RACE DIVIDENDS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 3, 4 January 1934, Page 9

RACE DIVIDENDS.

UNIFORMITY WANTED.

BACKERS' DISSATISFACTION.

OLD SYSTEM PREFERRED. With an absence of uniformity, and racegoers generally dissatisfied with the present systems of declaring dividends on the totalisator it is fairly safe to predict that the whole position will undergo a complete overhaul , by racing and trotting clubs. At some meetings there are win and place totalisators, at others place only, and even where the place machine only is used the methods of calculating the dividends differ. Some clubs divide the place pool into three equal parts, but at the Canterbury Park Trotting Club's meeting this week the pool was divided 70 per cent to the winner, 20 per cent to the second horse, and 10 per cent to the third. It will thus be seen 'that there is a good deal of experimenting, and the public is not at all satisfied. ,

At meetings like those of the Auckland Racing Club, where the best horses gather and the fields are always of substantial size the paying of three dividends works fairly well. Occasionally there is a particularly small return to backers, but that can occur under any system. However, the fact that the com : mittee of the A.B.C. will hold a special meeting next week to consider the whole position of calculating dividends shows there is a feeling that the place dividends on the principle of 33 1-3 per cent to each of the placed horses can be improved upon. The general opinion is that tho committee will revert to the old system pf paying two dividends on the basis of*7s per cent to the winner and 25 to the second horse.

Trotting Race Dividends. It was in connection with the Auckland Trotting Clirb's meeting that the betting public showed dissatisfaction. It was a remarkable gathering in many ways and so easy were the winners to select that the dividends in numerous instances were hardly worth the trouble of lining up in the queue to collect. A club is in no way responsible for the price returned by a horse—that is governed solely by the support accorded it by the public —and therefore the fact that in two instances backers at the meeting who supported the winner on the 5/ totalisator had only their investment returned cannot bo levelled at the club by those backers who.were loud in their condemnation of tho system.

The dividends returned at the Auckland Trotting Club's meeting make it certain that the system of paying out on three placed horses will be reviewed. The experience of thoso backers who invested £1 on each of the three last winners on the straight out machine and did not show a profit of £I—or less than even money for three winners, is not likely to happen again. Those who supported the j last three winners on the 5/ place , machine did not show enough profit to pay for dinner. But it is the public who mako the prices, not the clubs. Handicapping SystemTrotting is in Ihe unfortunate position that the handicapping is controlled by a system of set penalties, and a really good horse can go on winning without trouble for some time. In Christchurch, where there is an abundance of horses, ■which , gather from all parts of tho South Island, the system of paying three dividends is workable, if not altogether satisfactory, but in Auckland thero is not the same number of horsee, and the continuing of the handicapping system can only do the sport harm. Unfortunately, while clubs can declare dividends on aiiy of many methods they cannot "et away from the handicapping system. That tho Auckland Trotting Club and perhaps other clubs in Auckland will make a move to have the system abolished may be safely predicted, but consideration only be given to any such request by the Trotting Conference, which body does not meet till July next, unless a special meeting is called.