Sometime in 2017, racing will awake from its collective slumber and make changes to the lazy business model that has served it post-privatisation.
This won’t be the result of much forward-thinking, but a necessary reaction to a simple reality.
This isn’t a call for ‘industry leaders’ (whoever the hell they are) to get their act together, but to point out that they will have a range of choices to make sometime around 2017, when a simple problem will hit.
What’s the problem?
In three words: not enough greyhounds.
As otherwise sensible people have been falling over themselves to exaggerate how many greyhounds are bred in Australia for political purposes, when you analyse the numbers objectively, a completely different picture emerges.
Greyhounds have a quasi-seasonal breeding pattern, so you have to do a few mathematical transformations for accurate estimates of the annual numbers of greyhounds currently being bred. I’ve put the details at the bottom, but here’s a graph of how many greyhounds would be expected annually from the litters produced in each two-month period.
Breeding numbers were reasonably stable from 2012 until around April 2015, producing around 17,000 pups a year. Since April 2015, breeding has fallen off a cliff, and when the progeny begin to race, we’re looking at less than 10,000 pups a year being produced.
Currently, Australia stages approximately 3700 greyhound meetings a year, with a staggering 800-plus individual greyhounds racing each day. The drop in breeding numbers has simply been too deep and too sustained for this volume of racing to continue. Sometime in 2017, choices will have to be made.
Is this really a problem for racing?
Back in the 1990s, the TABs of NSW and Victoria were sold, contracts were rewritten, and Racing Authorities, the TAB and Sky settled on a model. To maintain market share in the face of competition from other forms of gambling, we were presented with wall-to-wall racing.
Thoroughbreds, greyhounds and harness, from the morning to the evening, every 90 seconds or so. Don’t give the punter a chance to study the form, just give them a chance to have a punt. In many cases, there wasn’t an increase in racing, simply a reorganisation of races to get as many of them on Sky and the TAB as they could.
But since the TAB was privatised things have changed, with online bookies and other forms of gambling threatening revenue streams for racing. Really, the business model should have evolved by now, but racing is a large and cumbersome beast, whose multiple players are resistant to change.
What could happen: the Victorian situation
The maths are simple, either each greyhound races more, fewer meetings or races are run, fewer greyhounds enter each race or, most likely, a mixture of the above. But this almost certainly won’t happen uniformly across the nation.
Greyhound Racing Victoria (GRV) is in exceptional financial health, with an infrastructure and skills base the envy of others. Their financial muscle will mean that, unlike other states, GRV doesn’t have to make these choices, but could follow quickly should other states successfully innovate.
Victoria have also made a series of decisions designed to give each racing code a greater level of independence. The income the codes receive is more or less correlated with what code is being punted on, and whether you agree with the money spent on their own racing channel or not, it gives the thoroughbreds greater independence to make decisions that suit themselves.
However, NSW has a different structure that gives little incentive to innovate. Racing NSW profits handsomely when people punt on the TAB, even when that bet is on the Victorian greyhounds. The idea that the Racing Authority where the bet is placed gets the cash, rather than where the race is run, is an anachronism that Victoria may unilaterally try to change when they find themselves running greyhound races simply so Racing NSW can offer higher prizemoney than them.
What could happen: the NSW situation
Greyhound Racing NSW (GRNSW) has far less freedom to make choices. In NSW there are two concurrent bodies, the Joint Working Group of GRNSW and the Special Commission of Inquiry, looking to introduce measures to restrict breeding to levels above current. ‘Solving yesterday’s problems tomorrow’ would be an appropriate motto.
On the positive side, the joint working group is making some effort to look at the problems they will face in the near future. A shift in the focus of some tracks to be ‘centres of excellence’ and involve themselves more with education and preparation at the expense of racing, reduction in field sizes, and more efficient grading policies are being considered.
However, the conflicts between the different players have the potential to slow or block this process, in one case with proposed reductions in field sizes to six. This hurts the TAB, Sky Channel and both the harness and thoroughbred codes, as races of six reduce their income but have the same costs and time to broadcast, and a fear that exotic betting will be hurt where the TAB takes a larger cut.
