the galah

His conversation was about what the industry and tracks over there needed to do to be sustainable-basically he was talking about how turnovers dictate tracks either turning a profit or loss. How tracks that turned profits can prosper and tracks that didn't don't.And how he seemed to think it inevitable and just realism that the not profitable tracks would and should close. Just market forces. He obviously has been a highly sort after person and been involved in implementing policies at tracks which have turned around turnover and profitability.He has been involved in that for decades and had all the stats and numbers in his head. the the fast tracks tyhing was one of several the factors he gave-he explained front end horses have an advantage,that fast tracks with bends make it too hard for backrunners to make moves and that was a factor in whether punters bet or did not bet.I mean isn't that obvious anyway. at no point did he say anything about quality of horse being a factor. In fact he often referenced how clubs could make profits from a programme of lower grade claimers because the purses were not as significant-and how that was an important thing for thos tracks sustainabilty. he actually mentioned some things i've mentioned before.e.g. he said,timeslots can make or break a track. reducing purses for small fields. delays in races starting push turnovers up-that factor is a bit more complicated when it come sto nz as we rely on sky racing coverage in australia to boost turnover and as nz harness have no leverage due to it being tabcorp who run the racing channel,nz racing sometimes may lose coverage if races were delayed. he refers to the meadowlands recently running racing with 20 minute gaps and running on time and saying how that was a bad decision. He said they should have known to delay the start as its what has always worked to get the turnover up-of course their coverage wouldn't be jammed in between a gallops meeting form taree and a dog race from ballarat like happens with nz harness. But what i do think nz harness should seriously look at is eking out just a minute or so delay to the start of there nz races. Thats what they could do to help turnover. Sky racing will still keep covering a meeting if it starts around under 2 minutes late if they can see in that last minute the horses are starting to line up and l begin within that time frame.Its not an over complicated thing. They could do things like have the mobile up the track from the horses a bit more and at the point in time he would normally start,he puts on a light on his mobile,backs up ,stops and then blows the whistle as per normal and only then do the horses start coming up. All tjhat would take up to a minute,people watching can see the start is happening and the clubs get an extra minutes coverage and turnovers increase. Or with standing starts,they revert back to what worked for 100 years,the horses starting on the front line form only 1 circle,thus i takes an extra 30 seconds to a minute to line up ,and you get more people betting. and they should never be running meetings with 40 minute gaps,nor 25 minute gaps. they should be a standards 30 minute gap. And when running 2 harness meetings they should never run one meeting with 10 minute gaps from the other meeting. As i said last week,auckland was not confirmed at least a couple of times before addington started.Do the people not understand how punters work if they are say sitting at a pub tab. They will not,go up to the machine,keep putting the betslip that had a collect form the previous race until it clears ,hoping they can hold up the que long enough for it to do that and them get a bet on the next race. I mean i know when the races start but i regularly get shut out myself because they either change the gaps between races of they haven't confirmed the previous harness race.

actually ,one thing i've observed over the last 25 years, is how stakemoney on south island nz harness has gone from being more than the south island gallops,to now being much less. And the more i've thought about it the more its obvious why that is. they get full fields becuase the horse population correlates with the number of races run. that leads to a far more attractive betting product,which results in increased wagering,which leads to more returns to the industry which leads to increased sustainable stake levels.(and they always get good timeslots and coverage).

i just had a listen to this show and i think everybody should listen to it if they are interested in what harness racing can do to prosper. obviously the usa is different with their simulcasts and so many tracks with casinos and obviously given nz harness have very little control over trackside coverage. But many of the things he says the industry needs to occur to prosper,well the industry is doing theopposite. The faster you make the tracks ,the worse your racing is,the less your turnover. (too many front end dominated races)-(-using that observation of his ,i think you could add the more sprints you have the less the turnover) Do you have a horse shortage or a track and race day excess. You have to adapt to market conditions. whats the interest of the betting supplier(tab/entain). If its racing then they will focus on harness racing and it will prosper-. If its cainos(or sport) then racing will become secondary.. you have to drive the breeding industry with the racing industry,but the racing should always be the main focus. not running competing high oprofile meetings against each other. Delaying the start by a couple of minutes has a drastic efffect on increasing turnovers. lowering takeout significantly increases turnover. refuse the stakes paid if the number of starters is small.(i've mentioned that myself) you can't run races at similar timeslots as major races elsewhere . increased % handle on track is important to support clubs to get people on track. what are the stakes required to keep people happy. e.g. age group. If they need x amount to get people to race 2 year olds,they should provide it,but reduce the number of said 2 year old races to the level where they get good field sizes.If they are going to run small fields they will go broke. move the races to days where they generate turnover and coverage-even if it midweek. people want as many days as they can get,but the more you spread it out the more people prefer to race in small fields ,the more you lose money. given the market,there should be less races and tracks. you have to adapt to market conditions.

