TOTALISATOR'S FINE RECOVERY

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 15, 17 July 1937, Page 22

TOTALISATOR'S FINE RECOVERY

WELLINGTON SETS PACE FOR OTHER CLUBS

(By "Rangatira.") Since the recent Wellington Winter Meeting, with its record totalisator turnover for a July fixture at Trcnlham, there has been more than ordinary interest taken in the remarkable recovery that totalisator betting has made in the Dominion during the last two seasons. VSry few could have'been aware last week that the ngtucs for the meeting at Trenlham were going to reach a mark novcr previously attained. It was only four years pco that racing executives ,were despairing whether the day would ever come again when ■the sport would be able to stand solidly on its own icet. In lour years racing is almost back to the good times, if not #to the boom Says', which, after all, no one really desires, as there is no stability about a Loom. Of all the bio- metropolitan clubs none has made a greater recovery than the Wellington Racing Club, under its enthusiastic president;1 Mr. E. L. Riddiford, and its energetic lady secretary, Miss D.! E. Bray, who took over the reins when the club was at the lowest point of the depression.

Racing never had a more serious setback: than it had from 1931 till 1934. During that period, particularly in the 1932-;33 season, totalisator investments receded till they were considerably less than even in the years immediately preceding the war, when money was worth more than it is today and incomes were generally on a much lowlier scale. Yet in the short space since 1934 the turnovers of many clubs are back to what they were in the last years just preceding 1931, and in some instances they are better. During the last two seasons the turnovers of most clubs have been advancing at a rate of 20 per cent, or more, and it is fairly clear that such / a rate of increase cannot continue for | long. It is still pleasant to read of in-1 creased turnover, but executives should not be disappointed or discouraged if in the coming season the increases considerably diminish, or even vanish. Hacing is again on the footing it was in the more settled years that followed the boom, when prosperity was the dominant note, and so long as it can be maintained at this state everything should be well with the sport, PROSPERITY AND ADVERSITY. The phases of prosperity and adversity have always been the ends of a cycle, and one must therefore expect

that the sport of racing, as well as that' of tratting, will some time in the future have to face fresh reverses. How near or distant that time may be is beyond the calculation or prognostication of the layman, and perhaps as well' of the experts; but it does not seem likely to come till the world no longer requires to buy our products, particularly wool, of which there is a present great shortage, or until there is some new international cataclysm, ■with consequent world-wide reaction. The more careful racing executives, with recent lessons fresh in mind and the knowledge that good times come only in cycles, may be tempted to put a little aside if the next few seasons continue as prosperous as this has been. It is of interest at this stage to consider how the totalisator investments have varied during the last great cycle, which began before the war, and which is apparently round near the same point again in its upward movement towards highest peak. For the pm*po,se of indicating the movement of this cycle the figures of the three leading metropolitan clubs (Auckland, Canterbury, and Wellington) have been taken at the critical'yeai-s. The following table gives the aggregate turnovers of the three clubs at important points in the cycle:— Aklrt. Cant. Wgtn. • Season. £ £ £ 1013-14 .... 497,471% 3T3.488V& 302,7ri!) 1920-21 .....1,146,510 . 6SS.OSB 8515.008% 1021-22 95.4,440 601,316% 5D3.81 1% 1929-30 .... 801,121% 479.959 '506.928 1932-33* ... 422.172V3 213,348% 279.083 1935-3R 403,117 321,218% ■105,1fi7% 1936-37 .... 598,128% 419,171% 568.331% •Win-ancl-place betting first introduced during this season. The comparison afforded by this table is a fairly accurate one, as there is only a small variation in the number of days' racing the clubs have held each season, and each club has raced at the same time of the season in the whole period under review. The clubs taken are the most representative in the whole Dominion, and are least affected by extraneous and parochial circumstances. In all years in the table Auckland has raced on eleven days and Canterbury on ten days; Wellington has had eleven days the last two years, but in 1913-14 and 1920-21 there were only nine days' racing at Trentham, with ten days' racing in the other years. It may be generally said that the line for the whole Dominion is most nearly given by an average between Canterbury and Wellington. Auckland has in 'recent years been outstripped relatively 'by the provincial clubs in its own district. AH three clubs have enjoyed larger turnovers this season than they did in ithe season just prior to the war ! (1913-14), but this would have been expected without any inspection of the I record book, as money represents less lvalue now than it did when the war broke out. As the investments in the 1932-33 season (the worst of the depression) were all round lower than in 1913-14, this season's figures are so much the more in excess of the 1932-33. Wellington's total this season, with a day's more racing, is more than double the 1932-33, and Canterbury's, for the same number of days, is very neatdouble; Auckland's improvement makes nothing like the same showing. WELLINGTON'S PROGRESS. The progress made by the Wellington Eacing Club is a feature of the last few seasons. In other days the Wellington figures were generally only a portion over half what Auckland could produce; but this season the Wellington turnover for the same number of days' racing has reached within a few thousand pounds of the Auckland marK.. liven allowing that recent Auckland meetings have not been too well favoured by the weather, the approach is none the less remarkable, for Auckland races on Boxing Day, at the New Year, at Easter, and on the Sovereign's Birthday holiday, whereas the only holidays that Wellington can claim are Labour Day and Anniversary Day. V/ith Easter Saturday as well as Easter Monday, Auckland has five holiday dates to Wellington's two. A perusal of Auckland's figures since the 1929-30 season, the peak of the prosperous yt-ars before the depression, prompts thought of Shakespeare's "Something is rotten in the State of Denmark," without of course the de-j