However, if you own a greyhound, you’re more likely to win a race of six than eight. With fewer greyhounds bred, you’re a winner out of this. There are very strong arguments for reducing the field sizes for inexperienced greyhounds, which would result in cleaner racing and more confident young chasers, and this should be trialled sooner rather than later.
What has happened: the Queensland situation
With this in mind, it’s worth considering what has happened in Queensland. By making the assumption that nothing had to be done but collect the money and spend it, Racing Queensland is supposedly in a terrible financial situation, and it’s not clear where to go next.
Other Racing authorities could find themselves in a similar situation, where they’ve spent money that suddenly ceases to come in, leaving them with a set of choices where none of them appeal.
*Nerdy explanation of data transformations: the number of litters produced on a two-monthly basis from 2012 to 2015 was downloaded from the GRV site FastTrack, and the two-monthly numbers from 2012-2014 were averaged to attain a standard number of litters for each two-month period. By dividing the two-monthly number by the standard number and multiplying by 17 200 (pups born annually in 2012-2014), we get the approximate annual greyhounds bred in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015 (red in the graph). December 2015 is not counted.
Nathan Absalom
Roar Guru
Go to the drop-down menu from statistics and click "litter search". You can then put in the dates and all the litters come up (although you can only put in one month at a time, but you're just adding random error to the graph by going in one month lots). Then, you have to count and do the data transformations.
Matt
Guest
Hi Nathan! Great article! I'm interested in the statistics in Greyhound racing, do you have a link for the "number of litters produced on a two-monthly basis from 2012 to 2015"? I snooped around the Fast track website but couldn't find anything Cheers
Glenn Innes
Guest
Nathan - Lets play their game and buy their 17% figure, that is a massive decline in livestock in the space of twelve months, a few more years like that and it is good night nurse for the current model. A USA style contraction is coming like a freight train,and I am not just talking dog racing ! Fiddle while Rome burns that is all these reports are, a way to look busy and effective while really all they doing is watching the tide retreat. Wall to wall racing to compete with gaming machines is not sustainable because there will not be enough livestock.How will they willfilll the gaps?..Computer games *gaming machines", simulated horse and dog races and head down the same path as the USA ie expect a cut of the wagering on these computer games.
Nathan Absalom
Roar Guru
To update this, the joint working group from GRNSW have released their report. There seemed to be a consensus that 7 500 pups are required to meet the current racing schedule in NSW alone (I disagree, you'll get by with less). By comparing the pups whelped from January 2015 -October 2015 with January 2014-October 2014 they conclude that breeding levels have currently dropped by just 17%. Of course, this is silly, the gestation period of a greyhound is 2 months, the decision is made when you mate and not when the pups are born, meaning that they have underestimated the effects on breeding by at least half. All in all, it's an inadequate analysis of the situation that they are going to find themselves in. 2017 is going to come around pretty quickly and reality will begin to hit hard if the powers that be are inadequately prepared.
John Tracey
Guest
Nathan and Glen, I think we are all making the same point. There is far more interest in greyhounds in Australia than in the USA and this has always been the case.Coursing in the UK was decimated prior to greyhound mechanical racing due to the land clearance acts reforms which made hares scarce,The reason I have concentrated on the animal welfare issues is two fold. The special commission of inquiry in NSW council assisting has put the animal welfare issues to the forefront and the National Body is myopic about them so a pragmatic view has to be taken, The other reason is that the greyhound participant in the main are vitally interested in animal welfare and its the right thing to do.. Animals, Equality and Democracy by Siobhan O'Sullivan in the introductions, sees the protection of the animals in relation to their visibility and also that there is only a fleeting interest in animal welfare by the public at large, The interest is regarded as similar to the public interest in drains, The concept of the greyhound sport or industry in my view is too narrow and this is partly caused by the isolationist attitudes of the community and its risk adverse approach during decades of wagering flat lining.
