Australian Clubs In Debt

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31547, 8 December 1967, Page 6

Australian Clubs In Debt

(Special Crspdt. N.Z.P.AJ SYDNEY. Just four weeks after the glamour and excitement of the Melbourne Cup, the Australian horse-racing industry has been reported to be “very sick.” .

The situation is worst in Melbourne, home of the country’s richest and most important race. All over Australia, racecourse attendances are dropping, clubs are sliding deep into debt punters fed up with the T.A.B. are kbeping illegal starting-price bookmakers in business, and discontented racing administrators are squabbling among themselves. The situation was discussed recently iu a controversial report on racing by the Victoria Racing Club, one of the country’s leading clubs, and organiser of the spring carnival which includes the Melbourne Cup. After a two-year investigation of racing in Victoria, the V.R.C. says that the three clubs which run meetings in the Melbourne metropolitan

area are heavily in debt One, the Victoria Amateur Turf Club, which runs the Caulfield Cup, is in the red to the tune of $3,567,671. The V.R.C. itself has a bank overdraft of $849,000 and the Moonee Valley Racing Club has a deficit of $111,345. The V.R.C. has recommended that the Moonee Valley Racing Club be merged with the V.R.C., although racing should continue at the Moonee Valley track. It suggests that mid-week meetings be restored to the city, that country tracks at Cranbourne, Werribee and Yarra Glen be closed and that a number of other country clubs merge. The chairman of the V.R.C., Sir Ross Grey Smith, said that racing in Victoria must be -un on sound lines and with maximum efficiency. The State Government has indicated that it intends to stick to its policy of not allowing mid-week meetings in the city, and many racing men fear the V.R.C.’s report will be shelved.

In an attempt to force action, the Victorian Council of Racing Industries,, which comprises owners, trainers, jockeys, float proprietors and farriers, intends to boycott meeting*: at Yarra Glen, Cranbourne, Werribee and several other country courses next year, starting with the Yarra Glen Racing Club’s $10,150 cup meeting on January 3. The country clubs bitterly oppose the report’s recommendations and spokesmen have accused the V.R.C. of being “hell-bent on a plan to kill country racing.”

The T.A.B. has been blamed for a steady drop of between 10 and 20 per cent in racecourse attendances throughout the country, and many racing men believe it is not only keeping punters away from tracks, but is making for the various State Governments profits which should be ploughed back into the industry. Only 11,696 people went to

the Sydney meeting at Canterbury last Saturday. It was a very wet day; but any Sydney meeting is lucky to attract more than 20,000 these days.

About 22,000 racegoers went to Caulfield, but Melbourne race crowds have been dropping as steadily as T.A.B. turn-overs have been rising.

There is no doubt that the T.A.8., more than anything else, has turned racing from a sport into a multi-million dollar business. T.A.B. agencies turned over an estimated $340 million in the 1966-67 financial year. With many punters still preferring the services of the starting ■ price bookmaker, owners and trainers worried about rising costs, an estimated 50 per cent of the; country’s jockeys taking parttime jobs to boost their riding fees, and the dubs in the doldrums, the T.A.B. seems to be the only one on a “certainty” as 1967 draws to a close.