Another Open Letter...from a NZ Racing stakeholder!

[Chief Stipe]

Alledgedly by a Andrew Knowler

 

Open Letter to the New Zealand Racing Establishment

 

This industry is being strangled by boards, bureaucrats, and blazers who cost a fortune and deliver nothing. Owners, trainers, breeders, and punters are footing the bill so administrators can keep their cushy seats warm. Enough.

 

Here are the facts:

• $13 million wasted on “Racing Integrity.”

• $14 million blown on NZ Thoroughbred Racing.

• That’s $27 million a year — $11,000 a race.

• 4,300 starters last year at $6,279 per horse.
   

That money isn’t going into prize money, better tracks, or promotion of the sport. It’s vanishing into meetings, reports, and salaries.

The TAB board? Just another layer of highly paid suits clipping the ticket. No transparency. No accountability. Another trough for insiders while grassroots participants struggle to stay afloat.
 

A nine-raceday card burns about $100,000 in governance costs before the first horse even walks into the birdcage. A hundred grand gone to administration before the product even exists. It’s waste, pure and simple.
 

And let’s name it: NZTR’s board — Cameron George, Sir Peter Vela, and the rest of you — this is on your watch.

Costs balloon. Stakes stagnate. Participants drown. Where’s the leadership? Where’s the courage to clean house? Or is it easier to nod through another round of “business as usual” while pocketing the fees?
 

“Integrity” is the most abused word in this industry. Real integrity would mean cutting the fat, ending duplication, and getting money back to the people who actually put horses on the track. Instead, the current model exists to protect jobs, not the sport.
 

Here’s what must happen now:
 

• Cut the boards: NZTR reduced to five members max, term limits enforced, seats openly contested.

• One lean integrity unit: No overlapping empires. Independent, efficient, accountable.

• Full salary disclosure: Every director, every executive, every consultant — published. No more hiding.

• Hard cap on admin costs: NZTR + RIU + TAB together capped at 5% of turnover. No excuses.

• Redirect savings to stakes: Every dollar stripped from bureaucracy must go straight into prize money and grassroots infrastructure.

• Performance contracts only: Miss targets, you’re out. No golden handshakes. No endless extensions.

• Independent reviews every 3 years: By international experts, not insiders marking their own homework.
   

This isn’t complicated. Slash the boards. Cut the wastage. Put the money where it matters. If you don’t, you’ll go down as the people who killed New Zealand racing — not through lack of passion, but through suffocating it under layers of board papers and inflated salaries.

 

The industry is bleeding out while you polish your chairs in Wellington. Enough. The people who actually run horses, ride them, and pay the bills are done waiting. Change — or get out of the way.

[The Centaur]

There is a bit of AI being exercised at TAB but combining AI with custom databased knowledge should eliminate lot of the costs particularly integrity. Also there are retired people willing to contribute free services and that should be utilised.

Property sales over recent times have kept many management in nice cushy jobs with little oversight. Also lets get rid of the club member mentality where those running the club think they are only answerable to the members. If an initiative is OK for one club then its possibly worth using it for all clubs. 

[Chief Stipe]

1 hour ago, The Centaur said:

There is a bit of AI being exercised at TAB but combining AI with custom databased knowledge should eliminate lot of the costs particularly integrity.

Uh?  AI provides mostly erroneous results particularly when the data set is tiny.  Even when the data is significant it often gets it wrong.  

1 hour ago, The Centaur said:

Also there are retired people willing to contribute free services and that should be utilised.

I'm not sure that would be a good thing for Integrity.  I don't have a problem with paying professionals a professional salary.

[Special Agent]

1 hour ago, The Centaur said:

Also there are retired people willing to contribute free services and that should be utilised.

I get the sentiment but, not all retired people are equal.

Property sales in my eyes should be a last resort.  You can't tell me all revenue has been wisely invested back into the industry.

"Change — or get out of the way."  I love this quote.  Evolve even.  To hang onto a job merely for the salary is not acceptable.  You'd think the top roles would have performance based remuneration, KPI's or whatever.

[hesi]

It is Antony Knowler, he has posted on all of the 3 chat sites and also the FB site.

If he is who I think he is, then he is a loose cannon.

A lot of subjective claptrap, for example.  These are not facts.  $13 mil is not wasted, Racing has to have some sort of controls on integrity.  It may not be being done in the most efficient way.  $14 mil blown on NZTR, it is not blown, the industry has to be administered, maybe not to people's liking.

