Doomed

I don't know whether there is a lot to be gained by dragging up old stories like that. There are a lot of people who have done more long lasting damage to the industry who seldom get a mention.

If they were down over $3m profit in Oct, extrapolated out over another 9 months that could be a $27m short fall if that trend continues. I wonder if the codes have noticed that? Should someone tell them? They haven't noticed such things in the past, so perhaps we should tell them.

That's a bit harsh. They do run a good piss up, and this year they discovered it goes even more smoothly, and is more popular, if you don't let races get in the way. I imagine that is a lesson they will take heed of going forward. Who knows, what looked like being a disaster initially could end up being a valuable discovery.

We couldn't afford the investigation in NZ. It would send the RIU broke.

About 30 years ago the TAB was just a service organisation who did what they were told and there was no integrity unit, the codes just had a few stipes. These days it is heaps of non racing people taking a massive wage for non essential roles. I thought the incompetent recruiting might have come to an end when Allen and all his post office and foreign affaires cronies got the boot, but it has bloody well got worse. Now we have heaps of ex cops, amongst others. It's insane.

Not sure they would know how to find the life boats.

Does anyone know if the Jockeys, trainers, owners, breeders etc have noticed that things aren't going that well? Do you think any of their governing bodies might want to have some input?

I must say, the half doz or so regular contributors on here who have been pointing out he problems facing the industry for the last few years have, sadly, been proven correct in just about everything they have said. All that time I'm sure NZTR has probably just thought they were a bunch of whinging stirrers. The sad thing is, none of us are brain surgeons, and yet we managed to spot things weren't quite right. So how the hell could people on over $250,000 a year not notice that the industry was in a spot of bother?

It does tend to make them look pretty stupid. As I often say, arrogance, ignorance or incompetence. I seriously don't know which. My god, if the late Jack Bennet was still running things he would be saying "how the fuck did you not see that coming?" and "What are we going to do about it". Geez, even the trots, who to quote the classic saying, wouldn't know the postman was up them until he blew his whistle, at least came in and worked over the weekend. Sharrock and George had no intention of working the weekend. They will "revisit" the situation at the end of the season. Probably be far too late by then. Surely it is time for the clubs, trainers, owners and jockeys, even the breeders, to get together and decide the industry is being run by incompetents and do something about it. I don't think the industry has ever been so badly run, and at the worst possible time. Although it is possibly the worst possible time because it has been so badly run for so long. Surely George and Sharrock must go? If they keep them on the industry deserves everything it gets.

They certainly have to do something. It has got totally out of hand.

It's a bloody sweepstake. You would expect virtually the lot to come from owner payments and perhaps $20,000 or so from the sponsor. If there is a short fall just increase the nom and acceptance payments.

The Dyke certainly has a bigger club input at $120,000 than most of the other "special" races. But still costs the industry $330,000. Trentham seems to be treated as a favoured child and they toss in very little of their own money to any of their feature races: $40,000 to the Oaks and Levin Classic, $30,000 the Wgtn Cup and $20,000 the Telegraph. So the Oaks costs NZTR $440,000. At least the CJC contributes $175,000 to the 2,000 Guineas. As Nomates says, the two million races cost the industry $500,000 which is crazy for a couple of sweepstakes. They obviously don't understand the meaning of sweepstakes. Perhaps we should have a sweepstake to pick when NZTR finally realises things may be going wrong?

I just happened to notice the stakes for some races closing soon. Dyke $450,000, Telegraph $330,000, Oaks $480,000, Levin Classic $350,000. Does anyone think those stakes will attract better fields than $400,000, $300,000, $400,000, $300,000 respectively? That's at least $210,000 being pissed away to achieve nothing. What planet do these people live on? How the hell did they come up with $480,000 for the Oaks? Could it be that they are delaying any move until after noms have closed for a lot of these feature races? Do they want to be able to say "we have to reduce stakes, but we can't reduce the Oaks etc because noms have already closed, so it will have to come off the $14,000 races." Look at the two $40,000 races at Invercargill this weekend. Hardly flash. They would have got identical fields for $30,000.

Marton, with their $228 in cash, could consider putting in an offer for Awapuni. They would probably get it for a knock down price. They could sell the whole lot up and move racing back to Marton.

Fielding and Marton have been their only success stories for years, but you do wonder how those two are going these days with RACE having wasted a lot of their money. It would probably be more interesting to hear how Wairoa, Gisborne, Waipukurau, Masterton, Levin, Paeroa, Te Awamutu, Te Teko, Marlborough, Nelson, Westport, Hokitika, Banks Pen, Rangiora, Amberley, Hororata, Waimate, Geraldine, Waikouaiti, Tapanui, Beaumont, Winton, Omakau, Wyndham etc etc are finding it these days. Do their members and supporters still enjoy their day out in the big city? Do those clubs put on a fleet of buses to take the locals to Riccarton or Hastings etc?

I don't know whether anyone noticed or not, but the four class jockeys cleaned up the whole card at Trentham yesterday. Good to see the cream rise to the top. Some great prices for the South Island's best. And further North the South African cleaned up. Despite all the pessimism we might actually have one of the best sets of jockeys we have seen in this country for a while. I know one of them was only making a fleeting visit.

