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Originally Posted by Cardus
Do you advocate similar downsizing in Australia, whose racing you follow? There is a racecourse every 10 miles down there.
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Yes, I certainly do. But not to the extent I think we need it here. Australia has a racecourse in every little town, but some of them only run 1 day a year.
And they don't have as bad of a problem of "too many races" when you consider the level of interest of the general public and the distribution of the gambling dollar in Australia comparitively when based on population size.
Their purses are fairly low though, and I think the smaller tracks/trainers/jockeys will be forced to shut down in the next 10-15 years.
Australia has a similar problem to us in that they have so many different governing groups. For instance, in Victoria you have the Moonee Valley Racing Club, the Melbourne Racing Club, and the VRC. All of these Clubs have full staffing and office space, etc... when one could do it easily. Same thing in Sydney with the AJC and STC.
Too many people have their finger in the pot in both countries. And the respective industries cannot support that many people.
The sob stories of "taking someone's living" don't make much sense when the entire sport is suffering so someone can run their $5,000 claimer at Beulah.
Ease of entry isn't necessarily the best thing for a sport that wants to compete on a national level with the other professional sports. How easy is it to own an NFL, NBA, or MLB franchise? Or how easy is it to get a racing team in Nascar?
Maybe horse racing should be the same.
I'll admit that part of the charm of horse racing is the rags-to-riches stories that come out seemingly every year, but maybe those stories will go the same way of horses running every two weeks, carrying high weights, and being able to run further than 6 furlongs.