Racing NSW chief executive Peter V’landys believes racing can continue even if the state escalates coronavirus lockdown restrictions in coming weeks.
The biggest meetings of the autumn carnival, The Championships, which will be run at Randwick over the first two Saturdays of April, copped a $10 million cut in prizemoney on Sunday as racing felt the pressure of falling betting turnover.
We are sure that we can keep going, we just need the government to understand that.
Peter V'landys
“We have taken responsibility to run our meetings in a secure environment, and I don’t think that would change in a lockdown and, if anything, we would tighten our protocols.
“The government understands what racing brings in revenue and that if we stopped they would lose that, and there would be another 100,000 people affected and a lot of them would be out of jobs . . . we are sure that we can keep going, we just need the government to understand that.”