PRIZE MONEY DROPS ON HIGHVELD??????

Dave...

Could you please follow up with the "fat catz" how come Phumelela dropped prize money as from 1 January 2011 for all scheduled Phumelela regions. Nomination fees gone up from R48 to R78 and if a race is R200 000 and up nom fees are R400!

It's ridiculous...we have race meetings every day, overseas punters participating in our pools and a lame excuse there's no money for stakes. How the %&#@$ could this be???????? Where's the money going to?????? Only explanation I can make is that too many employees taking too high salaries and helping Gold Circle out of their misery!

Phumelela doesn't understand that training fees doesn't come down, feed for horses go up, petrol goes up, transport goes up etc...

We owners want a concrete [in black and white] report from these "fat catz" on this site why the drop in stakes...It's an outrage!!!!!!!!!!!!!

RELEASED BY: Phumelela Gaming and Leisure Limited

Horseracing and tote betting operator Phumelela, the Racing Association (the organisation responsible for looking after the interests of owners in Phumelela regions) and the Thoroughbred Horseracing Trust are contributing R4 million towards offsetting a R10-million shortfall in prize money for races at the five Phumelela racecourses in the 2010-11 racing season.
Prize money in Phumelela regions each season is determined by a formula in terms of which a percentage of total tote betting turnover in the previous term goes to the stake pool. Unfortunately, turnover in 2009-10 was three percent down on the previous season, a significantly better outcome than in many other racing countries, and that has resulted in the current deficit.
Instead of cutting stakes across the board to eliminate the shortfall, the Racing Association (RA) and Phumelela, in conjunction with the Racing Trust, investigated various other options to deal with the deficit.
The R4-million contribution from them together with a natural saving of about R1.5 million from race meetings abandoned because of rain (a loss of one meeting per region has been budgeted) and a small saving from “B Grade” meetings on the Highveld (stakes all races R50,000) leaves a deficit of some R4.3 million and the following measures will be introduced from 1 January 2011 to make up the shortfall:
* A two-tier stake system will be implemented. Normal (existing) stakes will be paid from August to April, but prize money of all turf races at Turffontein and the Vaal in May, June and July (the “off-season”) will be 10% lower. This will not apply to races on sand.
* Entry fees for minor and feature races are to be increased, as well as declaration fees for feature events, while declaration fees for minor races will be introduced. Entry and declaration fees for feature races will collectively equal one percent of the stake, while entry and declaration fees for minor races will each be 0.1 percent of the average minor-race stake.
In a move not related to the stakes deficit, the prize money for Maiden Plates at Turffontein and the Vaal is to drop from R80,000 to R70,000. This will allow for up to 32 Maiden Plates programmed from January to July to be split into two races when the number of final acceptors warrants creating an extra race.
The RA is doubling the number of races in which it pays bonuses. There will be 38 such races at Turffontein and the Vaal in 2011, each with a R20,000 bonus for the owners if they are RA members. There will be 16 bonus races in Port Elizabeth, each with an additional R15,000 for RA-member owners, and four such races at Flamingo Park each with a R10,000 bonus.

I still don't get it; turnover is down, so how come the shareholders got their dividends, but the owners (who provide the operators with the means to put on events for the punters to bet on) have to be satisfied with increases in noms and declaration fees and a stakes decrease in certain races; can someone explain that to me in plain English?

Thanx Frodo...i also don't get it! Why RA Bonus races if that money could be spent on normal races to increase stakes...still don't understand how we have huge pools and they still have shortfall...the money is going elsewhere!!!!!

In black and white - explain the "shortfall" and how it came about??????

radetzky whens your dispersal sale?

Why is that owners feel they are "owed" more and more and more.

As a breeder I have sold horses and the buyers don't care how much below cost they are buying for. In fact, they resent reserve prices and feel that the highest bid, no matter how low, should be the price. I wonder if those same bidders feel that way should they sell their homes on auction because the principle is the same.

These same buyers, then go to a racecourse and 'expect' the prize money just to be on tap, and the track and the building and the parking and the staff. Do owners pay for the facilities that their trainers use to train thir purchases? A new owner would have contributed absolutely zero to anything, but it's all there for the taking.

The sense of entitlement just pervades this country.

There was a time when after incurring all these expenses, the way you earned was to further back your purchase. I suspect places like Mauritius are still like this to some extent, as is the UK with relatively low stakes.

The question comes down to: should a below average (bottom half) animal expect to pay it's way, and can the betting public carry that? Who then 'should' be in the black, and who in the red?

Jack,

I suppose we can debate this till the cows come home, but it's Xmas Eve and I am going to mention just one point; you say ' owners feel they are owed more and more'; I don't believe that is 100% correct; we just don't want to settle for less and less.

100%

But I've been in racing my whole adult life, and 'owners' have steered the ship during that entire time.

They were the stewards then, and they are the directors now. The one group could be powerful if they get their act together is the trainers, but in my time powerful owners have had a very strong influence on the big trainers, or you could argue that some of those trainers had power via their big owners.

They control the owners associations aswell, and to be honest there are no other powerful organisations in racing other that the NHRA which is empowered by law.

The truth of the matter is that big and huge owners have always called the shots till the day corporatisation came. Then they bought shares and stayed on the board anyway. The big owners became big breeders too, and it's the same people who control the flow of it all.

So it's a joke to watch little owners complain about 'the powers that be', when they are in fact, our fellow (albeit bigger) owners.

"Our" biggest problem is when "we" employ non owners, all sorts of funnies start to happen. This may be because we essentially have an unwatched or unaccountable way of running the business....mostly because there is a lack of the good ol' PROFIT motive, which is what keeps other industries alive in the dog eat dog world. Our business just exists to be here, while other businesses are trying to take over the world and the motives are not just to exist but to grow and make more and more money. And owning horses isn't a business, it's something else.

pirates Wrote:

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> radetzky whens your dispersal sale?

Thats cold !! On Christmas Eve , well we know who the site scrooge is .

Jack, you make some valid points.

Rad, In my in expert opinion it is not an issue of saving GC. I see it like this. GC was bold enough to make this move first whilst P was in a pissing contest by themselves. GC started recovering (saving money months ago). P and its ego lost money over the last while. Surely you see a shortfall a long way out! A recovery has to start somewhere and cost saving excersizes have to be made in order to foster ong term sustainability. Lets hope those soccer 6 pools dont end up eventually killing this game.

The fact remains; horseracing and property are not the best investment for quick returns at the moment. Property fairs a little better though as the property does not have a 4 to 6 year earning spell and maintenance costs are far less.

Breeders seem to be the only ones who have caned it over the last few years. How may bar plus horses are running off MR70's??????? No chance of recouping that investment.

owning horses is not an investment and the sooner we all realise that the better..if stakes went up 25 percent it would make very little difference