rogatory implication. Auckland, compared with Wellington and Canterbury, and also with , the vast majority of other racing clubs in the Dominion, has not made the progress that might have been expected during the last couple or three years. Perhaps the reason is not far to seek, when one considers that this club alone among the important metropolitan clubs has not adopted the win-and-place mode ot betting, which has been proved beyond argument to bring larger turnovers, whatever the personal view of the individual investor may be. WIN-AND-PLACE BETTING. It was on Boxing Day, 1932, that the jTaranaki Jockey Club first used the I win-and-place system in the Dominion, 'and a month later the .Wellington Racing Club introduced it to one of the larger metropolitan courses. By the end of 1933 most clubs, including the Auckland Racing Club, were using win-and-place, but when the novelty wore off a number of clubs, probably half of them, reverted to the singlepool, which with many was the more popular mode. The Auckland Club used the system for just twelve months.

It was at the time of the introduction of the dual-pool method of betting that totalisator turnover first

began here and there to show slight increases again. Win-and-place undoubtedly accelerated the process, and it has, without any room for question, continued to accelerate the return to better times for the clubs.

The Auckland Racing Club provides an excellent illustration of what might have been the position now if win-and-place had never been used by the larger clubs. Auckland is nowhers near back to 1929-30, whereas Wellington is .already past that mark (with one day's more racing, it is conceded), and Canterbury is well on the way back. Auckland's figures for the present season are just over half the 1920-21 figures; Canterbury's are nearly two-thirds; and Wellington's are approximately four-fifths. Wellington is the first of the larger clubs to be able to claim that it has set a new record for a particular meeting. It did this with last week's Winter Meeting, though of course it was enabled to do so because there were only two days to the 1921 Winter Meeting. On an ayerage-per-cliern basis, last week's meeting would still be second in the record, an approach to the boom times that could not have been foreseen even by the most optimistic a couple of years ago. PARTICULAR MEETINGS. It mEfy be of interest to note also the sums that were handled at the bigger meetings of the more important clubs in the boom and other critical years. The following table gives the comparison of the 1920-21 season with the 1932-33 and the present season:— AUCKLAND K.C. 1920-il. 1532-:i3. 193(5-37.

approximate what the aggregate in investments for all racing clubs will be. Up till the close of the Wellington Meeting the total was £4.541,378, and with the few meetings still to be held the figure is likely to be taken to somewhere near £4,575,000. This makes the season the best since the 1929-30 season. Back in 1920-21, the record sum of £7,979,595 was handled by the racing clubs of the Dominion. The next season the total dropped to £6,154,854. A measure of stability followed, and in 1929-30 the aggregate for racing club? was £5,312,484. Then the depression set in. and low-water mark was reached with £2,585,142 in the 1932-33 season. The improvement to over four and a half millions this season is therefore a notable forward step and with very little further progress the new season should return the figures to the five millions mark.

.Meeting. £ £ £ Spring ir.2,S!)SV. 4fi,848Vi 00,370 Summer ' r>U,4r>5V& TSI.mn 2HH.134 Ailtunm .. 210,4011'/. 82,678 85,THB Winter ,.... 272,24!) V£ 111,447 183,802>/i CANTERBURY J.C. 1320-21. 1032-33. 1036-37. .Meeting. £ £ £ Spring 213,173 fi!),R7S'/2 115.122Vi Metropolitan 310,1U 8B,5S7'/2 183,742^ Summer 20,010 33,193 20,320^ Autumn ... 114,4?,« 43,SS7>,3 69,986 WKLLtNGTOX H.C. 1920-21. 1932-33. 103B-37. Meetins;. £ £ £ Spring .... 133,207 02.S74VS inrs.r.fi.Siimmer ... 2.")7,M1>/' 3011,330 3SS.S2n> / { ! Autumn ... 139,1 15 .riR.23BH S-1,123 Winter lin.llli 7."i,."lS 101,810 The racing for the present season is not yet closed, but it is possible to