The field at Albion Park last Tuesday afternoon charge down the home straight towards the finish line. At the bottom of the straight you can see a rusting sectional times board that has not worked since 1988, meaning in almost a quarter of a century - not one Chairman, former harness racing Board, or committee, has been cumulatively able to come up with a solution to eradicate the problem, yet the harness racing industry is going back to Boards. Good luck. Without even thinking for more than about two minutes about the problem, Justracing explains how it would have made about $300,000 for the Albion Park Club by now if I was running the joint.

Whilst it could be said that the three codes of the racing industry – thoroughbreds, harness and greyhounds – have all cumulatively failed to 1) move with the times and 2) meet, even remotely, the expectations of their participants, the one that has failed miserably to fill its hopples for many, many years now has undoubtedly been the harness racing industry. The vibrant and exciting harness racing industry of the 1960’s, 1970’s and 1980’s is today but a shell of its former self. It’s simply a fact of life that over the last decade or two, harness racing in Queensland has been in a full stretch gallop and it seems to me, as an outsider looking in - that it just can’t get back into its gear.

The harness racing hierarchy of today blame Bob Bentley and his now defunct Racing Queensland Board for the multiplicity of problems that besiege their industry, yet they blindly fail to accept the fact that the harness racing industry was in a downward spiral and well on the way to oblivion, from the actions of its own appointed Queensland Harness Racing Boards that had been in charge of the industry over time, long before Bob Bentley and his Board took the reins and jumped in the sulky to steer the harness racing industry. In fact when the harness racing tracks of Cairns, Townsville, Mackay, Rockhampton, Maryborough, Toowoomba and Rocklea were closed down, it was an appointed Harness Racing Board that made those momentous decisions – not Bob Bentley and his Board. Surely one doesn’t need to have the mental capacity of a rocket scientist to conclude that if an industry is closing all its tracks down in major Queensland cities and towns under the guise of warm and fuzzy terms like “rationalization”, that it is an industry in crisis? It was those same decisions of mass closures of tracks that today has left the harness racing where it is, which is half way between a rock and a hard place, with just three TAB tracks being left operational – Albion Park, Redcliffe and Parklands, along with the two non-TAB tracks of Marburg and Toowoomba. Where the industry sits today with just five tracks is, in essence, in any fair minded person’s opinion, “an absolute and utter disgrace”, for it means that any licensee who was domiciled north of the Redcliffe track was given no option whatsoever but to walk away from the harness industry, irrespective of how long they’d been a participant in the sport and how many horses they had in work, with the end result being that harness racing has no country base whatsoever today, yet Queensland country thoroughbred racing has over 100 clubs still registered with the governing body, whilst greyhound racing today even has TAB weekly racing at major provincial centres like Rockhampton and Townsville, which ironically are two large provincial cities that once had proud harness racing traditions. The latest and greatest TAB thoroughbred track in Queensland that is getting rave reviews is the newly opened StrathAyr surface at Ooralea Park in Mackay – which was once another city with a long and proud history of harness racing. Who could ever forget the deeds of that city’s wonderful harness racing ambassador - Cane Smoke? His racetrack feats gained favourable press for harness racing nationally. Fancy having a pacer that could win 34 races in a single season? Well Mackay is today a major Queensland city that is slap bang in the middle of a mining boom – but sadly there’s no harness racing track there to capitalize on that boom, yet Bob Bentley and his Board had no problem backing the new $3.5 million Stage 1 thoroughbred redevelopment at Ooralea Park in Mackay, which Mackay Turf Club President Ian Joblin on opening day, 5 May 2012, described as “a world-class facility”, adding, “and I think the thoroughbred industry here in Mackay is going to be extremely proud of the asset that we now have."

