COST OF RACING.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19492, 29 May 1925, Page 8

COST OF RACING.

GOVERNMENT’S TAXATION. CLUBS’ HEAVY BURDEN. (Per United Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH. May 28. At the annuahmeeting- of the Canterbury Jockey Club the Chairman (Mr George Gould) had the following to say regarding the taxation of the sport;— “Before the war. with its attendant taxation and the disturbance of money values, and under the wise guidance of the Racing Conference, an owner, given an average degree of knowledge and luck, had a fair 'chance of paying expenses out of stakes, leaving hint free to\ bet or not to bet according to his inclinations and the optimism or pessimism of his nature. To-day, however, the position is very different. The racing, partly due to Government exactions, is almost double, while during the last four years stakes have receded. I' l 1914-15 the stake? given by this club amounted to nearly £38,000. This year they were £42,656, whereas to bear pre-war relation to expenses they should be at least £60,000. Racing is a line pastime, but it has also a serious financial aspect for those engaged in it. An examination of racing statistics leads to the conclusion that only about one horse in four pays its expenses out of stakes, and there is a gap of about £200,000 between the gross amount of the stakes won and the costs involved in training and racing about 2000 horses. This gap many people seek to bridge by. betting with varying success, hence the desirability of increasing the, stakes so that the sport may more nearly pay its way without fortuitous aids. Many country clubs are in a difficulty, small as the stakes are, which they can afford to give. When the stakes are small there is a danger that owners who cannot afford to look upon racing as a pleasant way of spending money may try to carry on by manipulating results. If it were not for the better stakes given by the metropolitan clubs the honest sportsman could not live, and yet the' Minister proposes to create more clubs in the backblocks where there are neither horses, population, racing facilities, nor the means of training the horses. What can be done in these circumstances to put the straightgoing owner on a better footing? I say without hesitation that the Government should surrender for the good of the sport some portion of the monev it takes from the racing community. The dividend tax alone now produces double the whole revenue from the totalisator tax a few years ago. If the Government would remit to clubs the 2i per cent, on the first £20.000 of each day’s turnover it would put small clubs on their feet and give a tremendous lift to honest sport. This would mean giving up about £3OO a day, or £90,000 a year, a good, deal of which could go direct to the stakes, but the Government would still be deriving some £500,000 in various ways from the racing public, against which the general community pays no equivalent.”