An announcement is out.
Stake levels for the remainder of the New Zealand-based harness racing season have been advised. A minimum stake of $7’000 at all meetings, $8’500 maidens and faster at harness city limits… $12’000 on offer a couple of times a card.
All in all it’s probably better than the funding apocalypse some were fearing and it’s probably lighter than what everybody hoped… But it is what it is.
For the press release regarding these stake levels click here.
What will become apparent in the weeks and months ahead is just how hard the overall economic conditions post-covid are going to hit the industry. The next 3-4 months will most probably make it blindingly clear just how many employers (owners) will have to have the hard talk to their employees (trainers) and state their intentions to either sell up to local interests or export their stock, thus ending their involvement in the game.
Racehorse ownership isn’t cheap. In fact most would sheepishly say that under the best of conditions it demands a far closer relationship with financial suicide than one would normally recommend. I took in a well known owner recently reporting that if he came out of a years worth of racing 40% down he’d consider it a sound year! (the owner has some of the best horses in the country)
While economic recession or indeed depressions can act as a catalyst for people to gamble a little more ( a sad fact of desperate times / desperate measures) they are certainly not the ideal scenarios to see discretionary income expenditures maintained, neither do they act as motivators for people to go out and suggest to the other-half that a horse called Franco Earnsalot is their way out of hardship and into financial freedom. (A swift slap across the mug most probably the standard reply to such nonsensical foolery)
This being said the question will become: when times are tough will the horse go or will the horse stay?
How can the taxi driver with a 5th share in a horse justify shelling out $60-80 bucks a week (probably a touch conservative) to pay for a horse to be in work that 1) he can’t go to watch racing (at least for a while) and 2) is racing for reduced stake levels? And this goes on top of the fact that the taxi he’s driving at the moment has suffered a 75% reduction in turnover and a projected future about as bright as Davy Jones’ Locker.
How can the cashed up business-man justify keeping a horse in work (that he owns in full) when most of the feature racing for the season has been cancelled leaving the main feature events some 5-6 months away? add to this the fact that next season’s base-stake levels are yet to be determined and look to be under an ever-darkening cloud themselves.
Possibly the only thing that owners may look to as solace is the fact that a horse has a sentimentality attached to it, a promise even, if there’s a way of keeping the flame burning they might well make some sacrifices to see their horse hit the track again, even against their better judgement or realities they face away from the winning post. If a coffee or two can be forgone and the mortgage terms on the 4-bed be drawn out a little then the nag from Winton might just be the tonic needed in between the unemployment and business confidence reports.
That taxi driver might be living for the day he wins that maiden, or gets to go to the track again and watch the horse run a meritorious 8th in front of him and his mates.
As for now I’m sure all trainers and drivers are going to be ready to get back on the track and racing. Let’s just be hopeful (and / or thankful if that’s the case) that there are owners left that can cough up when the training bill arrives.
Ben McMillan