Maryborough is a town near and dear to my heart having been born there in St Stephens Hospital in 1955 and growing up on a farm 30 miles from the town and calling harness racing at the Maryborough Showgrounds track as a 12YO kid with the late Stan Tappenden standing beside me. Russ Hinze replaced the old showgrounds track, which was required for a seniors housing development, with a brand new state-of-the-art track at the new showgrounds complex which moved to the outskirts of Maryborough. Today it sadly sits there as a totally wasted entity.

So the upshot of all the aforesaid is that harness racing Boards have been responsible for placing the industry in the predicament where it is today. I acknowledge that Bob Bentley and his Board did little for harness racing, but to be fair he didn’t find the hierarchy of harness racing very easy to work with and as an outsider looking in – confrontation was always just one step away. I would have thought that grown men should reasonably be able to work their way through the many and varied problems that had to be dealt with for the good of the industry, but sadly that never looked like happening in Queensland harness racing – which preferred to have full on confrontation with the governing body. Neither party would take one step back and smell the roses, which must happen in life if two warring parties are at loggerheads. If I had to apportion blame on either Bentley or the previous Boards for where the Queensland harness industry is at today, I’d apportion 80% of the blame on its former Boards and 20% on Bentley. As I stated earlier - at some point, some of these people who have served on the “Queensland Harness Racing Board” or on club committees during the last 20 years have to accept part of the blame for the debilitating state of the industry today. Step one in overcoming any crisis we encounter along the path of life is surely to accept that a problem exists in the first place – and to that end some of these Board representatives and committee people have conveniently looked the other way while the raping and pillaging has been carried out, which raises another question I have been stating publicly for 15 years, namely that the maximum term any chairman or committee person should be allowed to serve is two years. After all, a constant changing of both the Chairman and committees at race clubs is the only way to bring new ideas to the table – and two years is more that a realistic timeframe for individuals to share their ideas. Once they have shared their ideas with the rest of the committee and had the opportunity to have those ideas implemented, it is simply time to move on. Far too often in race clubs across all codes in this country we see Chairman and committee people who have been in their position for what I’d call “totally ridiculous lengths of time.” To many of them, it is more about the power they can have in their position that is the attraction, rather than the possibility of being so committed that they wake up in the middle of the night with some wonderful new innovation to take their industry forward.

So as at today, we’ve got rid of 20% of the problem – Bob Bentley and his Board - and via a State election we’ve got rid of the State Labour government that was in control of the purse strings of the State when Bentley ruled. Now we have an incumbent LNP government under Premier Campbell Newman. So following all those recent changes in government, what has the harness racing industry gone and done to improve itself now that the perceived scourge of Bentley and his Board has gone? Well the LNP has gone straight out and got the chap who was Albion Park Chairman, as at the date of the LNP State government assumed office, Warwick Stansfield - and put him straight on the new Board of Racing Queensland as the harness racing industry rep. Then with Stansfield gone, Kevin Seymour has been installed as Chairman at the Albion Park Harness Racing Club in Stansfield’s place. Stansfield had been Chairman of the Albion Park Harness Racing Club for five years prior to accepting the Board position. Off the top of my head I can’t think of too many innovations he has brought to Albion Park in his tenure, so if that is the case, why was he the selected one to represent harness racing at Racing Queensland Board level? Is he the best possible person to represent harness racing? Wouldn’t it be astute business acumen to ensure that the person who got the coveted gig on the Racing Queensland Board was both a proven go-getter and a person who his piers look up to? Is Warwick Stansfield such a person? I personally question if he is the right person, given as recently as last year he refused to comment on my website article that stated he was unable to substantiate statements he had allegedly made in a The Courier Mail newspaper article to their journalist James McCullough, about the extent of annual sponsorship that Kevin Seymour was paying to the Albion Park Harness Racing Club. I haven’t heard one solitary word back from either Warwick Stansfield or his legal representatives from that day until this, so one can only assume that the Justracing article was 100% accurate - again. (The original story I penned on this matter entitled "Is the right Seymour sponsorship figure $25,000 a year, $300,000 a year or $1,000,000 a year" can be read HERE.) The follow-up article entitled "Queensland Racing recheck their figures in $25,000 Seymour sponsorship in 2009/2010 - now it's up to journalist McCullough and Chairman Stansfield to publicly prove their statements are accurate" and that story can be read HERE. If Stansfield is the best man or woman to be appointed as the harness racing representative on the new Racing Queensland Board, wouldn’t it also be fair to expect that he’d be able to prove that he’d been so successful in his role as Chairman of Albion Park that he could show how he’d advanced the club dramatically in his five year tenure? Wouldn’t it be fair to expect that he would have overseen some major improvements, like for instance big increases in prizemoney for licensees, along with improved facilities for harness racing devotees at his track - and so forth and so on? As at last Tuesday when I last visited a race meeting at Albion Park, I couldn’t see where he had overseen any major improvements for the Albion Park Harness Racing Club. Was he able to turn the club’s finances around - to the point where the club is today embarrassingly flush with funds?

