By making the prizemoney the same for 300 and reducing the number of 500 races it has impaired trainers from selecting the right distance for their dogs. In my eyes this is a major welfare issue that the racing boards have created and need to change.

Sandro is 100% correct is regards to wastage and costs of training.

Broodies like you're bitch,Saldana,are the key to keeping 500-700 mtr racing where it should be...at the very top,the absolute PINNACLE of racing, & hopefully at some point we see her progeny taking out some of the 160 or so,LISTED & GROUP races over 600 mtrs.

steven martin wrote:

Sandro Bechini wrote: In my opinion, there needs to be differences in the prizemoney structure to allow for more prizemoney for longer distance dogs Broadly speaking I would centre it around these minumum 1st prizemoney levels at all TAB tracks 250m-439m $1,000 440m-549m $2,000 550m -699m $2,500 700m+ $3,000 I would also have a grading system that rises sharply in the 250m-439m range that would then force trainers to try to improve a distance grade to go back to lower grade Totally agree, Sandro.....especially regarding the sharp rising in grading under 440m. But what would you or I know? We've only been in the industry for 40+ plus years ---> EXTERNAL LINK

You are pretty well spot on (as are most of the other comments). However - one exception - GRNSW is obligated to supply a bit more than 500 meetings but for a long time has been up around the 850/900 mark. That says the extras produce only a marginal improvement in income and more of the cash ends up with the gallops and trots under the fixed split (which is also what happened during equine influenza).

The key issue, though, is where it is all going to end up (post Covid-19, that is).

Here's something I wrote back in 2015 in ARG ...

"The rise and rise of short course racing and the loss of staying capacity are continuing unabated and without investigation. Another expert panel must identify trends in the breed and thereafter report annually on the state of the nation. Without that effort we will always be working in the dark and it might be very hard to recapture our former glory. En route, this study will provide valuable information on the dog population, culling and all the rest of it. That would be much more worthwhile than inaccurate throwaway lines from lawyers about so-called overbreeding.

That was five years ago yet the problem has got even worse since then, as clearly indicated in the Richmond example. There is a progression - nothing stays still. The future will reflect a continuation of that trend unless someone does something about it.

You cannot tell me I can put a stayer over 257m / 272m and be competitive.

You cannot tell me that a stayer and a short course dog is trained the same. All dogs are different and trained differently to cater to their needs.

The issue of dogs dominating racing over the shorter distance has been around for 15-20 years as trainers chase prize money. I agree with Chris Carl, Sandro and Tony. GRNSW has to revisit the problem, even if it means taking a few hundred dollars from short course racing and giving it elsewhere to 500m to 700m races.

We're in it together. If we all thought `short course' racing in NSW then the majority of 500m to 700m dogs would go to Victoria or Queensland and NSW Racing would shrink. That's what the authorities want.

Let's cater for all dogs/bitches. We still don't have enough single sex races. That would really help breeding and racing.

Carl,

On 25th I suggested the order in which the industry should operate (1 to 5 etc)- in that priority.

It has got out of kilter and poor judgement is in play, largely because too many people are thinking only for the current year.

First, it's the clubs who install short trip boxes. Why? Because they claim trainers ask for them (I asked a few and the answer is always the same).

Second, it's the state authorities who always pay heed to what the clubs and trainers demand - again, a short term outlook without due reference to what will happen over the long term. They don't "manage" but simply administer what comes over their desks.

Proof?

(A) GRV and to a lesser extent GRNSW simply accepted a so-called expert view that we were overbreeding. We were not. We were actually doing the opposite.

(B) When the penny dropped and more and more boxes were being emptied, GRV reduced a few fees while GRNSW did no more than survey participants' views on grading. Neither had any noticeable effect. Neither bothered to search out the real reasons for the downturn in breeding and pups etc. They just used a wet finger.

(C) As dog numbers kept falling, authorities went the other way and added more races so as to keep income up. That worked to a limited degree but it also (a) degraded average field quality and (b) encouraged more shorter trips because that's all the extra dogs could handle (ie the runts of the litter were all that were left). In any event, the only justification for the extra meetings was to fill an apparent gap in the TAB program, not to reward any growth in quality stock (which was never there anyway).

Live Baiting and Covid-19 just made things worse, of course, but the trend was already in force. Either way, we have no chance of re-building breeding numbers to pre-2015 levels, given current policies.

Consequently, we are hearing about a return to the good old days when "Major" clubs and "Country" clubs knew their place and prize money matched their positions - with the exception that now everyone wants top dollar for a win. That will never add up, especially when income is actually falling. It's a bad strategy.

The only answer is to aggressively re-build the code into realistic "Major" and "Country" classes with high and low prize money to match - whatever the long term budgets will stand, and never mind which clubs or which trainers will win or lose. That translates into "Major" means 500 and "Country" means 300.

Put another way, the much-hated Paul Newson (sometimes by me, too)was dead right when he said the industry's problem was not welfare but finance.

So why is GRV getting away with it relatively unharmed? Because they have much kinder governments organising the spread of cash. Both Queensland and SA have also benefitted from improved shares of the state betting take. NSW has not.