The other thing to remember is that trainers and jockeys need a certain number of opportunities to remain viable. Some SI jockeys might only get 3 or 4 opportunities a week and they often have to make a 10 hour round trip to get those few opportunities to race in $14,000 races.

My natural inclination is to disagree with parts of that, especially the bit about fewer race-days equals higher stakes. But I can't comment with any confidence because I don't have crucial information. Obviously a 10 race card with $14,000 races costs $140,000 to run. If that meeting was generating $1.4m in turnover and if 10% of that turnover was allocated to funding stakes then that industry meeting breaks even; roughly, I know there are other costs. But I don't have access to any information like that so I can't make an informed comment. Yesterday's Trentham meeting cost almost $800,000 in stakes money, so on my unscientific 10% commission figure that would require $8m in turnover to fund. I'm not aware whether it got to close to $8m in turnover or not, but I would be slightly surprised if it did.

I don't think they really treat it as a business. They kept getting paid regardless of performance, although one day that will come to an end.

They have been relying on something like that for years. No windfalls so far. I have often said on here that I can't understand how we can manage the stakes we currently have based on turnovers. Others keep saying we need to increase stakes. Looks like I might have been right. Sounds like the only prospect for future stakes increases will be based on turnovers. As long as I have been involved in racing income has always been dependent on turnover. We seem to have forgotten that. I don't think abandoning the on course experience and discouraging clubs from any innovation will help turnovers in the long term.

Serious question. Why has the cost of the Integrity unit more than doubled in four years. Is it wages, are they doing more work? Surely the number of race-meetings has declined in that time so less meetings to attend, and racing is increasingly being centralised so no need to visit Wairoa, Waimate etc, and they hardly race on public holidays anymore. Surely everything should be leading to vastly reduced costs. Someone must know what is behind these bloated cost increases when the industry can't afford it.

So the only prospect for increased income in the next couple of years is from an increase in betting profit? And yet NZTR is prepared to use up their reserves for the next 8 months in the hope things come right. In any other industry the shareholders would be up in arms and the board would be called to account and asked what they are doing to get things back on track. I'm not sure that sitting on their hands would be considered a constructive strategy.

Thank you Joe. I will keep a couple of days clear in my calendar pre Xmas just in case they come calling. Reefton might be busy organising his race-meeting, and mowing the grass. Freda should be ok, she doesn't have much in the way of decent local racing until the end of January now.

And this is the pre xmas window that most other clubs would die for. Probably be interesting to compare today's Trentham crowd to the Geraldine trots last week.

Quite bizarre all round really. Did the TAB and NZTR not notice that fields have been rubbish for several months and as a consequence turnovers were plummeting. Surely they knew it was coming. NZTR must have only been told officially a couple of days ago as less than a week ago they added a new $30,000 race at the next Awapuni meeting. Surely they wouldn't have done that if they had known the predicament Racing was in. Why use reserves to maintain stakes levels for another 8 months?That can only mean they expect everything to come right after 8 months, or even before. It seems totally irresponsible if they don't know for certain that there is a financial windfall coming. Some people might not think so, but there is a lot of excess stakes money that could be pruned to save money. Most feature meetings the $40,000 open races could be cut to $35,000. Races like the Telegraph and Dyke at $350,000 and $450,000 could easily have $50,000 pruned off them and still attract the same field. In hindsight was it really a great idea to run the 2,000 Guineas for $550,000 and not $500,000? A couple of weeks ago at Awapuni the open $40,000 race race attracted such a poor field it ended up with a 74 top weight so than ran it as a 74, but still retained the $40,000. They have to bite the bullet and realise the situation racing is in. Write it into the conditions that if an open race attracts a shit field and runs as a 74 then it runs for a 74 stake. The $60,000 and $70,000 minimums on these iconic days might just have to be cut to $50,000. The fields will be the same. It may be that they have to advertise a lot of races at lower stakes, say $30,000 for open races, but if the race attracts a decent sized field, say 10 or more actual starters, and gets say at least a couple of horses over 85 then they boost the stake accordingly. You could hardly say the $50,000 minimums at Trentham today have attracted outstanding fields. One thing they can't do is lower the $14,000 minimum stakes. Although they have to find some way around the excess scratchings in such races in the NI. Four 2 dividend races at Rotorua this week and three at Taranaki on a seven race card. That is just not an efficient use of funds. Saying they aren't going to do anything, just use reserves, is real head in the sand stuff. Just like these desperate clubs that keep selling off land until they have none left. I have no idea how much reserves they have. Obviously they have been built up by spending nothing on tracks or facilities. If they have to use $8.5m to boost stakes for 8 months this year that means over $12m to maintain stakes for all of next season. They don't really give you the impression of competent management who have all this in hand. "Don't worry, we've got this. Cameron is going to spend the half time breaks in the warriors games working on saving NZ Racing. And if they miss the finals series he will have another couple of months to work on Racing."