There are 62 country racecourses in Victoria and you’d be hard-pressed to find someone that can name them all. Country racing is at crossroads, and it’s time to cut under utilised racecourses loose.
In concurrence with the rise of online betting and the comfort of watching racing from home, attendance figures have taken the biggest toll. Country racing is hosted for the purpose of midweek betting, but the quality is downright atrocious.
Facilities look dilapidated, tracks survive on life support and the poor quality makes it near-impossible for a country trainer to match it with metropolitan counterparts.
The Dunkeld Race Club in the North of Victoria for example, has just one official race day per year on their racecourse.
Maintaining racetracks is a very costly exercise, especially because almost all of them are turf track.
Last week’s Weribee fiasco highlighted how useless it was to have an additional racecourse capable of hosting races. $5million from the Victorian government couldn’t fix the surface and everyone in the industry would have been much better off if that money was never spent, and the facility closed down.
With 62 country racecourses throughout Victoria, there is an absurd quantity of courses scattered throughout the region. In terms of quality, however, many cannot be distinguished from neighbouring farms.
A change needs to be made with a shift from quantity to quality.
The Geelong racecourse is just about the ideal country racing facility. With turf and Pro-Ride synthetic racing surfaces, it hosts race meetings year-round. With the synthetic surface, it has no problem hosting two or even three meetings per week.
Its stable facilities house hundreds of horses and its central location in a regional hub make transit feasible and easy.
While Geelong can be the hub of country racing in Victoria’s west, superficialities need to be established in the north and east too.
Seymour is the ideal location in the north and the Pakenham Race Club’s new racecourse at Tynong is situated well in the east.
These superfacilities would need to be modelled on the Flemington concept which stables the most horses in Victoria and offers the best facilities in the state, if not country.
These super facilities would comprise of a grandstand, corporate boxes, a turf track, a synthetic track, multiple training tracks, water walkers, restaurants, hotels – the lot.
Regional racecourses would be consolidated to race at their regional hubs. Closing down country racecourses will have a minor hindrance on local economies but the costs associated with maintaining a racecourse can be used to improve the regional hub facilities.
If the courses are being used for racing, trials and training they would be used around the clock, every day of the year. The facilities would also be greatly improve trainer and spectator experiences.
Traditions would be broken with historic races shifted from their original locations. For example, the Moe Race Club would move the annual running of the Moe Cup from Moe to Pakenham. The race would still be run nonetheless.
For these super facilities to come to fruition, it would see a meteoric rise in the use of synthetic race tracks for midweek meetings. The shift from running on traditional turf seems bizarre at first but with greater use, punters would come around to it as form slowly stacks up.
The biggest knock on racing on synthetic surfaces is the inconsistency with turf. That objection is eradicated so long as synthetic surface form is consistent with synthetic surface form. Based on everything we have seen at Geelong, it won’t be a problem.
In terms of progression, horses would begin on midweek country synthetic, step up to weekend country turf, progress to metropolitan midweek turf and then graduate to weekend metropolitan turf.
Such a radical change to the geographic centralisation of sporting facilities is nothing new to Australia. We only need to look as for as AFL where 11 Victoria teams share just two centralised stadiums, the MCG and Docklands.
Through the centralisation of Victoria’s football facilities, the experience of spectators is greatly improved. There once was a time when football would be played at Windy Hill, Arden Street and Whitten Oval but the industry was able to successfully embrace the change towards stadium super facilities.
To those who have watched a midweek country meeting, it is unfortunate when we hear that individual track-side punter rooting his horse home. So tranquil is the atmosphere, the excitement of that solitary punter is comfortably picked up by the broadcast.
Not even the most aggressive marketing campaigns are saving country racing. As a result there are hundreds of trainers using poor facilities while corresponding racecourses are under utilised to the point they can no longer justify their maintenance and existence.