I didn't read any further, the opening stanza of the letter was as I said, emotive claptrap.

Here are the facts:

• $13 million wasted on “Racing Integrity.”

• $14 million blown on NZ Thoroughbred Racing.

[hesi]

It might help if people actually read the NZTR Annual Report.  A lot of supposedly hidden info in there.

I think 23/24, NZTR had 48 operating staff for a salary cost of 5.5 mil (correct me if I am wrong).  Even if you saved half of this, it is not a lot you could direct back into stakes as suggested

[westbrew]

This did prompt me to have a quick look thru some annual reports for 23/24 year

I did not want to waste a lot of my valuable time going into the detail to extract 

the real number but a very rough estimate from each of the set of accounts

i tried to remove any amounts that were support payments to clubs and just

get the running cost of each organization. The TAB i believe still run the venues

which have pokies in and as such is basically using up pokies money to run itself

NZ TAB 18.4m

NZTR    14.9m

RIB       15.3m

HRNZ   7.0m

GRNZ   5.5m

total     61.1m

 

Now the question is looking at the Racing industry as a whole is 61.1m to run it value for Money.

As an aside back of the envelope for RIB they presently have approx. 26 stewards,2 investigator's , 2

swab related administrators, and 2 office based animal welfare staff, and the real eye opener

11 office based (wellington and Auckland) so called corporate service based staff.

Having run a business Hesi i can assure you that just looking to save money from staff salaries is not

the way to cut your expenses, when you need to cut your cloth to make your business efficient and able to

keep producing for the shareholders(stake holders) every expense is open to examination.       

[Chief Stipe]

37 minutes ago, westbrew said:

NZ TAB 18.4m

NZTR    14.9m

RIB       15.3m

HRNZ   7.0m

GRNZ   5.5m

total     61.1m

Those figures are not correct.  

[Huey]

Who ever wrote it wasted their time, it's all been said before and nothing has happened and nothing will happen (well nothing positive anyway) the same regurgitated facts have been said by many in the industry for years but no action equals no outcome.

It's not in the interests of the current industry leaders to do any of this , so none of it will  happen. It's gone too far now, the only future is an industry that looks very different and a lot smaller than it is now. Plan for it! 

[hesi]

I'm surprised there are so many people that are so negative towards the NZ racing industry.

Perhaps there aren't, just a small number making a lot of noise, giving the perception that it is a lot more.

In Entain's first year, thoroughbred stakes increased 20 mil, from 70 to 90 million.  And they are guaranteed to go up 2-3 million a year through till 2028.

Sure there are problems with non-proactive management, tracks, scheduling and where that stake money should go, top end or bottom.

These are all issues that can be fixed

The biggest issue for racing, is gross betting revenue, which by far is the biggest challenge.

 

[Nowornever]

He is dead right on a lot of what he says, but good luck changing the process which seems to get more administrative every year.

[Chief Stipe]

2 hours ago, Huey said:

It's gone too far now, the only future is an industry that looks very different and a lot smaller than it is now. Plan for it! 

But why would it worry you?  You seem to have hung the bridle on the wall years ago and are Waiting For Godot.

[curious]

2 hours ago, hesi said:

In Entain's first year, thoroughbred stakes increased 20 mil, from 70 to 90 million.  And they are guaranteed to go up 2-3 million a year through till 2028.

Really? Guaranteed by who? NZTR forecasts are for stakes to be flat through 2028 aren't they? That's because they arranged with NZTAB taking the total 5 year increase partially in advance for the greater more immediate lift.

[hesi]

28 minutes ago, curious said:

Really? Guaranteed by who? NZTR forecasts are for stakes to be flat through 2028 aren't they? That's because they arranged with NZTAB taking the total 5 year increase partially in advance for the greater more immediate lift.

I wasn't aware of that if it is in fact the case.  Regardless  we are talking about a huge increase in payout to thoroughbred, guaranteed for 5 years.  Factor into that the way results were trending down in Q1 22/23, and that should be a cause for optimism within the industry.

[curious]

3 minutes ago, hesi said:

I wasn't aware of that if it is in fact the case.  Regardless  we are talking about a huge increase in payout to thoroughbred, guaranteed for 5 years.  Factor into that the way results were trending down in Q1 22/23, and that should be a cause for optimism within the industry.

Not imo if it can't be sustained because Entain doesn't generate the necessary revenue from 2028 which seems likely, and TABNZ have significantly reduced income to distribute.

Edited 1 hour ago by curious