Nathan Absalom
Roar Guru
I completely agree, and the best example of this is a comparison of jumps racing in the UK and Australia. In the UK, jumps racing is extremely strong, almost the equivalent of flat racing with much more challenging courses and obstacles than Australia. While it is the subject of controversy in the UK, calls for it to be banned are taken far less seriously in the UK than Australia, despite animal welfare debate and legislation being considerably more mature than the UK. The difference between the two countries is a direct consequence of how many people like it.
Glenn Innes
Guest
John - We could spend the rest of our lives debating this,The fact is betting turnover on USA dog racing has decreased by two thirds in the space of thirty five years, that is without adjusting for inflation. Most of the tracks are now closed and those that remain open only do so because state government legislated the track owners must run dog races .Dog racing has declined from a viable commercial enterprrise to an industry that requires government legislation to survive. When the industry first began to decline in the nineties due to competition from newly legal competing forms of gambling it hoped it could stagger on via subsidies from slot machines card tables etc .That strategy didn't work,. You focus too much on animal rights activists, it is true it may be these people that drive the final nail into the coffin of dog racing and eventually horse racing. But they are like pneumonia, pneumonia kills off the sick and the week, healthy people do not die of pnuemonia, it killls the very young the very old and people who have other serious health problems. Dog racing is vulnerable (and horse racing will be) because so few people are interested in it and people are agnostic about banning things that do not interest them.If the government announced it was going to ban croquet come election day I doubt it would cost them many votes. The weaker the racing sports become. the less people there are that take an interest in them, the less they contribute to state government tax revenue, the more vulnerable they become to secondary infections like the animal rights lobby. because they are weak and sick and ready to be killed off. The primary disease is an inability to provide a competitive wagering product in a new ruthless marketplace because the industry is still built around the old monopoly model,Animal rights is a secondary infection and once you concentrate on fighting them you are just buying time, the primary disease will kill you soon enough.
John Tracey
Guest
Glen, Every post on this site and other main greyhound information site is monitored by the Greyhound Rescue Industry both here and overseas so you cant say that any of your replies are not associated with greyhound welfare publicity. In your first post you mentioned that the sport is Illegal in 39 of the 50 states, so expect to be quoted on that, The facts I believe is that pari-mutual betting on greyhounds is not lawful in 39 states for a variety of reasons. The expectations of the greyhounds before the Senate Committee in 1990 was not fully met in a further approach on the same bill in 1991. If you look at the figures I presented above you will see that 26.4 million attended greyhound establishments in 1989 and the turnover was 3.2 Billion which works out at about $3 per week per person attending the greyhound establishments so it was obvious even at this time that people were going to stadiums for activities other than wagering on greyhounds. Hollywood Park greyhound stadium (Wentworth Park used their design for the current grandstand) had four floors of gambling and also a retail food section. I do a lot of research and I let things fall as they may there was simply not the interest in coursing in the USA that there was in Australia and if you look at population figures the USA has minimal interest in greyhounds compared to Australia and Ireland and i it has a minute interest in greyhounds compared to the show dog industry over there which is massive (both the show dogs and the coursing dogs arrived in the USA in about 1880. I agree with you the Horses are a major industry in the USA, when you went there in 1979 it was a year after the Horses had successfully had the Interstate Pari-Mutual Act approved by Congress. I notice that Nathan's graph has been used unaccredited and misused by Animal Rights company interests. With the risk of the following information being misused here is a part of an email answer I gave to a proposition that tracks Nationally should be reduced to a total of 13- See the article in the Guardian. My cut and past part reply follows. The greyhounds in the form of coursing first were introduced in the USA in 1880 along with the show dogs. The greyhounds are miniscule compared the the show dog enterprises in the USA , look at the activity on page 10 of the annual report of the American Kennel Club http://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/americankennelclub/AR2014.pdf The closest kennel club in the USA to the greyhounds is probably the National Kennel Club which caters for Coon and Squirell Hunters. (88 Clubs/associations registered) Bull Dogs (10 Clubs) 5 All Breed Clubs and 1 speciality clubs. (There are many other Kennel co-ordinating clubs in the USA. Now to the point…. 