Can HRNZ put a ‘spring’ in breeders’ steps?

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Tomorrow will bring the change of seasons from Winter to Spring, and with it, the breeding season in the southern hemisphere will have officially begun.

It’s a time for new hope, with foals already dropping in the better climate of the North Island, and many more to come throughout the next four to five months.

How many more to drop in the future remains a massive question and much of that outcome will be derived by day’s end.

By all accounts, it’s just another quiet Wednesday in little old New Zealand.

However today, the 31^st of August represents so much more for the future of Harness Racing in New Zealand with senior management and its board of directors approving some much-needed investment into the breeding sector.

Shrinking foal populations are not unique to New Zealand and are being experienced globally in most racing jurisdictions around the world.

What would be unique is the fact it has taken the lowest foal crop produced in 50 years for the governing body to spring into action in an attempt to remedy the situation.

The current management team has been working hard to make significant changes to revitalise and grow the sport of Harness Racing in New Zealand.

The breeding decline was an issue they have inherited and with the CEO, Gary Woodham and General Manager of Racing, Catherine McDonald having or had interests in breeding horses personally, they understand it needs investment to be resolved.

They took over at a challenging time on the back end of a global pandemic and have done exceptionally well to build up some much-needed reserves.

Now is the time for the reserves to be put into action, with investments for the short and long term! The work being done to shake up the racing calendar means absolutely nothing if we don’t have a horse population to support the business model.

Better programming for horses and participants will play a leading role in any resurrection, but a model that places emphasis only on better utilisation is treating the symptom and not the cause. The horses from this year’s breeding, and those foaled in the coming months, will provide our racing crop through to 2030!

An announcement was made at the end of July guaranteeing an investment of $2.1 million over the next three financial years. Having spent considerable time investigating what can be achieved in my previous role as national breeding manager, the answer is very minimal.
There is no denying that we need to start somewhere, but breeders are in urgent need of hope and the challenge for the board and senior management is to try and grasp just how serious the current situation is.

They need to be bold and invest a dollar to make a dollar, which is a common theme in growing any business. If all we do is continue to cut our cloth, we may as well close the doors now.

Many breeders have simply voted with their feet, unable to persevere when the economic reality of breeding has completely outstripped the possibilities of a return.

Just 1367 foals were registered in 2022, a 59% decline in 20 years, and with only 20 additional mares being bred on the previous year’s figure, we can expect a similar result this year.

The shrinking foal crop and demand for the New Zealand-bred pacer and trotter is as strong as ever. The growing export market has put increasing pressure on our field sizes and ability to generate revenue.

The problem shouldn’t be solely that of Harness Racing New Zealand. Work must be done with other industry stakeholders, the government, TAB, and Racing NZ to investigate areas of possible investment and coordination.

Racing contributes as much to the local GDP as the fishing industry of this country. In a recently released 2022 Aquaculture plan, the Government has bankrolled more than 25 areas identified as needing funding for the fishing industry to achieve its target of generating $3 billion in revenue.

Where is that sort of support to an industry that employs over 14,000 tax-paying citizens with a further 58,000 being earmarked as industry participants?

The situation we find ourselves in hasn’t happened overnight. Questions must be asked of previous boards of directors who have buried their heads in the sand and pointed fingers at kindred bodies such as the NZ Standardbred Breeders.

In a $42 million annual business, give or take, the only investment made by the governing body to support the decline has been a $100,000 a year grant to the national breeding association.

That figure equates to 0.002% of the annual budget and its framework being designated to support breeders and breeding initiatives.

What business model survives when investing such an astonishingly low margin of its resources back into the product that generates the revenue? There isn’t one.

Previous boards with as many as seven to eight breeders have sat back from privileged positions, many being commercial breeders, blissfully unaware of the challenges many of the regular participants were facing over the last two decades. Those sentiments would be unfair if it weren’t for the fact that the decline has been presented annually in black and white print, but she’ll be right prevailing, I suppose!

Some of them won’t be around long enough to experience the fruits of their labour, but as a young person with a financial commitment to breeding and racing horses, I have to wonder whether my nine-month-old son will have a harness sport and industry to enjoy in the future.

Let’s hope by day’s end, the future might look a little brighter, and a strong signal of intent is delivered to put a ‘spring’ in breeders’ steps.

by Brad Reid, for Harnesslink