Owners being shortchanged by clubs

Recently the Auckland Trotting Club announced a new incentive plan to boost appearance money for all horses that race at Alexandra Park at non- premier meetings.

The club put out the following press release when announcing the move.

As part of a broad three-year plan, the club is planning to enormously boost appearance money for all Alexandra Park non-premier meetings to $500 per horse per race, with the scheme to possibly even begin this year.

Horse numbers have been a constant struggle at Alexandra Park, with the smaller northern horse population often split between Auckland meetings and those at Cambridge or even the central district and grass track circuits.

But the new incentives, as part of a three-year plan the ATC has to make racing horses more economic for northern owners and trainers, will be impossible to ignore.

At present the ATC pay the owners of all unplaced starters a $150 fee but that will rise to $300 per start for the owners as well as $200 direct to the trainer for each runner.

That means an owner-trainer could bring a maiden trotter to Alexandra Park and be guaranteed at least $500 every non-premier meeting.

And even trainers who are struggling with average horses could pocket $200 per horse every week they line up at Alexandra Park, which even for small stables could easily top $2000 a month direct to them.

To say that this issue has generated a huge influx of correspondence via email and phone to Harnesslink would be the understatement of the year.

It has been the hottest issue we have handled for a long time and the contact has been from a long list of well known owners in the industry who are furious with the Auckland Trotting Club proposal as it stands.

At present, owners who race their horses at Alexandra Park on non premier nights receive $150 appearance money for every race they start in and are not placed.

The new proposal is to increase that from $150 to $500 per race they start in which is an increase of $350.

However of that extra $ 350, the owner will only receive $150 with the remaining $200 of new money going to the trainer.

We have to agree with the owners that have contacted Harnesslink that this proposal completely changes the trainer – owner contract which most currently operate under.

That contract is promoted by Harness Racing New Zealand as a document which sets out the rights and obligations of trainers and owners when horses are in training and what percentages of stakes and bonus earned by horses racing should be paid to trainers on top of their standard training fees.

The following excerpt from that Harness Racing New Zealand contract reads as follows.

4. Trainer’s entitlement to other monies

4.1 In addition to the training fee and any other monies payable to the Trainer pursuant to any of the preceding clauses, the Trainer shall be entitled to receive 10% of the actual stakes and bonuses earned by the horse(s), excluding any trophy values (“the stakes and bonuses percentage”). 

Pretty clear cut and unambiguous we would have thought.

The trainer is entitled to 10% of all stakemoney and bonuses earned by a horse that he trains.

Under the new Auckland Trotting Club proposal, a trainer will receive 40% of the appearance money that will be paid for a horse to race at Alexandra Park and you soon realize why owners are frothing at the mouth at this proposal.

Without any warning, the new proposal cuts across long term contracts between trainers and owners of long standing and has the potential to cause major disruption to that relationship in the Auckland area.

We here at Harnesslink must be missing something here.

The industry is desperately short of owners yet we are directing 40% of the new appearance money to trainers and therefore diluting owners income even further.

As many of the owners contacting us have pointed out, they will be moving their horses to trainers that stick to the terms of the contract that Harness Racing New Zealand promotes as best industry practice.

As soon as you start looking into the appearance money systems already in place, you find that the same thing is happening at Addington Raceway  and has been since the Met Multiplier started.

Surprisingly we have had little feedback from owners in the south while the scheme has been running

The owner receives $5,000 and the trainer $2,500 of the $7,500 paid out under the Met Multiplier scheme which equates to 66 2/3% to the owner and 33 1/3 to the trainer.

The industry is desperately short of new owners and is having enormous problems holding on to the ones we have yet we are directing a big percentage of the new money being spent to keep owners in the industry on trainers.

Any trainer we talk to in New Zealand barring a couple of obvious exceptions have room for more horses in their barn.

A shortage of trainers is not a major pressing issue like retaining owners or breeding numbers

So how do clubs like Auckland and Addington expect to retain and entice new owners into the industry when owners  see stakemoney earned by "Their" horse split 60/40 with the trainer is beyond me.

The trainer is an employee of the owner and in that employment  situation, how they become entitled to stakemoney over and above the industry standard is also beyond me.

It is a farcical situation but when one sees the number of trainers on the committees of the two clubs involved in these schemes, then maybe the answer lies there.

Whatever the rationale behind the generosity towards trainers by our two leading clubs, they need to realize that both schemes as they stand will cause long term damage to the industry as a whole.

Several of the owners who have contacted us are seeking legal advice on their rights in this matter which would be a PR disaster for our industry if it was to come to pass.

Harness Racing New Zealand for its part can't sit on the sidelines here either.

It has heavily promoted the use of its contract between trainers and owners which sets out the percentages that each party will receive from stakemoney and bonuses earned.

That 10% figure has been in place over a long period and has wide acceptance in the industry.

What a lot of New Zealand trainers wouldn't realize is New Zealand is the ONLY country that actually pays the trainer a percentage of stakes won and also on any sales from that stable.

Maybe New Zealand owners should be looking at falling into line with the rest of the world where no percentages are paid to the trainer on both stakes won or sales from their stable.

Those are the kind of questions New Zealand owners will be asking themselves when they see stakemoney won by "Their" horse split with their trainer.

The 10% New Zealand trainers currenty receive could quickly become a thing of the past if owners start looking at how the rest of the world deal with these issues.

We have a system in New Zealand at present that has wide acceptance amongst owners and trainers of 10% of all stakemoney won being paid to the trainer.

For the clubs to change that understanding between the two parties is a recipe for disaster.

Both schemes should be reviewed urgently before the proverbial hits the fan in an industry that doesn't need any more bad news.

JC