Similarly Kevin Seymour is now back as Chairman for his third term in that capacity and I understand that a “term” at the head of the Albion Park Harness Racing Club mustn’t exceed seven years. There is no question that Kevin Seymour has led a successful life in business away from harness racing and I accept he’s owned some handy pacers along the way - after gaining a love for harness racing as a kid selling newspapers at the front gate of Albion Park some 40-odd years ago, but Kevin Seymour has already had two terms as Chairman of the Albion Park Club and therefore I wonder what possible new ideas can he bring to the table this time around as Chairman. In any fair person’s assessment, hasn’t he had ample time to put forward any plans he has had for improving the harness racing industry – and have them voted on? Does the fact that he’s been hugely successful in property development automatically mean that he will be “hugely successful” in his capacity as Chairman of the premier harness racing club in Queensland? To me that is definitely not a given. Are Warwick Stansfield and Kevin Seymour the only two people who have enough ability to hold either a Board position and/or be Chairman at Albion Park - or are there other people of equal or more ability?

It’s hardly a State secret that the harness racing industry is struggling from a public integrity viewpoint all over Australia, but it would seem particularly in Queensland there is a problem. All the usual bogies that have been linked with the harness racing industry, such as races with one trier, team driving, stables with multiples runners, the leader meekly handing up to the favourite, and so on and so forth, have all cumulatively taken their toll on harness racing over a long period of time with the main sufferer being TAB turnover, which love it or loathe it, is the lifeblood of the industry. Anyone who has been attending Albion Park as long as I have, around 40 years can tell you of its long sordid past. To show how bad turnover is currently, the last few Saturday night’s I’ve monitored the win pool in the first race at Albion Park, which should be terrific - but it’s not. As an example, on 28 April the win pool on Race 1 at Albion Park finalized at $23,367. For the record the race was won by Our Madagascar paying $4.70. The closing Tattsbet favourite was $3.60 chance Cougars Blue Jean, the point being there was no odds-on favourite stifling betting or the like. That that win pool is what I’d call “demonstrative of the fact that punters have no faith in betting on Queensland harness meetings” is borne out by the fact that the first race at the Victorian country meeting at Cranbourne on the same evening held more money in the Tattsbet win pool $27,291 – even though the race featured a $1.70 favourite Scruffy Major.

My question is: “Would Mr Stansfield or Mr Seymour have a remote clue as to what money is being held on Queensland TAB harness meetings on Tattsbet and has either man seen the need - like I would, if I were running the show - to pay for people to go out into the marketplace, into Pub Tabs and the like and get some constructive feedback, via say a set questionaire, to see what punters want changed in the Queensland harness racing industry to give them the confidence to bet on the product”? I say neither man would have had the foresight to implement such an astute strategy to try to improve TAB turnover, yet between them they are lining up for their fourth term as Chairman of the major club in the State. They may say it’s not their job – but someone has to be innovative.