Three super facilities, north, east and west of Melbourne is the future of country racing. Money can only be haemorrhage for so long before consolidation of resources is the most sustainable solution to hosting a year-round racing calendar.
forex
Guest
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Ivan Chan
Guest
Alfred, another interesting article and I agree to your opinions to some extent. The track condition is always terrible and they suffer from washout in bad weather. The idea of country racing exist in every part of the world, and it simply provides the platform for those slow horses to survive. These horses would probably need to go to abattoir should these country racetracks disappear. Also, there are many people, which are mostly horse lovers, make their end meets in the country racetracks. Personally I know some breeders and farm owners, who simply put their hearts and souls in racing, but they are just not rich enough to knock down a half a million yearling in auction. Country racing is the only way out. Trainers need a proper turf track to train; a synthetic track wouldn't be good enough. Track condition is also another major concern; That's why some stables near Kilmore, Werribee or Pakenham would have disadvantages comparing with stables in Flemington, Kyneton, Seymour, Mornington or even Wangaratta. My prediction is that the trainers which are based in the 'poor condition' racetrack will suffer, and those stables will find it very hard to compete with fellow trainers which have better training facility.
Glenn Innis
Guest
If you think Victoria has too many tracks try Queensland - I can't be bothered finding out how many we have but believe me it would be way more than sixty two. Because of it's relatively dense population Victoria is in an ideal position to cut back on the number of tracks,in a state like Queensland you would leave vast areas without a race track.
Alfred Chan
Expert
In regards to the Gai Waterhouse issue, that last quote is pretty damn significant but over the past few months, her credibility has be shot so low, you'd think she'd never recover. Yet, there are still plenty of people backing her horses and plenty of those horses are going on to win. I personally think her attitude throughout the More Joyous scandal is reprehensible but Australian sport protest prominent identities like Waterhouse. She's a protected species, unfortunately. I have no doubt that a provincial trainer would have been sentenced much harshly if they did what Waterhouse did.
Alfred Chan
Expert
Upgraded facilities would be career changing for many provincial trainers.
Alfred Chan
Expert
If you don't believe an issue exists unless it is fed to you through mainstream media, The Roar is not the place to be. When Country Racing Victoria are heavily advertising food & drink marquee packages from $15 per person, their getting quite desperate in my opinion. Yes it's a great deal but it wreaks of desperation which is reflected in attendance figures.
Drew H
Guest
Save money with synthetic tracks and have better facilities??????? I like the green stuff; the real deal. I can handle going to Wyong's cheap layout, without much there except the green turf. It's like going to the drive-inn. But how's the heat when you go to Gold Coast MM carnival? I want an aircon at MM first.
Scuba
Guest
Alfred, any chance of an article on the real story out of racing this week - Gai Waterhouse's complete and utter disregard for punters? From the SMH report: During Tuesday's inquiry Murrihy asked Waterhouse why she was trying to hide the fact More Joyous was lame just days before the Queen Of The Turf Stakes. Murrihy presented a comment to Waterhouse from her foreman at the time Dave Meijer. According to Meijer's evidence subsequent to the All Aged Stakes, Murrihy said Waterhouse was trying to cover up the mare's lameness on the Tuesday before Saturday's feature event. ''Dave, don't take her to the pool because everyone will see she's lame," Meijer's statement said. Murrihy then asked Waterhouse ''Why would you want to hide that? Weren't you entitled to tell the stewards she was lame?'' Waterhouse replied: ''It's not a matter for the public."
Travis Noonan
Roar Rookie
Can't agree with you here, I don't see how making hundreds of people ruin their livelihoods just for the greater good of the punter . Yes a big base like Geelong looks good on face value because that and Colac are the only racecourses in that area. Use a different scenario say Ballarat becomes the only training centre in the western region tracks like Stawell , Ararat , Donald , Great Western , St Arnuad and Horsha just become nothing . Out of those tracks only 2 are used as training centers Stawell and Horsham the trainers who use those tracks include Terry O'Sullivan who is one of the top trainers in the State and has trained 2 group 1 winners in the last 10 years as well as Dolphin Jo and Exceptionally. So the results are proven that you don't need state of the art facillities to train winners and as far as crowds are concerned for Midweek provincial meetings you get the same at Geelong on a Tuesday as Ararat on a Monday so crowds wouldntchange anyway . In conclusion just does not see the bigger picture not everything should come down to what the Punters want.
Jenny from Yea
Guest
Just so you know, if this concept were to go ahead, it would ruin the livlihoods of thousands of Victorian folk. I can't see the current Premier possibly letting that happen.