so you do understand,as you say "when funding decreases so will your prizemoney.Just a normal progression" so really the difference with your view and my view is not related to how much money hrnz have to spend. its you see no problem with HRNZ spending up now,keeping prizemoney up now,then when they tapped their reserves, just decrease prizemoney.Thats what you said above anyway. So your thinking is similar to what those in charge at hrn appear to have. Only difference between you and them is some of those at hrnz will have an exit strategy when the funding decrease happens, whereas you will still be supporting harness racing.. in effect thats a strategy which limits negative impacts on harness racing people now,but substantially increases the negative impacts later. Whereas my opinion,and that of many others is,HRNZ shouldn't be diminishing their cash reserves at the rate they are,as there will come a point when stakes will have to be cut,and unfortunately they will need to be cut to levels, which will result in less particpation across the industry, which will send nz harness racing in to a steep decline from which they will never fully recover from. its like someone is leading a life where they have a job that pays ok and they can afford the costof living , and put aside some money in the bank.Then they find out they've been taken off contract and put on an hourly wage ,the effect of which is to cut their income where their outgoings excede their incoming $.That person has 2 main choices,cut out any excess spending and use the money in the bank to maintain the a reasonable tandard living,or the 2nd alternative of making no cuts to their spending,use discretion as to when they use some of the money they have in the bank, until it runs out. The person who kept spending,day of reckoning come far quicker that the person who didn't. Andlife is tough when it happens.

I don't think anyone is duping me gamma. i'm of the understanding that when bookies suffer big losses on runners on the ff book ,e.g.moonlite blood ,that means they will most likely have suffered a loss on that race.And if you have a run of well backed ff favorites winning at a meeting,that means the bookies will not be generating much of a profit,if any on the races where well backed favorites win. so theoretically,hrnz may have put on a race meeting,pay out x amount in stakes,expecting to receive x amount of funding from the tab for that meeting,but end up getting next to nothing,because of how the profit/loss ff betting turned out,no matter what the turnover figure. Of course i realise the bookies will turn a profit in the end,but that profit varies and that impacts the amount hrnz receive from the tab for funding. Thats how i understand ff betting/funding from, works.

that should have read they run at a loss/not profit.

the thing i found strange about the moonlight blood price,was there you had that ben from betcha going on about the liability being $59,000 with several minutes to go and him saying it was going to end up the highest he had seen for a sunday. So what did the bookies do. They kept the price at an appealing level. So why didn't they turn the tap off by reducing the odds they were offering more,or increase the price of others a wee bit to take more money on those runners,thus mitigating their losses if moonlight blood won.. aren't bookies supposed to do that. i've always thought thats how bookies should operate,treat everyone the same and just try and run a book that comes out with a nice profit..Like don't restrict anyone,just don't offer them attractive odds if that runner has been heavily backed and is going to lead to a loss. Its like you get the impression the bookies are more into gambling than the gamblers. after all,if the bookies are losing like they seem to often,then doesn't that mean that the racemeetings end up running at a profit and that will impact money available for the indstry to fund things. i mean its nice to see punters get a win,but the level of that was more an own goal.I

