read in the sunday herald (sydney) re lismore race clubs response to country racing inquiry re decline in country racing.
they referred to the community involvement of a saturday race meeting in your own locality and the need to have them.
i can identify with that in tasmania.

is it possible the decline of racing is due to sky channel determining how many and when race meetings are needed.
perhaps lismore is right that racing should be community driven and seek more local involvement.

Gday topsy &all
the communtiy meetings are the backbone of country racing. I attend the Saturday meetings at Port Macquarie when they are held, as well as the NON Tabbers at Taree.. There are usually 5 races on the card at these meetings, small fields but a great afternoon out. The crowds while not huge are respectable. To me, as a punter, I get as much joy ( and the same return) backing a winner in Class 1 at Port on a staurday afternoon paying 5$ as I do backing a 5$ winner of the Cox Plate (for example).

Sometimes we can become elitists in our betting and race watching, I love all forms of thourough bred racing and will go to the races every chance I get ( will be at Port for the TAB meeting tomorrow). I would urge all thorough bred racing lovers to get to these unfashionable NON TAb meetings when they are held in their area.. the winners still pay the same as winners on city tracks.. Try it.. you may just enjoy it..


_________________
Good luck and good punting

xptdriver@hotmail.com

[ This Message was edited by: xptdriver on 2004-02-09 13:38 ]

[ This Message was edited by: xptdriver on 2004-02-09 13:39 ]

[ This Message was edited by: puntz on 2004-02-14 04:08 ]

i think the motive is to get all non-attending punters to punt by phone and the lip reading ones at that.
this reduces cost and allows tab's to be closed.
at the end of the day punters and owners lose interest and the thing that drives racing is dropping out - owners, punters and local community involvement.
a sort of narrowing of the base.

Topsy.I believe that gallop racing both on country/metropolitan tracks has been in decline for over 15 years and is due to other forms of easy ,mindless type gambling opportunities (pokies/keno and other rot)being offered to the leisure type gambler in well presented ,air conditioned clubs /pubs.As more of these lotto type games are introduced in pleasant surroundings where the person can relax with their friends more and more of the regular gallop type punter (who generally are the older age group anyway)will fall further and further away.
IS GALLOP RACING DOOMED?Yes I believe it is.
I wish it were not so but I believe if one looks at the dwindling attendance records of any race track the figures are almost self explanatory.

Darky dog,
You are 100% right about country racing being doomed.There is no doubt that the older brigade (myself included) have had terrific days at country races which are the backbone of city racing.

Long term things will backfire to the detriment of city racing. Horses unable to win city races were raced in the country with good success, but as there are nearly no country races of note anymore, owners have lost another opportunity to get a return for their investment and will soon wake up to this and not buy horses to race in the city.

The TAB and Sky Channel have caused most of these problems. With TAB privitation they are interested in the $ and as country racing is costing money they are not interested in proping it up.

Punters are treated like idiots by race clubs and without them the whole industry collapses.

Bookies were the greatest attraction to race going punters but cannot compete with TABs. The prices are a disgrace, caused by lack of punters, who are betting overseas and getting a better service. They have caused their own demise.

[ This Message was edited by: puntz on 2004-02-14 04:06 ]

Are we talking about a decline in country racing Australia wide or specifically a state? Victoria seems to be going OK

I use to love going to the races or maybe going to the tab....but i hate the tab now because you go in there on a saturday and there are like 80 races going 1 every 3 minutes...now i know you all say "but you don't have to bet on all of them" the problem is there is no information for them anymore they don't even have time to give you the results half the time or the prices before the race and with sites like "EDITED" and "EDITED" ha ha beat you to it,who wants to bet with the tab when you can get maxdivi and diviplus....i wonder if they combined all tabs it would make a difference, maybe the other problem is there are to many race clubs to many horses and not enough prize money....people say punting is a mugs game....well i think horse owner ship is worse if you add up all the horses in Australia and divide them by total stakes it comes out to about $10.000 a horse....i am not sure what it costs to train a horse for a year but i bet it is atleast triple that....there was an article in the newspaper over here about a punter that won $350.000 on Lohnro it said he has placed at least $200.000 on him at his last 12 starts for 10 wins....not a bad investment in the long run

[ This Message was edited by: Shaun on 2004-02-10 11:29 ]

getting fairly politically correct aren't we.
freedom of speech is a precious thing. hope we can find it again.

anyway back to the topic.
as i have said my selections come from listed horses only and i have noticed there is a significant decline in the numbers of these horses racing around australia.
assuming that the number of qualifying races
e.g. up to 1000 listed group 1/2/3 races each year (probably likely 750) which could qualify up to 2000 horses each year for the
system but there doesnt seem to be many racing. e.g. in warwick farm tomorrow only old Olivier and strange conflict (an escapee from Qld) running. most b grade metrop meetings in sydney are devoid of qalifiers.
this means that the winners and qualifiers are quarantined amongst the big stables or a high casualty rate of horses.
I suspect there is a lack of competitiveness in racing particularly in NSW metro areas or that many horses these days are not making it through to old age on the track.
the casualty rate for young horses seems high and many horses that have been promising young horses seem to be burned out very early.
maybe theres a clue there.
In respect of my listed qualifiers i think many are not very long lived in the limelight.