRNZ back $1600 per starter in betting revenue.-$925 per starter. There a number of posters on this forum who see that this current business model is nonsensical and unsustainable, and that Entain appear to only care about gross betting revenue, with wall to wall Australasian racing product for online / offcourse punters mattering to them above all else. So we continue to await HRNZ's next steps in handicapping and stakes subsidy structures from 1 August, which surely has to address this fundamental flaw in harness racing stakes distribution. Perhaps we should also be asking them to explain why they did not insist to Entain at the very least on scheduling some if not most of the new meetings from 1 August at venues like Rangiora instead of or even in parallel with the new North Island meetings? And is it too late to fix this?

And the Rowe Cup is an even bigger example of the reality of harness racing at Alexandra Park- not a single one of the 7 starters is trained in the north, and if it wasn't for the Hope family taking up all 3 of their team in the race we could have had an all time smallest field for our second biggest trotting event. The Wallis /Hackett team and Tony Herlihy have been the only northern trainers that have entered horses in all the 3 previous editions of this race. No excuses about time of the year it's run either- this race has been late April / May for many many years. When the very few trainers committed to trotters in the north call it quits what happens then?

So many venues that supported "rugby, racing and beer" that were the foundations of our social life in the last century are tired and past their used by date in the mid 2020's. And all 3 of these foundations to Kiwi recreation are being hammered by much more appealing activity for the under 30's of today- basketball and football vs rugby, sports betting and online gaming vs racing, RTD's and wine vs beer. But don't throw in the towel yet on harness racing connecting with another generation. Across the South Island there are c.15 venues, including Nelson, that get both young and old up close and personal with harness racing over 8 months every year. That experience plus all the quality and regular events at Addington can nurture an interest across young people and the semi retired that can last a lifetime, if we keep supporting the product and the venues. Plenty of us have had a holiday in the UK, France or Italy at least once in our life, and there's not much new or fresh in any of those countries these days either. People regularly enjoying visiting somewhere old and often past its best, but new to them, and a day out as a customer at an gritty but genuinely fun harness racing venue can get lots of casual visitors on a fun journey not wholly dependent on their phone or laptop!

Agree the HRNZ 24 April press release wasn't full of clarity, and had some worrying comments re looking for "uniform application of national racing and programming policies to ensure like-for-like racing." which would seem counter intuitive to the common sense generally discussed in this forum. But we have to be fair and await the opportunity they have in "...releasing our strategic plan in mid-May which underpins and supports the revamped calendar ". Plenty have used the phrase " Hope is not a strategy" over the years, but you never know, we could be pleasantly surprised!

We can't expect a global bookmaker that just wants product to fill wall to wall digital and video Australasian channels to care very much if at all as to where that product comes from. They are only interested in best net profit for them being a function of not just gross betting revenue but also achieving the lowest cost of production NZ wide of that digital/video product. Of course Auckland , Hamilton and Palmerston North are already the 3 centres where the bulk of their infrastructure, equipment and staff are already located, so the more meetings across all 3 codes that those teams, equipment and building infrastructure costs can be spread over, the more Entain make per meeting. They will accept the upweighted guaranteed payouts to the codes for 4 more years knowing they eventually "fix" that problem too. So what can HRNZ do to counterbalance the seemingly inexorable decline in betting revenue share that this behaviour by Entain will cause? They have only two real weapons in their armoury: Firstly- ensure stakes subsidies failrly closely aligns to the meetings which hold the most punters' interest and loyalty in tandem with the investment in the product itself (horses in sufficent numbers!) from our owners. In that way Entain's apparent strategy to deliver an inferior product for punters at a lower cost/ better profit outcome for them can be at least partially offset by harness racing maximising the investment it controls in its best product and Secondly- once it has sorted out the fairest and most competitive stakes subsidy structure, realign its handficapping system so that the consequent large stakes differential that will arise between meetings North Island vs South Island meetings for current R55 and below horses is reflected in clearly differing points penalties/ drop backs relative to actual stakes paid. Manawatu wins already are truly worth far less points handicap penalties than Rangiora, ad when we subsidise Manawatu much more closely to the actual betting revenue they deliver to the industry this diffeence will be far greater- the handicapping system has to reflect this. None of the above may sustain existing stakes levels in 4 more years, but at least over that time HRNZ will have done their best to look after the 80% of the industry who will likely still be there once Entain's commitment period ends, and they won't still be pretending there is enough money in the kitty to fund the 100% of the industry as it is today.

An outsider to the NZ harness racing industry could look at the following 4 decisions in the past 12 months and ask itself what is HRNZ actually doing to enhance and sustain owner and punter investment the harness racing product when it is competing against the explosion of competition for the gaming $ from global/ Australasian/local racing and sports betting products, that Entain are very happy to deliver whilst it works through its 5 year commitment period and then likely lets everyone fight for themselves ? (1) Doing nothing to fix the huge subsidy being given today to the poorer performing venues in the North Island, which the statistics already show punters and owners do not support. (2) Supporting the addition of even more meetings to those North Island venues whilst doing virtually nothing to reward/ further incentivise/ trial more race opportunities to the owners/ trainers/ venues in the South Island which are the core of the industry and again as the statisics show provide almost all the best betting product and the vast majority of owners and trainers (3) Accepting substantial new thoroughbred competition on our best day for betting/ lower class racing (Sunday) without signalling anything that will strengthen our competitive offer on Sundays. (4) Giving these new large incentives and subsidies to small field 2yo racing, generally on races and at venues that already require a substantial stakes susbidy taken from betting revenue generated elsewhere. Put all of the above together and ask yourself about the 80:20 rule. The proposition that 80 per cent of harness racing particpants are losing ever increasing amounts to fund the 20% of the industry that provide a product the punter has less and less interest in every year, and that the above "business/ industry development" decisions will actually only make this scenario worse is something that HRNZ and Entain should be held accountable to answer for in the 4 years to come, along the lines the Galah has suggested earlier in this thread. HRNZ's strategy update this month can't come soon enough.

Not sure it is part of the plan, but the new dates structure under the existing stakes subsidy model meaning similar stake levels nationwide certainly creates an incentive for this to happen by giving an early exit sales opportunity for owners with lesser performing horses, if there are trainers up north with owners to support buying them. Agree that for starting period at least a lot of the meetings may not get off the ground due to horse numbers, and totally agree that 5/6 race programmes attached to trials at Rangiora and Ashburton would have been the logical, less risky and likely less total industry cost to trial this idea. Claims made in the press release when all recent historical and current betting preformance shows exactly the opposite is very disappointing.

One of the strangest aspects of the HRNZ decision is the point just made about Methven and other currently dominant Sunday meetings for punters. HRNZ are apparently supporting a new dates structure that will incentivise owners to shift lower class horses in the South Island for supposedly more regular racing at the less attractive betting venues in the North Island. They thus run the risk of reducing the available pool of horses to Methven and others, and thus the number of races and field sizes for country racing in the Crusaders district. At exactly the same time we now have Entain also supporting a big increase in competing thoroughbred meetings on Sunday, whilst HRNZ's response appears to be weakening their competing and currently better product offering. Go figure! Someone from HRNZ will hopefully explain soon how weakening your best lower class betting product won't happen, but as it stands Doomed is right. It won't end well, in about 4 years time, when the already obvious shortfall in betting turnover to support the current spread of venues and races will come to a head when Entain's commitment period ends.