In the halcyon days of harness racing it was an unabashed privilege to take some friends to a great night out at the well appointed track at Albion Park, with its fine dining at Silks Restaurant. Sadly you wouldn’t take your worst enemy with you to Albion Park on a Saturday night in this day and age, as put simply whether Mr Stansfield or Mr Seymour acknowledge it, the place is nothing more than an embarrassment to both the industry and the club. And it was an “embarrassment to both the industry and the club” long before Bentley and his Board got control of the industry. If you think that is unfair well look at the lead photo I have taken to accompany this story today and I’ll happily admit that I made a special trip to Albion Park on Tuesday to take the photograph, as to me it epitomises how little leadership has been shown at Albion Park by a plethora of Chairman and committees in the last two decades. The photographed board was once an outstanding feature to a night at Albion Park, proudly displaying its sectional times for races and so on and so forth. General thought is that it hasn’t worked since 1988. That’s fine as nothing lasts forever. But what possible excuse is there for some committee, at some point, not to 1) part with some money to get it working again, 2) pull it down to get rid of the eyesore, c) sell the metal and put the proceeds into club coffers, or better still, d) place say six large size advertisements on it for either racing or corporate entities at say $2,000 a year each, which would generate revenue for the club of $12,000 annually. I find it totally incredible that it has sat there gathering rust for almost a quarter of a century, with all these alleged “successful businessmen” type people sitting on committees at the place, yet if some Einstein within the club would have come up with my idea of six advertisers in 1989 when the committee of the day obviously decided not to get it working again, the $12,000 annually the hunk of metal could have generated for the race club would have yielded the club revenues of $288,000 as at today without interest (24 years multiplied by $12,000 annually). To give the six advertisers added exposure the Sky Channel cameraman could have been instructed to pan his camera on it during races. Then when I was at Albion Park last Tuesday I also photographed the huge car park that adorns the Brisbane River side of the Albion Park complex. It could fit a thousand cars in it daily - Monday to Friday inclusive - and it could create a wonderful revenue stream for the club. Cars could park there at a cheaper rate than expensive inner city parking and shuttle buses could take city workers to selected drop off points within the CBD. Again it sits there generating not a single dollar of revenue, yet it could have surely taken in millions of dollars in revenue over the years - if anyone had any foresight.

Now as part of the new LNP government pre-election promise, each code is going back to being run by a Board. Haven’t I just unequivocally proven earlier in this article that “Boards” are 80% accountable for stuffing the Queensland harness racing in the past? Well how will any future “Board” turn things around? In short, any future “Board” is a bit like the boy with the barrow – no hope whatsoever of succeeding unless they can 1) stimulate TAB turnover significantly on the harness racing product and 2) get some major new revenue streams happening for the industry forthwith.

Additionally the harness racing industry does absolutely nothing to promote itself. You won’t see a solitary billboard on the highways and byways of this great State advertising their product. Justracing has six billboards currently displayed across South East Queensland and they help promote the harness racing industry – and not so much as one dollar of industry assistance in funding comes to me from all that expensive advertising, yet between them “Boards” and “race club committees” cannot cumulatively put one billboard up – ever - anywhere. Then in the latest what I’d call “totally ridiculous decision” the Albion Park committee - following Kevin Seymour being reinstated as Chairman - has stopped, with no valid reason being given, the Albion Park Saturday night race preview that was professionally written by Anthony Collins and placed on Justracing every Friday night. So now as probably an alleged cost cutting measure, to save a few miserable dollars a week, punters - who remember I caller earlier “the lifeblood of the industry” - are denied getting the meeting promoted to them. And Justracing was happily putting the preview up totally free of charge 52 weeks a year to help promote the harness industry. Sometimes I just shake my head at such innovative thinking.