25% of dogs in pounds are pure bred dogs, 75% of dogs "adopted" from pounds are pups and the success rate is about 96% with about 4% euthanised. The remaining 25% of adult dogs adopted is less than 50%. The amount of pups purchased from retail shop outlets is about 4% so most "adopted" dogs are actually de-facto purchases . The focus on greyhounds should be on owners buying or breeding pups for the whole of life no adoption scheme will satisfy the adoption brokers as the fact that dogs need to be adopted is a clear statement that owners do not take personal responsibility for the animal. The ironic point about the greyhound industry in the past is that it was actually anti-greyhound welfare. Hers is one example . The greatest concern on animal welfare when I was with the authority was that the evacuation procedures (introduced after overseas traumas- cant remember if it was 9/11 of the Bali incident) did not include a disaster prepare for dogs). The board knocked back the concerns regarding them as knit picking. The American Kennel Club bought time during the American Superbowl (the dearest advertising spot in the USA) to notify their policy on disaster preparedness for canines. Australia is a backwater when it comes to regulations generally about canines, we are still acting as though all dogs are strays with rabies. Overseas in many places you can take pets on public transport, book them in expensive hotels, take then to eating places etc. There are no joint hospitality areas for owners and dogs together on greyhound racetracks and the dogs are kennelled for whatever reason (it beats me) in buildings which cost over one million each. I don’t think that the sale of greyhounds to people who will keep them for life is a large ask if the great minds can focus on animal welfare issues.
Glenn Innes
Guest
John - I very much appreciate your effort to research the issue .My point was that I thought you were being too complacent about the decline of the North American industry based on the (false) assumption that these sports were never significant in the USA to start with. As I mention above Horse Racing was a huge sport in the USA Citation. ,Man o' War, Secretariat, Seattle Slew, these were once household names up there with Babe Ruth in the pantheon of American sport. Obviously dog racing was never a huge mainstream sport like the ponies (it never was here either) but back in the seventies and eighties private capital was keen to spend money. to build dog tracks, tracks that survived purely on wagering on dog racing.It was booming. Most of the tracks are gone and what private capital is left wants out because out .Dog racing is costing them money.Ever since the fall of Singapore and the collapse of the British empire Australia has became part of the American empire....where the USA goes we follow. Forget places like Hong Kong, culture, politics, geography, demographics. they are a different planet.The USA is what we need to look at and see if we can learn from their mistakes. Our model is stuffed but the Asian model will not work here and obviously neither will the American model.but the failures of he American model are more important. What I am hoping to achieve by posting on roar racing is to get people who have some influence and some power to at least start thinking about the fact we need a new model, and there is no generic template we can can just copy.I don't have the answer,but at least I am asking the question something that nobody other than Nathan seems to doing .
John Tracey
Guest
Glen, accept what you are saying from 1990 onwards here is a cut and paste from the 1989 greyhound act (proposed not passed) to congress. https://archive.org/stream/interstategreyh00trangoog/interstategreyh00trangoog_djvu.txt Page 14 Evidence. In regard to greyhound racing, which you briefly touched upon. Senator, it has been a growth industry since 1969, soon to be in 19 States; 20 years ago it was only in 7. There will be 60 tracks before the end of next year; 26 million spectators attended the races last year, wagered $3.2 billion — tax revenues of $228 million dollars to the States and growing, making it the sixth-largest spectator sport in the country
John Tracey
Guest
Glen Innis,My reply to you might have been obscure, I am dyslectic. I was trying to make much the same point you were making in capitals PEOPLE RACE BECAUSE THEY HAVE A PASSION FOR IT. From research up until the mechanical hare racing was legalised in NSW we discovered that there had been 120 coursing grounds and clubs of considerable size spread through NSW and being run as an amateur sport by unincorporated associations. This above situation was only the tip of the iceberg as greyhound coursing (racing) was very popular in Victoria and in the free state of South Australia. Coursing was drying out in the old country and it never took any real hold in the USA where there was a small acceptance in a few states. After invention rights to the mechanical hare had been established shareholder companies were formed and the enterprise was "exported" to the UK and elsewhere in the world.The Australian adventure initially saw shareholder companies set up in the main states. The coursing greyhounds in Australia had sufficient numbers to set up racing in China and to provide a reported 300 racing greyhounds exported to South Africa. Greyhound racing failed in mainland China and South Africa for political and financial reasons not animal welfare. Shareholder greyhound racing became unlawful after the 1932 Royal commission and the other states followed generally after 1956. Shareholder horse racing became unlawful afterwards and in NSW the number of gallop courses in the metropolitan area was reduced from 10 to the existing 4. The Government paid compensation where appropriate to the closed tracks. The Victorian Greyhounds run speed coursing (field racing behind a live rabbit released and captured before the dogs started) as a shareholder sport until the 1956 Act. Victoria had its largest number of tracks at this time five metropolitan and twelve country. When the shareholder tracks became unlawful in Victoria there was a loss of three metropolitan clubs making the number of racecourses in Victoria now 14 non propriety. The culture of animal racing in NSW as a sport and recreation as well financial gain is a lot stronger than anywhere else with the possible exception of Ireland.
