Times are tough in most industries at the moment and harness racing is no different.
Of course the Coronavirus has impacted all sections of the economy over the past 6 – 8 months, but we believe most of the significant challenges our industry faces were significant challenges before the virus ‘arrived’. One of the major concerns of our group is that the current Harness Racing Act ensures that Harness Racing NSW is accountable to no one else but themselves. A major review of the Act 5 years ago made a number of recommendations designed to significantly improve accountability but few, if any, of those recommendations have been implemented. And that’s just the start.
We are also concerned for example at the total lack of industry marketing, significant increases in administration costs, significant reductions in the percentage of overall industry revenue returned to the clubs ( down from 86% in 2010 to as low as 67% in 2018, we are concerned that the guarantees made in relation to minimum prizemoney following on from the sale of Harold Park are far from being kept, we are concerned about the continuing drop in trainer, driver and breeder numbers and we are concerned about industry integrity.
We are a small group of committed harness racing supporters who between us have invested millions of dollars in harness racing over the years.
We have given ourselves two choices. Walk away or have one last crack at trying to get harness racing in NSW back on track.
We firmly believe the industry can improve if we get a number of things right. We need to know however what the rest of the industry is thinking and that’s where we need your help and that’s why we have put this website and survey together.
The purpose of the survey is to gather the opinions of a wide variety of industry stakeholders on a wide range of issues like prizemoney, handicapping, breeding administration and integrity. Completing the survey could take as little as 5 minutes of your time but there are plenty of opportunities to offer further comment if you wish.
We require all respondents provide their name and contact details. We will not be considering anonymous responses.
We will be collating the responses (without respondents names unless they give us that permission) and attempt to present them to Harness Racing NSW and the Minister for Racing in order to get the ball rolling on the significant changes that need to be made in order to ‘Make NSW Harness Racing Great Again’.
So please, compete the survey by clicking on the link below.
Thank you in anticipation of your support.
The Last Dance Group