There is a public meeting that has been called for next Sunday at noon at Albion Park and I see one of the agenda items is the “re-development of Albion Park”. My question is why has it taken until now to consider “re-development” - as the joint has been going backwards since that sectional times board broke down in 1988. Why didn’t “re-development” happen at some point within the last two decades with the express purpose of establishing some worthwhile future revenue streams, thus giving harness racing a future which by now would be assured? Justracing has for the last decade been extolling the virtues of such strategies as having motels on racecourses to provide such revenue streams, but in typical fashion, the brain-dead racing officials around the nation are only now just seeing the absolute necessity to implement revenue streams away from the racing product. In any event what benefit is a “re-development” of Albion Park now as no one goes there anymore anyway? It’s surely akin to shutting the gate after the horse has bolted. In fact I’d go so far as to say there was more atmosphere at Chernobyl about five minutes after the reactor blew that time, than there is at an Albion Park harness racing meeting – so why would anyone go? As an aside to the "re-development" idea for Albion Park, well isn't it simply a fact that both present Premier Campbell Newman and present Lord Mayor Graham Quirk told Bob Bentley and his Board prior to the State election that Albion Park would forever only be solely used as a parklands area?

Let me clarify a few points publicly after penning such a passionate story on harness racing. I’m happy to state publicly that of the three codes I prefer to attend harness racing meetings from a spectacle viewpoint. Justracing has also proudly been a valued sponsor to harness racing in the 16 years that the website has been established for primarily non-TAB clubs meetings and the mini-trotters. In fact in just the last couple of weeks this letter arrived for the website’s assistance in promoting the Easter Sunday Marburg meeting, so I do have a passion for the industry – and have had that passion for harness racing for the last 45 years. The Marburg letter read, in part:

Dear Phil

It is with much pleasure, I can write to you in thanks of your great support of a wonderful event held on Easter Sunday April 8.

An increased number of patrons than expected and a number of supporters and sponsors willing to support us in the future for this annual event has generated local harness racing public interest, and for businesses it is good for them at a low key function with friends and clients, with the thrill of harness racing.

Your participation on lead-up in advertising and photos made this annual event a pleasure to be part of and the resultant feedback has been exceptional and I hope clients and friends who attended had a good time and will come back again. We had over 700 paying patrons through the gate and around 100 guests and special sponsors there to enjoy the sunny day.

I hope I can call on your participation again for 2013 and I will be calling on you in late November or earlier if required, to put a proposal together for the benefit of both parties.

Regards

Trevor Perrin - MPA Promotions and Sponsorship

Last week on Justracing I called for members of the public to email the website to give their positive or negative feedback on their perception of harness racing in Queensland, but unfortunately the vast majority of emails that I received were demeaning and/or defamatory to individuals - and as such they cannot be placed here publicly. I did get two that were legally okay to be placed here publicly and the first one read:

Hi Phil

Thought I would contribute to the discussion.

In the short I am not happy to bet on Queensland Harness Racing, having said that I have never been much of a harness racing punter.

Back in the Briz31 day I would have a bet on every Redcliffe harness race on a Friday night and really enjoyed slaughtering a few dollars while watching them on Briz31. I think I enjoyed it because of the commentary team and the fact they just focused on the one meeting and you could end up following the form because the same horses would back up there week after week.

These days I only enjoy watching the grass track harness races from New Zealand and the Interdom but a lot of the gloss has gone off that event with no publicity, the splitting of the trots and pacers events and the general lack of hype.

I quiet often flick over to the trots when there is nothing else on the TV and it just confirms why I don’t even worry about betting on the Harness racing. Even second race there is a $1.10 favorite, the favorite always seems to get to the front easily and dictates terms. There always seems to me to be 8 hard luck stories in every race and last 8 across the always seems to finish within 5 metres of each other. I think that’s why I like watching the New Zealand races on turf, they are seem to be trying and most of the horses seem to get their chance and there is not a lot of odds on favourites.

In regards to Queensland Harness racing there is not publicity in the main stream media, no excitement when you pick up the guide to form on a Saturday to see what’s going around, back in the day Silks was pumping use to go about four times a year and really enjoyed the atmosphere now it’s like a cemetery.

Anyway that is my thoughts.

Have a good day.