Glenn Innes
Guest
John I think you are missing my point which has nothing to do with animal rights.Also 1926 was when mechanical lures and oval tracks first came to the UK, they were invented in the USA the first such track was in California and opened in 1919. Anyway that is beside the point according to figures from the Florida department of business and professional regulations paramutuel division wagering on Florida greyhound racing is down a staggering 72% since 1990.(imagine if you factor in population growth and adjust those figures to inflation.) I don't believe animal rights has much to do with it. it is competition from other forms of gambling..A declining industry though it could solve it's problems by getting subsidies from competing forms of gambling and the politicians would always back the industry. The same applies to USA horse racing.Yes per capita interest is much higher in Australia as we speak but this was not always the case.Indeed back in the fifties horse racing was considered one of the big three sports along with boxing and baseball. Even when I first visited the USA in 1979 the sport was still big in it's heartland states, on a par with Australia in terms of media coverage, Newspapers carried formguides, the DRF had east and west coast additions that weighed a ton they were so thick.I went to a day at Aqueduct it was winter bitterly cold and a pretty rank card but there were thirty thousand people there. As the the US industry stared to fall fast back in the nineties they embraced the idea of racinos.Track owners could run other forms of gambling on the condition they continued to run horse races. Seems like a good deal the industry gets funding from gaming machines and poker and black jack tables and you can pour that back into prizemoney to compensate for falling betting turnover. There a few problems that arise, Firstly you are promoting rival gambling products to try and compensate for the fact you can't sell your own, instead of trying to workout how to promote tour own product. Secondly the track owner starts to lose interest in you because you are a declining share of their income and one that is much more expensive to operate (In Australia substitute the private tabs for the track owners) Thirdly you are at the mercy of politicians who you are relying on to continue to legislate you a cut from competing gambling products, The speed of the decline of the US industry in the past twenty years is frightening (I have put up the gloomy numbers in a previous post on this site) and all this in a country where betting exchanges are illegal and sports betting only legal in one state; If current trends continue within a decade you will be reduced to Dalmar in Souther California, Churchill Downs in Kentucky, Gulfstream Park in Florida and Belmont Saratoga and maybe Aqueduct in New York. That will be it for a sport that sixty years ago was one of the big three. Don't think it can't happen here. look how far harness racing has fallen , the USA industry is a canary in the coalmine their just one generation ahead of us.Wait till the last of the baby boomers has kicked the bucket twenty years from now and see what Australian racing looks like then, if it continues under current (mis) management.
Dez
Guest
Great idea. I've heard talk of a 1% levy on betting agencies for retired thoroughbreds as well. Not such a crazy notion if you want to attract new customers, especially families. Anyway, we need tough uniform welfare penalties to discourage the sociopathic few, whos actions make the headlines.