brodie,you seem to have a lot of faith in this new advisory board that mr peters put together. i read an article by mick guerin about that new board and guerin did his thing,rambled on how great the people on it are. thing is,as i pointed out at the time,when guerin kept saying things were going well at the atc,which he generally did just before each upcoming sales,he lost credibilty. Now you have to recognise thats just what he does. same a swhat hes doing when he wrote that article about the new advisory board. same type of sentiment we got form mr steele when he did a press release about that new advisory board.. Thing is,we've heard it all before so many times. Give me one good reason why this new group will identify things that others haven't in the past? sure they may have influence with peters,but having a group of people come along and say,hey your stuffing things up for the future,when people already can see that,well big deal.. 'm guessing you will find the majoirity of the recommendations they make will effect the bigger players in the harness industry and be more thouroughbred industry. applicable anyway. remember they have had these advisory boards in the past. Looking at the current HRNZ board,they seem to have people who we should have confidence in to oversee the making of the right decisions by hrnz employees around future sustainabilty. But heres the thing. those in charge should be fully aware people don't have confidence that the right decisions are being made. Mark jones letter is an illustration of that.So is the chatter you get on the social media sites i read. like this and the other channel. so theres a reason for that. many of the issues in harness racing are complex, but balance sheets/profit loss,financial sustainabilty aren't complex.

aren't you just doing what i said will be the playbook of those who feel threatened by the accuracy of what he says. In the past HRNZ have prioritised the publically expressed concerns of other high profile stakeholder groups, through the implementation of policies to address their concerns. for example HRNZ addressed the concerns of major players within the industry by introducing the likes of bonuses for 2 year old racing. So speaking out is not something new by people within the industry. In fact the way hrnz seem to operate,its the squeaky wheel that gets oiled ,so to speak. the only thing i thought unnecessary in jones letter,was his reference to "its baffling how someone with such questionable personal financial history was entrusted with our industry's money in the first place". Personally i have no idea what jones was referring to there,nor do i think it was in any way relevant and i think he over stepped the line with that bit.Anyway its well known that many of the worlds richest and smartest people have experienced major financial setbacks,learnt from that and gone on to be great decision makers in business. E.g trump,ford,walt disney . so the same thing can happen,albeit on a totally different scale with anyone smart enough. Personally i think jones should apologise for that bit,but the rest of his letter was very good.thats my opinion anyway.

well blow me down,lookslikeatrixster win after opening at $5 and blowing out to $18. I'm going to give up posting on bit of a yarn as that was my bet of the day,but had nothing on as was posting on bit of a yarn and had sky my tv on delay. Bugga. the change from 40 minutes to 25 minute gaps doesn't help either.i bet that catches a few people out and they don't get bets on.

ben from betcha saying moonlite blood the biggest liabilty he'd seen for a sunday meeting. somehow the bookies opened the horse at $23,when it should really have been about its closing price of about $5,based on its form. it just goes to show if you have done your form and keep an eye out for when the markets come out,theres good money to be made sometimes.Maybe i should start doing that. I actually had it rated to win easily,but unfortunately the gap between the races went from 40 minutes to 25 minutes so i didn't back it. I would have only backed it on the tote anyway.I'm not sure what form book the bookies used for that race. all 4 winners have been backed in today. I suppose the whale tipped the first 2, may explain that to some extent,but its been one of those days so far when the obvious winners actually win . Doesn't happen much i suppose. I wonder if the bookies are on profit/loss linked wages.

ok. so they changed from what they put in their final horse utalisation report which said if you finish 5th or further back ,you lose a point. So,now they have reshuffled the overall stake distribution to give the 5th horse 3% of the stake(an extra 1.25% than previously). to do that,they appear to have reduced the % the 3rd placegetter gets,from 9.5 to 9% and the 4th placegetter from 6 to 5.25% of the total stake. The also rans still get 1.75%.

i've always thought the population being a driver of attendance,has long been proven to be a thing of the past and is now a mistaken belief based on factors no longer relevant The best way to assess whether you will get people to attend harness race meetings in populated areas is the level of horses/trainers/owners in that province. Even if you go to addington on a run of the mill friday,how many people are there for a night out. Next to no one anymore. Its nearly always people with a connection to a horse or the owner of a horse who are the ones that attend. So forget the population thing. the only way population becomes a factor is when HRNZ choose to incentivise clubs to promote attendance and they don't do that do they.

also,yes a maiden should get the same penalty wherever they win. the way to cater for horses who win in lower stake non win races is simple.Just programme races which combine non win horses,horses whose only win was in a lower stake race,and horses who won at an easier venue and have proved uncompetitve in the 1 win grade. they haven't done it in the past and may not in the future,but theres always been that very simple way to maintain those type of horses and their connections participation, had they wanted. I don't think in the past the programmers have cared much for those type of people/ horses.

i think you will find they still lose rating points if they run 5th or further back.