If you’re an optimist, you’d suggest horse racing is on the verge of reclaiming some of the sporting mantle in the Australian psyche.
Optimists would point to record prize-money levels, record wagering levels, crowds returning after COVID lockouts, robust media coverage, new and novel ways to participate in the industry, major infrastructure investments and major (end-of-career) racehorse welfare ideas.
If you’re a pessimist you’d suggest it is on the cusp of irrelevance with underwhelming crowd reappearances, the end to the COVID-inspired revenue windfalls, declining public interest and acceptance, compliant industry paid-for media coverage, gimmickry displacing horses, equine welfare displacing equine health and own goals dwarfing goals kicked.
In recent days both the racing and breeding industry have publicised or speculated about future grand visions.
But like most grand visions that morph into white elephants, they are based on fuzzy concepts, fuzzy facts and fuzzy logic. Most would suggest this has to culminate in fuzzy outcomes (being the only constant).
(Image byJackieLou DL via Pixabay)
Racing Victoria is thinking about investing well north of $200 million in a new near-city racing precinct.
Is there an industry need for it? Is there an industry cost-benefit from it? Is there a strategic industry infrastructure plan? Is there a future industry workforce plan? That would be a giant black hole.
Similarly, Thoroughbred Breeders Australia outlined a grand vision for the future of thoroughbred welfare… well, post-racing career thoroughbred welfare, that is.
Like many visions developed by vested interests, you have to ask whose purpose it best serves.
Even the authors were unsure of the extent of the problem – beyond it being a PR problem.
Nonetheless, they went ahead and outlined a bureaucratic way to try and fix it (whatever ‘it’ is in reality).
They offered a lot of recommendations written across a lot of pages, using a lot of big (impressive sounding) words like ‘accountability’, ‘evidence-based’, and ‘scientific’.
Funnily enough there wasn’t a lot of accountability, hard evidence and science underpinning the recommendations.
Or to put it another way, the first act of the horse welfare play is predicated on a Chihuahua-Great Dane cross. It might even look doable on paper – if you hold the images far enough apart (and close one eye).
To me though, with both eyes open, there seems inherent risk in following through on such a mating plan. It just looks like it could get a bit ugly to me… but perhaps I know too much about Great Danes.
In this welfare play, the authors propose that the lead (female) Chihuahua is played by the equine industry.
The Great Dane is necessarily played by state and federal governments because of the requirement for aligned state and federal legislation (good luck with that, I hear you say).
(Pat Scala/Racing Photos via Getty Images)
We all know what will happen when the Great Dane gets aroused. The saying ‘be careful what you wish for’ comes to mind.
To borrow from another’s saying, nobody goes to sleep with a great idea and intentionally wakes up with a white elephant.
The drift occurs little by little, influenced by example, precedent, political incentive and human material.
But by then it’s too late – the seed has been sown, the DNA implanted. As history shows with various grand ideas, politicians are loath to listen to independent minds, let alone heed their concerns.
So while no doubt racing and breeding industry executives will head off to Christmas euphoric and light-headed about their future visions, I’m expecting to keep reading reports of trainers and jockeys fighting, jockeys and horses failing drug tests, horses being mistreated, jockeys and trainers being fined for various rule breaches and scuttlebutt that all is not well in the breeding barn.
The same credibility issues that dogged racing and breeding 20 years ago still dog it today.
Rather than being euphoric as they head off for Christmas breaks, racing and breeding executives should be down right worried about their credibility… and think twice about buying those Chihuahuas for the kids.
Ross Wright
Roar Rookie
I’ll leave explanation of the Great Dane - chihuahua analogy for another time. Your questions are very relevant and ones that I expected the review to answer. Their position was - ‘we’re not sure’. Which begs another question - what was the review about really? I am about to write another article that will ‘attend’ to your questions so I won’t double up here :)
Ross Wright
Roar Rookie
I made a similar observation and dismissed such claims as nothing more than spin because as you highlight nothing could be further from the truth. A few months ago and after much was said about the amount of money that punters contribute to the industry, I did a rough calculation of how much owners contribute. Owners will fork out approximately $1.25-$1.5 Billion this year buying and paying for their horses to be trained (using sales statistics & average trainer rates). They will receive approx $670 million in prizemoney distributions (after deductions). So owners will collectively lose about $585-$830mill whilst Trainers and Jockeys will make about $120 million. So if losing the most that owners will have ever lost is Pete’s version of ‘never a better time’ heaven help us! Or perhaps he could share what ever it is he’s drinking....
Nathan Absalom
Roar Guru
Not quite sure exactly what the criticism is of the welfare plan, got a little lost in the Great Dane/Chihuahua cross... Nevertheless, I do agree that it was a rather bureaucratic exercise where the problem isn't well clarified, making it difficult to see what the answer was. In the case of the greyhounds, where the issue of retirements have been more or less solved, the unstated aim was that demand for pet greyhounds was to meet or exceed supply. Supply had been heading to the right level for years and it just got there in a bit of a jolt, but demand required some investment in advertising and education. After that, the relatively low cost, shorter natural lifespan and generally gentle nature of the greyhounds themselves meant that it turned out to be rather more sustainable than the loudest in the media predicted. For retired horses, I guess the demand side could be quite different. Horses are more expensive and restricted to areas that have more land, but there are more commercial opportunities with horse riding clubs etc. Do they need to increase demand, and if so, how are they going to do it? Instead, is it a mismatch in supply and demand that they are trying to fix? What do they do at the trots, what do they do, does it provide a model or are the breeds too different?
Brepen
Roar Rookie
Correction average yearling price 306K 2020, so 6 times the late 90"s
Brepen
Roar Rookie
It is an interesting question as with all the "glowing Vlandys positives about its never been better to own a racehorse, I stumbled on some old horse training bills from back in the late 90's, they are roughly a 1/3 of what they are today, and the 1st place prizemoney was likewise. So really you still need to win the same amount of races to break even, while the cost of the yearling has gone up 5 fold, with the average yearling price at the Inglis sales back then about 52k now its 250k. So looking at actually figures, its actually got more expensive .
max power
Guest
according to sky sports radio everything is 110% in nsw racing. things are great and never been better. huge prizemoney is apparently great for punters. doesnt matter that punters pay for it with higher taxes