John Tracey
Guest
Dez, I absolutely agree with you. The incidents of accidents can be reduced in many ways but there will still be some accidents. There is a need for some dogs to be rehabilitated before adoption so there needs to be a "hospital scheme" maybe paid by a 1% deduction off prize money. Nationally prize ,money is over 100 million so the fund would be $1 million. Some animals will be so injured that would be an act of animal cruelty to prolong their lives but in this case a vet should decide because they have a legal delegation to override an owner in this case. If the injured animal is found to have administered drugs ( a drugged dog would have more chance of being injured than another) then the "hospital fund" should sue for recovery of the costs of hospitalisation.
Dez
Guest
Thanks John, My comments in regards to injury were general and not forensicon purpose and in response to comments about declining interest and public expectations. Regardless of injury reasons, knowing that a dog with a bad injury is getting the needle rather than a chance at re-homing is one of the image problems that need to be overcome. In my opinion.
John Tracey
Guest
Hi Dez. Here is a cut and paste from an American Abstract. That rates the speed of a greyhound, distance of race and track considerations as the three main factors re injury. This is in line with a major horse racing survey on injury over ten years which found the risk of serious injury to horses increased dramatically according to their speed. Black Cavier is a classic example of how a fast horse should be trained, she raced only once week to week, her longest racing sequence without a spell was 4 runs, she raced over four years and averaged 6 runs per year. In all she raced 25 times for twenty five wins, she also had two trails. Here is the USA cut and paste extract. The reason that dogs are breaking down in Melbourne is that the fast dogs are exported there, It may be that the track fatalities at South Australia are much less if the slower dogs are exported there as well. A survey of injuries at five greyhound racing tracks. Sicard GK1, Short K, Manley PA. Author information Abstract The number of orthopaedic injuries sustained by racing greyhounds from five greyhound tracks in the state of Wisconsin, USA, was obtained over a two-year period. Calculated injury rates were analysed to predict the probability that a given competitor would have an injury based on track design, temperature, bodyweight, grade of race, race distance, race number, injury location on track and type of trauma. One track had a significantly higher injury rate than the others, and this track was constructed with a decreased initial straightaway, a decreased turning radius in the second turn and an increased turn bank. Increased injury rates were also seen with successively higher grades of race, suggesting a possible correlation with speed. Race distance had a significant effect on racing greyhound injury rates as well. Races measuring 3/16 mile and 7/16 mile resulted in a higher incidence of injury as compared with races with lengths of 5/16 mile and 3/8 mile. Injuries were most likely to occur at the first turn of a race. Temperature, bodyweight, race number and type of trauma had no significant effect on injury rate. Speed, race distance and track design were significant factors that were found to influence the injury rate of the racing greyhound and should be areas to focus on for the prevention of injury.
John Tracey
Guest
Glenn Innes, I can confirm what you are saying about prize money. Source ACIL-Cox 1992 report- Contribution of the racing industry to the income of Australia. NSW Greyhounds 1986/87 to 1990/91 Owners MINUS 14.1% OWNER-TRAINERS MINUS 10.7% TRAINERS MINUS 10.5% SUB TOTAL MINUS 11.7% ATTENDANTS INCREASE 16.5% PRIZE MONEY (constant value 1991) INCREASE 37.3% PRIZE MONEY PER RACE INCREASE 44% Just on the American scene , greyhound racing in the form of coursing was very limited in the USA compared to Australia prior to 1927. There was no interest in greyhound mechanical racing in the USA as a sport and the early attempts as exhibitions went bust. It only became popular as a "Casino" sport from the beginnings and it was restricted to a number of States. I think that greyhound racing is legal in most States but in most of them the tote betting on greyhounds is unlawful. The decline is real but not at the rate suggested by animal welfare group. The USA horses have the tote betting in a lot more States than the Greyhounds. The Horses had over 300 racecourses in the USA prior to bookmakers being banned on track, the number of tracks then reduced to 25 but then increased to about 150 when the totes were legalised. Despite the USA dwarfing the Australian population by about 15 to 1 Australia has a lot more interest in racing than America per capita.
