Gees. They really are starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel today.

5 Class 3 on a Saturday Metropolitan race day.

Is it just me who thinks these **** night/twilight meetings are degrading the sport.

Cheers.
darky

Gday darky...

just something to mull over.... normally when I do my ratings for a Saturday, there are between 1000 -1200 runners from all around the country.. but today there are 700 odd.. must be trainers winding up for tomorrow... tho Monday has a stack of runners...

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Good luck and good punting

xptdriver@hotmail.com

G,day XPT.

What truly amazes me though with these W A N K night /twilight meetings is the race clubs are supposedly trying to win back the public to attending the track.

I ask .Who has the time to attend with juggling children or winding down after work at these type of meetings .

The money squandered in promoting this rubbish would be better spent on the punting CONSUMER elsewhere.

Cheers.
darky.

Darcy, the Moonee Valley night meetings have been one of the few successes the racing industry have had over the last few months. While the turnover and crowds are down elsehwhere, at the Valley the crowds and the turnover are both up susbstantially since they switched to Friday nights.

I personally love the moonee valley friday night meets im from the younger generation though.

Do you attend the track itself?.

Cheers.
darky.

Yeah been about 4 times the best night was bexaar getting up at $14

Since ive been working at the greyhound track for over a year now, this year they brought in twilight meetings which start at 4-7:30 the idea was the bring in the crowd. Unfortunately it hasn't worked and nominations have dropped off, and they are returning to the 1pm start -4 :18 pm.

THis was due to a number of factors, one, by the time families leave on a Saturday night they are not getting their young ones to bed around 8:30-9 or even later. And even moreso some are falling asleep at the track and most are going home early.

Secondly there were large number of complaints from trainers about travelling there in the heat of the day and then getting back at home late at night, so there dogs sweat during the trip there and freeze on the way back.

Also the 18-25 year old groups which came really dropped off, as who can go out on a Saturday night when they get home at 8:30ish so by the time you leave its around 10 after having tea, getting ready, organising the rest of your mates to come out. And its just too late really.

So we dont have the families coming in, the 18-25's have dropped off and the trainers arn't nominating. So what more can you do?

Sometimes changing the starting times at tracks will work, and sometimes they wont, but at least they gave it a shot.

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GO VOUVRAY

Hey Darky,

They tried night racing here at Avondale ( NZ ) in the late 80's....cost 'em a fortune for lighting just to see 2 men and a dog turn up to watch....didn't last long.

Imagine Auckland in the middle of winter, icy cold, ****ing down with rain and expecting the masses to turn up....no brains mate

Cheers mate.

It must be hard for the clubs to get people to come to meets. I have personally been half a dozen times and must admit its not the best night out. I personally think they maybe need to run trots/greys at the same time. There is far too much time between races and as we all know a race will last on average 30 sec. Why not have the dogs then wait15 min and have the trots go round. I find it horribly boring at the dogs even though they are my preffered betting medium. I can tell you know id be lucky to go once in the next 6 months.