Hamilton: Breeders Crown needs a revamp

The Breeders Crown needs an overhaul.

As a purist, the stars in action and the harness racing was great at Melton last Saturday night, but there is no disputing the once great event is nowhere near what it used to be.

No one single factor has driven the decline, but the Breeders Crown is a long way from those exciting and heady days when it started and grew so quickly as a major regional event.

In some ways, it was a bit like harness racing’s version of the iconic Warrnambool May Carnival. It was rivalling the then great Inter Dominion as sport’s biggest event.

It had a real point of difference in those formative years when held at Bendigo from 1998 to 2004. Cranbourne had a crack in 2005, then Ballarat in 2006 and ’07 before returning to its spiritual home at Bendigo in 2008.

Then, for reasons still largely unknown, it was moved to Melton.

The Breeders Crown lost its soul. It became just another big race (and in its case series) run amongst many others at Melton.

No doubt there were business reasons behind it, but whatever they were have backfired.

The point of difference that made the Breeders Crown unique, and something of a destination event, was gone.

Then, 2019 saw another fork in the road.

Running Crown qualifying heats in all Australian states and both islands of New Zealand were scrapped.

It wasn’t a huge shock because the system wasn’t a good look for the industry with small fields, sometimes just two or three runners, and we even had a few walkovers with just one runner accepting for a heat.

But abolishing those heats had a marked impact on the broad reach and interest in the Breeders Crown.

And the number of horses being paid-up for it.

Simply, it became so much harder and more expensive for owners and trainers of horses domiciled outside of the host state (Victoria) to have a crack at the Breeders Crown.

With all heats, semis and finals held in Victoria, the costs and time away from home was daunting.

“Every trainer will tell you it’s hard enough to get away for a few days, let alone three or four weeks, which you need to do to take a horse through a Breeders Crown series now,” one Kiwi trainer said during my recent NZ Cup trip. “Let alone the cost of that to the owners.”

Where the Crown sits on the calendar and the tinkering with the NZ feature race schedule has also had a significant impact.

They say never to criticise something without offering a solution.

Well, here are some possible solutions to ponder for the Breeders Crown.

Make it a “Grand Finals” series for eligible, paid-up horses. They collect points along the way through a variety of races and qualifying clauses across Australia and NZ and the top point scorers go straight into the finals.

Or, more radically, merge the Vicbred with the Breeders Crown series and have a series of prizemoney bonuses and incentives to support Vicbred horses in the series. Things like an extra percentage of prize money on top, a purse for the first Vicbred horse across the line in each final, etc.

Before you dismiss this, it’s hard to argue the Breeders Crown hasn’t just become a slightly glorified version of the Vicbred series.

And with the number of horses being paid-up dwindling, the Crown is – or many would say already has – becoming non-viable.

The “brand” of the Breeders Crown still has value so let’s be daring and try something different to save what was once one of the sport’s biggest and most exciting events.

by Adam Hamilton, for Harness Racing Victoria