Dez
Guest
There are some well reasoned ideas in both the article and contributors. As mentioned, attracting interest and support is key. A major overhaul in practice and thinking is required and may require the old guard to hand over to the new. A lot of industry people blame the media and welfare groups for the current woes. Put simply, reform was well overdue and shooting the messenger is not helpful. Joe Public now considers animal welfare as a high priority, be it, asking where their eggs are from and if the pork they buy was raised in a sow stall. It should be no different for the thoroughbred and Greyhound industries. On track injuries in Greyhound racing need be addressed and quickly. GRNSW are urgently looking at track design for the same reason. Sandown needs to be closed until fixed. There are simply too many broken legs leading to on-track euthanasia, or "retirement" as GRVIC still call it. If I may suggest a not too radical proposition. When a dog breaks a leg or an equally serious injury, the dog is not put down but its treatment is paid for by the state authority. The dog is then fast tracked through the relevant GAP program. The great work being done to re-home ex-racers is being undone, in my opinion by on-track injuries. My two cents worth.
Glenn Innes
Guest
The American Greyhound Racing industry id just about dead.The sport is illegal in thirty nine of the fifty states, half the remaining tracks are in Florida. But they only exist because state legislation requires track owners to run dog races so they can get to operate their gaming machines and poker rooms, the dog racing loses the track owners a fortune, The track owners are lobbying the Florida state Legislature hard to drop the requirement for them to run dog races and just let them have their slot machines and poker rooms and if they get what they want it will be good night nurse for dog racing in Florida and pretty much the whole of North America, If there is a lesson from US dog (and horse racing) taking subsidies from competing gambling products might seem attractive at the time like a free lunch. but remember only air is free, and in the long run it is the road to ruin. It's a great article. Nathan is the best contributor to the entire roar not just the racing pages..The decline in greyhound thoroughbred and standardbred numbers is a concern not just because it will destroy the wall to wall racing model that industry funding is based around, but because it indicates a decline in interest in these sports, Most people don't race dogs or horses because they expect to make money, they hope they might but really they know it is a hobby that will cost them money.THEY RACE BECAUSE THEY HAVE A PASSION FOR IT. Declining foal and pup crops just indicates a declining interest in the sports.I can't comment on greyhounds but inflation adjusted thoroughbred prizemoney is much better than it was in the seventies but the foal crop is half what it was back then despite the population having increases by more than fifty percent. The racing industry spending money on unsustainable prizemoney increases will not stop the decline in ownership numbers and horse and dog numbers.Only a rebirth of interest in racing will see and end to the decline in the numbers of live stock .In the USA when the "Racinos" arrived money from gaming machines meant prizemoney went up but the foal crop continued to go south and the industry continued to shrink, the link between purses and ownership is a myth.
Peter
Guest
Amen. It must be remembered by everyone in the greyhound industry that all avenues of betting are the competition, horse racing, football, cricket, pokies etc. If the betting public does not embrace this code it basically has not got a strong future and will be overrun by the horse racing codes in particular. Strong leadership that thinks about all aspects of the industry is needed. This not only includes welfare and integrity but also includes engaging the public at large as this is the group that have been engaged by the bad press and extremely poor conduct of some participants as reported in the press. It is the entire industries responsibility to attempt to reactivate this group of people not just those at the top, but registered participants, clubs, owners and companies that make an earn from the industry. Queensland Racings model displayed at the EKKA is a fantastic idea. It engaged the public at large, the crowd was invited into the benching area, the only breed that offered close access to the participants and the dogs, they were engaged by the commentary in the show ring and also by the way in which the participants and their dogs were presented and behaved.I believe that it was the largest crowd attendance for any breed exhibited. It was a fun event for everyone and what a great way to expose young dogs to noise and crowds. This is just one positive engagement event, surely there are others, Maybe open days at tracks attached to markets where the general public could be exposed to our dogs from pups to retirees. Show the public that pups will chase for the sake of a chase, or attend Lure Coursing club days with young dogs or maybe even dogs that are looking for a new home. These are great events and I found that I was welcomed by everyone. I guess what I am saying here is if the industry does not engage the public at large a shrinking audience is eminent,no audience, no industry. I was once told that the best way to succeed was to engage your competition, detractors and friends in that order.