Darren Wooster

Acacia Ridge

The second email read:

Hi Phil.

I am certain sure that we cannot get average or "casual" punters to bet on Qld trots for two and maybe more major reasons. This drop off in popularity began firstly with the introduction and then almost universal use of the mobile barrier as a method of starting races. The mobile was hailed by administrators as the answer to the perceived bugbear of horses galloping away from the standing start. As happens with most promotional efforts the "worst case scenario" of the favourite always (it wasn't) being the horse to lose all or part of its chance was the incentive to adopt the mechanical monster. With that adoption, trotting threw away an important thing and gained others. (1)Handicap racing with10 metre increments per class is a readily understood system which allows even a punter of limited experience to interact with the sport and do their own form based on he or she's knowledge gained from watching races and the reasonable expectation (which s/s handicaps supplied) that what he or she saw last week should hold good tonight. (2)What was gained was the undisputable fact that if your choice gallops at the start when the mobile is at "release speed" you have done your money cold. Horses quite frequently galloped from the stand, recovered smartly and went on to win or be placed. (3)With the mobile barrier came incredible damage to our image. If we had one false start per month it would be one to many, yet our punter base is subjected meeting after meeting, race after race to false starts. If trotting wanted to present itself as the pursuit of incompetent fools it could not have chosen a better vehicle than the mobile barrier with which to do it.

The mobile start has one use. Its very nature condemns it to be suitable only for Free For All races (country and metropolitan) as, at least, one could expect manners and tractability from the top of the tree. It has a by-product as well as it is a tool for producing fast mile rates. I can see where the love affair between broodmare owners, stallion promoters and fast mile rates came from, but I can see no desirable connection between that eternal triangle and the all important punters, the folks who supply the money in this game.

Now with the real problem. Mobile starts bring a racing format called "mobile conditioned" and it is the second word which does the major damage. In order to allow medium to large stables (horse numbers) to earn a viable income without recourse to the punt, it is necessary to provide genuine earning opportunity for the fit horse on a frequent basis. Hence conditions are written on each race for which, in the most part, a professional trainer will have a horse or horses in his team which can be entered for that race with a reasonable to strong expectation (racing luck discounted) of finishing 1-2-3.

OK so far? Let us consider the conditions, which can include…..Claim drivers concession=a drop of one class....C3 becomes C2 (there could be a problem here as there are claiming drivers who have driven more than 150 winners and claiming drivers who have driven 0 winners....did you know that, and do you think that there may be a slight difference in the level of ability and experience?....Mares concession=a drop of one class….C3 becomes C2. We have only 17 methods of determining barrier draws and then the final field is drawn on what are called "field selection points". FSPs are assigned at each run in descending value from winner to last for the previous five starts and the lowest discarded leaving the figure which is fed to the computer and the top ten are selected.

There are a few more, but, seriously there are only two ways to approach this "to bet or not to bet" situation. We either continue on down the "mobile conditioned' path and supply sufficient and reliable "expert opinion" to point our punters in the right direction, or, we adopt a PUNTER FRIENDLY FORMAT which allows our prime source of revenue to be supplied by a large group of people who would like interact with the sport through their punting activities and derive some enjoyment from it all. It has been a widely held opinion in administrative circles Australia wide for at least 25 years that punters are "mindless twits". I have news for people who think like that. The punters who wanted to love trotting left when they realised it was biting them. Our job is to get them back.

If you think I am having you on about "mobile conditioned" and "claimers" I draw your attention to two textbooks written in the USA in the mid-70s when some smart people who enjoyed a bet on the trots realised that only someone who had performed a detailed analysis of every race had even the remotest chance of backing a winner. They can be sourced on and are titled…."BEATING THE HARNESS RACES" Aaron Bernstein 1976)…..and "WINNING AT THE HARNESS RACES" (Nick Cammarano 1976)…..There are others….they all tell the same sad story…..namely GET VERY SMART OR GET OUT!!

Regards,

Denis Smith -Ipswich