December 4, 2015
Blackbutt’s Wayne Farrington will be hoping his maiden charge Miss Alexandra can visit the winner’s slot at Nanango on Saturday.
The sparingly raced Shovhog mare was partnered by Andrew Spinks when she ran fifth of seven at Doomben in very heavy going on July 3, 2013.That was the bay’s fifth start.
This time around Spinks’ son Adam will be in the hot seat.
Miss Alexandra finished third at Wondai on October 17, then second at Gympie a week later. So if the pattern continues it will be “1” at Lee Park.
The six-year-old has a few things going for her.
She has been freshened, the small field may help at her first crack over 800 metres, and none her rivals have earned a cent.
Interestingly, the Dale Murray trained Tramps’ N’ Thieves has accepted for both Maidens.
Jason Missen has been engaged for the missions that are 80 minutes apart.
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Curtains Are Lovin’ McLovin’s Improvement
James Curtain prepares I Am McLovin for his wife Kate and his brother Laurie.
Early on, the Murtajill four-year-old showed his connections that he had ability but had frustrating racing behaviours.
The side pushed on.
The bay, that has scored twice from just three outings this time in, has a rating of 52 so he could well be competitive in the BM 55 (1000m) at Lee Park this weekend.
Lady Wivenhoe will sport the Curtain livery in the Nanango Tourism and Development Association Class 2 (1200m).
The Bon Hoffa mare is due to catch the eye of Dame Fortune – three of her last four efforts have picked up the runner-up cheques.
On Sunday, Curtain’s handy sprinter Amber Ale has the inside gate in the $30,000 Cannonball Final (BM, 800m) at Kilcoy.
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Burnett Well Represented
There is no shortage of local participation at Nanango on Saturday.
Glenn Richardson’s line-up includes Ulmer Street, Jill’s Shadow, Mollara and Lucks In.
Tony Williams has the reserves Western Maizcay and Lillian Eliza.
Kaylene Hamilton has a handy newcomer in Monte Lago, while racegoers from Hivesville will have Lindsay Anderson’s Hopetoun Street and Peter Blackwell’s Count Romano to cheer for.
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Details Of Racing Queensland Restructure Released
The long awaited Tracking Towards Sustainability plan was released on Thursday, and the full text is available via Racing Queensland’s website.
The document is almost 100 pages in length and will take a lot of unpacking, and my analysis will be presented in next week’s column.
Topping the tale of woe are across-the-board prize money cuts to city, provincial and country venues.
Rural prizemoney drops from $7000 to $5500 per race.
The Magic Millions super day apparently survived unscathed but the Stradbroke Handicap purse is down $500,000.
A major concern is the apparent impact on clubs such as Nanango, Gympie and Bundaberg which seemingly are heading for a reduction to just three fully-funded meetings per year.
Around 50 non-TAB race days are to be shed next year. It is assumed that clubs that operate once, twice or three times per annum continue on as is.
The notion of creating a rural TAB hub in each region is interesting, but the problem is that many districts will be bereft of starters.
With a massive increase in raceless Saturdays, fewer folk will find horse ownership in the bush.
Even with the current higher frequency of opportunities, many trainers have to travel long distances with their hopefuls.
Hub clubs will struggle for a cash flow because midweek attendances at TAB programs in country towns are very low at present.
A number of south east country centres have scored TAB fixtures during the closure of Eagle Farm.
By the time the new Plan is under way, Brisbane will be back to using two inner city courses.
This welcome advancement will alter the current scheduling significantly.
Presumably, there will be fascinating competition to be allocated a “hub” rating although it could be something of a poisoned chalice.
The relevant section on Thoroughbred Country Racing from RQ’s report is shown verbatim below:
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RQ Propose The Following Changes To Be Implemented From 1 July 2016:
- The removal of the Country Queensland Showcase Series (which is TAB covered), the Celebrate Country Series and the Sustain Country Series. The feedback from the consultations was that the various country racing series do not provide the same level of value to the community as standard non-TAB meetings.
- A further reduction in the number of non-TAB meetings, where clubs that race between four to seven times a year are reduced to three meetings each. The intention of reducing these meetings is to increase field sizes at nearby TAB courses, allowing clubs to run on a four monthly basis for community benefit. Clubs may obtain funding for an additional race meeting or meetings from alternative sources i.e. sponsors, regional councils and community action. In that event, RQ will facilitate the conduct of any such meeting, agreeing an appropriate date with the club in question. RQ may also be willing to provide an additional meeting or meetings subject to the club providing adequate subsidisation of the stewarding and race day costs incurred by RQ.
- A reduction in strategic and non-strategic prizemoney levels.
- A reduction in the per meeting subsidy payment for strategic non-TAB meetings to $1,000 and limiting the value add prizemoney for non-TAB prizemoney to 50% of sponsorship raised. The intention of this measure is to direct clubs to use sponsorship moneys to maintain facilities and provide community events.
As a longer term strategy, using a portion of the funds saved from the above, RQ intends to develop a regional hub and spoke based model for country racing whereby:
A central hub in each region will be upgraded to TAB status and will race on a regular basis,
and the remaining clubs in the region will race once or twice per year.
The purpose of the hub and spoke model is to derive an income from country racing, which can be used to:
- Improve country racing facilities;
- Increase prizemoney to improve returns to participants; and
- Provide training to regional areas to ensure racing intellectual property is retained in country areas, which may allow RQ to assess whether a regional stewarding model can be implemented.
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Also on Thursday, the Minister for Sport and Racing Bill Byrne issued a press release about the new plans.
It is a broad brush document and it is not clear if the announcement means that there will no cutbacks to the present total number of non-TAB fixtures staged annually across the state or just no cuts to that pool of overall money.
It is uncertain if the Government release is in tune with RQ’s or whether it is a last minute countermand of all the rural money and dates cutbacks.
(Note: I have asked Mr Adam Gardini, RQ’s Communication and Marketing manager for clarification. Hopefully a response will be available for new week’s column).
- Related news article: Cutbacks Target Country Racing
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Racing Queensland Navigation Needs Tuning
Reports about the Roma Cup problems suggest that there was no false start siren in use at the meeting.
Fortunately for those responsible, it was not needed.
Major embarrassment, shock and anger would have filled the placings if it had been required.
Scheduling still raises eyebrows.
Rockhampton had two TAB meetings in five days and fields suffered on Thursday.
Sunday’s Kilcoy fields also suffered – the Sunshine Coast is in direct opposition.
Doomben has a Friday-Saturday double header this weekend.
Hopefully it does not begin with a course rated a Heavy 10 !
The rise of the free-to-air Victorian racing channel (racing.com or Channel 68 or 78) must be creating nightmares in other jurisdictions.
In short, there must be a realistic fear in Queensland circles that punters who live north of the Tweed will find many reasons to concentrate their betting endeavours on these very detailed, viewer-friendly programs.
