Huey

Yep it's been a Clayton's stakes system since the loss of free racing, I don't understand why we don't stop kidding ourselves and revert to a stakes level/distribution whereby the owner does at least not have to fork out for noms and acceptances or pay down to 8th or 10th or whatever as it stands , you'd think this is at the very least the type of thinking NZTR could socialise. But perhaps it doesn't fall in line with sales prices or something?

Covered n Grey what a mare

No stats required Barry, you just have to read it. They have a leadership/structure that wants to inspire, elevate and invigorate racing. A prime example is their connection with grass roots racing they understand it's importance and realise nothing else happens without a decent base. Here we have a structure that wants to choke grassroots, rob grassroots and finally eleviate the sport of its significant base. We have bunch of people who go to Australia (or come from there -go figure) and think the top end can be replicated here, ignoring the fact it's all come about due to their attention to the grassroots over the years, they think they can bake a cake with just icing on it and then they'll have a really nice cake. We've got a team at NZTR whose mantra is to" manage decline " and we are supposed to get excited about racing in this country... What a joke!

Thank goodness we have a team here "managing decline"!

Can't they just back date the legislation, I'd have thought that will be the approach.

Agree but certainly appears to be planned all along, no money elsewhere so the only silver bullet. Look out Avondale and others an industry the has performed poorly through poor management and lack of stockholder involvement in managing the industry wants you to foot the bill for more absurd ill thought out strategy. As I said many a fool will welcome this.

I see all the comments about the Asset Grab have proved the smokescreen everyone knew they were and are set to fragment the industry even more: Latest RITA update Legislate to vest club assets to code regulatory bodies, Reduce the number of venues and Upgrade facilities and tracks of remaining venues with funds from closed venues. There has been an enormous amount of work done in the venue space in an attempt to give the industry the tools it needs to tackle the hard decisions and successfully resolve them. RITA has provided feedback to the DIA on the need to build on the existing work programme, and if any legislative changes are required they are subject to a clear and transparent process between Codes and Clubs, but we await Government’s direction on this matter. In the interim, RITA continues to work with the Codes on the Future Venue Plan with a meeting expected to be scheduled over the next few weeks.

That is sad to hear and worst still there are many thinking like you. But don't worry those running the industry think they can survive by having 5 TAs and forget about the owner,breeder,volunteer and they are dreaming. I have a few more young ones to get through then I'm out of the sport for good as well. I can cope with the poor levels of prize money,the ridiculous distribution of stakes, the absurd admin costs of racing a horse etc etc some how through my madness , but what I can't cope with is how this industry treats its participants! Particularly since the M report. The ridiculous say one thing and then do the other, the incredible outright favouritism shown to certain clubs,stables and individuals , the fact you're better treated as an owner being part of BGP than you are owning your own horse, they say they are managing decline , well that's simply not true they are encouraging it.

Have you tried scrolling to the bottom of the opening page and loading the desktop version?

I'm interested to see how short he will be, $1.5 ??

Some of these trial meetings have a large number of heats, June trials over 20 heats as an example. I think there are a number of trainers who take horses there to gallop also arent there? A club that looks like it run entirely on volunteers so I do feel for them this happening.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11947312 This gentleman , looks like he is very clued up on the sport.

Good on you for having some thoughts, but do 12 months on a committee at a smaller club having discussed your views with the wonderful folk at NZTR then come back and let us know what you think. I'm sorry absolutely no hope of anything positive you have said that would benefit the smaller clubs and NZracing would have any hope of getting off the ground unless there was a massive change in regime. RITA isn't there to fix racing it's there to see if there is another way of shuffling the chairs around to keep it from sinking.

They don't , perhaps I misunderstood you . I didnt realise you were referring to punting on devices.

Clearly if you aren't betting with the NZ TAB then that doesn't count, sorry I thought that would go without saying.

Any punting on course benefits the racing club , dependent of course on what type of day the club is holding i.e. an industry day doesn't get any % of on course turnover unless its and Event day and so on.

Have you ever been on a committee and dealt with NZTR? Take resources away from the larger well supported racing clubs with all the race day licences and favourable funding, love to know how you think the smaller clubs could get together and do this?

I understand what you mean Barry but what is the use pretending to them that our product is good enough for them, surely the best idea would be to get the product right so we don't have to play pretend every week to Australia to make them interested in our product. I guess we need to find where the real level of our product is at to have a sustainable future and to do that I think all participants need a fair go not just those at the very top cause thats where its heading and that looks so incredible boring to me. Are those fields we are seeing on a Saturdays so good that they deserve to have prizemoney fo 2 to 3,4 times the amount raced for on say Industry days? Because the betting figures don't reflect that despite those meetings being held on the best day of the week for generating turnover.

I like you have been to Ellerslie,Trentham, Te Rapa etc over the most popular periods and those venues have the better facilities for attracting women and in particular families but I have found over the past few years that interest has been waning despite the obviously better facilities, better stakes than that of the once a year venues in some cases in an alarming manner so my question is , do the families and women really want that experience or something else?

There is absolutely a place for the once a year clubs, though they are now starting to disintegrate under the policy being implemented. What will happen and won't work imo is the centralise of these summer meetings to already struggling venues and the race days will lose their uniqueness,appeal and become just another day at the races , how thats supposed to get patrons interested is beyond me , they already have multiple opportunities to be exposed to the same experience and don't want a part of it so why on earth would we keep dishing them up the same experience.

I don't think that's the case, what I"m surmising is creating a sustainable model(perhaps this isn't exactly it, but you get my drift). The point is aspirational stakes have been tried before and they are OK if they are sustainable but that's clearly not the case here. If you boost up the base youre creating and supporting strong roots in the industry as the problems in NZ aren't just restricted to stake money they are far deeper than that and to fix that you need a decent base to begin with which is in desperate need of support at present. We have to accept here we aren't ever gonna compete with Australia it's just not going to happen and anyone with a decent enough horse to go race in Australia will anyway. No offence intended but NZ is to Aust. What the SI is to NZ racing but in a much worse way.

I don't agree Barry the TAB model has changed and many venues have become attractive to those punters you speak of to visit, particularly since many don't focus on the beverage side anymore.

I'd like to see 15k stakes for all industry day races and no Saturday races outside of Open Handicaps racing for over $25k to support this , unless the club can come up with the extra stakes themselves.

Can't agree with your track closures half them cost the industry next to nothing. Love to see what kind of volunteer base you'd have after destroying racing in the communities. Love your ideas of T20 type racing and promo of summer racing I can see that working well.

the most constructive idea I can offer is to get some persons with an interest and understanding of the thoroughbred code - owned, breed, raced, punter, buyer/seller,trained ,worked in stable into leadership roles at NZTR to sort out handicapping,programming,calendar,studbook,future workforce etc the list goes on. They would struggle to do worse than has been historically done. Some personnel who aren't just looking for the shortcut in everything, the type that care enough to know if racing is gone it"ll leave a large gap in their lives.