hrnz update from the chair

[the galah]

bored,Married at first sight,that the wifes watching, just isn't doing it for me this year,so i had a look at the HRNZ website to fill in time.

The lastest press release on the HRNZ website is from a grant jarrold,who is chair of the HRNZ board.

its early days to form an opinion as yet on what level of competent decision making we can expect.

The chair of the board,grant jarrold has a video clip with just a wee bit more deatail.

I guess they are trying to be transparent,so thats a good thing i suppose,but we all know theres a difference between giving the impression your all about good governace and actually delivering good governance. So time will tell.

I have to say,that in my opinion,the first vibe i get from the video is a positive one about the man,but still he said things that made me think,just wait and see.

actually,while it has nothing to do with my thoughts,does anyone know what the first two words he used in the video were?

i've played that bit over several times and my hearing says he using ,i guess maori words, that if you google, mean blood treatment or tatoo treatment. Now obviously i'm no expert on te reo,but somehow i don't think what i was hearing is the right interpetation of the words he used. Does anyone know what he said in maori?

Anyways,there were some points which i think were areas of hope,but also many areas of concern.

for example.

1)He sates in the video" we need to have high quality racing and content to ensure we can improve our wagering and increase the returns to all participants'

Now,as i've pointed out so many times,anyone who says high quality racing will increase wagering ,does not have a real grip of the principle drivers of increased turnover. Yes,if you look at nz cup day,tyou would say that,but using a one off day as the barometer to gauge the yearly turnovers is in my opinion ignorant.

As i've pointed out so many times,the main drivers of turnover are timeslots,pre race sky racing exposure and jackpotting pools.I have given endless figures to back up why i say that. 

2)he staes HRNZ is on budget. Well anyone can say overall things are on budget,even if there are areas where things are terribly not on budget.

So my point is,how about there be some transparency around the figures. For example ,lets have the breakdown of the profit /loss or budgeted for loss for specific regions and specific age group racing. How about being honest and telling participants exactly how much cross subsidising from profitable areas of the industry,is being poured into auckland racing and 2 year old racing.

3)he stated "wagering growth".

now ,that comment may be true,but does he not realise anyone can work out that was always going to be the case when all the extra meetings were run. There needs to be precise data released if they are gping to be viewed as transparent.

4)He mentioned the  on course success of the summer racing. Well yes,they have always been successful,as long as the weathers good. But,people aren't silly and they can see when they turn up at the races at every day meetings in the remaing 9 months of the year,on course attendance isn't good. Besides,i thought the clubs are always saying that their is no hrnz incentive for them to encourage people to attend on course.

5) next gen. he gave that a plug. And i agree ,it does seem to have had a positive effect on the sales. Of course i have also pointed out,that i believe its going to end up like one of those high flying stocks that list on the sharemarket,that its the hype that drives the share  price up,not realsitic potential returns. And we all know,that if the hype doesn't match the reality,then i will sour people off future investment.

My final thought would be,i hope this new board wakes up to HRNZ two biggest problems. That is decision making based on short sightedness and self interest.

 

Edited 5 hours ago by the galah

[Nowornever]

1 hour ago, the galah said:

he stated "wagering growth".

Not according to the pools info I have been seeing on the TAB website each week. Pools are definitely down in win, place and trifecta betting from my records. 

To me wagering growth means an increase in betting pool average not turnover. As you say turnover is easy to manipulate by throwing extra races and meetings in to jack up the numbers.

Give me the averages of all the pool sizes from the last few years so I can see if pools are on the increase or not.