Racing infrastructure overhaul announced

In the same week that Racing Integrity Commission (QRIC) police raided homes, stables and charged a number of harness racing personalities over alleged widespread criminal activity, Racing Queensland announced a plan to overhaul harness and greyhound infrastructure in SEQ “in order to ensure racing is in the best possible position to grow and prosper”.

Seriously. All in the same week!

Note firstly, that this overhaul is all to do with greyhounds and harness clubs in SEQ.

We won’t dawdle on the QRIC raids. They came as no real surprise, not even to the few survivors in a game that was once patronised from Cairns to the Gold Coast, with a trotting track in every major town between. Today only two tracks remain in Queensland – Redcliffe and Albion Park, which apparently is of doubtful tenure. Enough said.

In his statement that was apparently designed to appease the stakeholders of a very nervous racing industry, Racing Queensland chairman Steve Wilson said clubs across the state will benefit from the infrastructure decisions the board has taken. 

“Regions want jobs and people attractors. We’ve got money to spend to cause these and the will to get on with it. You can’t attract tomorrow’s customers with yesterday’s facilities.”

CEO Eliott Forbes says the the projects will be funded by the Racing Infrastructure Fund (RIF) which has $63 million available now with a further $61 million of inflows expected from the UBET agreement up until 2023.

That’s the scary bit.

When is the election – and a much needed change of guard – you might well ask?

There was a rumour doing the rounds last week that Townsville might be back in the running for a trotting track. Everyone dismissed it as a pure and utter furphy.

God Forbid.

Cairns, Mackay and Rocky as well?

We can only hope there will be an election before government or RQ (or both) get their claws on the $124m.

Not to mention the money that was wasted on this “detailed economic analysis and vision for racing”, performed by – wait for it – Deloitte.

At what cost? Yes, you can only shake your head and wonder.

The review identified that the state of current SEQ infrastructure for both harness and greyhound is inadequate for the future needs of those codes and does not meet the expectations of participants or customers.

Did they look at dwindling TAB turnover and attendance figures at the trots?

Obviously not!

Surely if those at the top of RQ don’t know what’s going on (and obviously do not) within their industry, and require the services of Deloitte, well frankly they should not be in their highly paid jobs.

But the waste of industry funds is not over yet. There will be an Expression of Interest process (EOI)  “to identify options for up to two new venues each for greyhound and harness racing to the south and west of Brisbane that have been identified as key growth areas for both codes”.

Forbes said the EOI process is all about growth and creating a brighter future for racing.

“To provide the best animal and participant welfare and the best platform for the future of racing we need some new world-class facilities and we believe our EOI process will create the competitive tension to achieve this”.

Oh please, bring on the election.

Honestly, you couldn’t be blamed for thinking the release was an April fool’s joke.

But sadly it is serious, as unbelievable as that might be.

NOT a line from RQ about the plight of 120 horses that had to be moved by their trainers from Rockhampton racecourse in the aftermath of Cyclone Debbie. Not a murmur. Every horse had to be moved from Callaghan Park by noon last Monday and they headed north, west and south. The benevolence of Sunshine Coast based Stan Johnston has to be applauded. He will always be remembered for organising the massive hay drive at the height of the drought for farmers out west.

For Mackay and Rocky trainers last week he organised sand with some financial assistance from the Queensland Trainers Association.

It is still not known when horses can resume work at Rockhampton but there is still hope the track will be ready for racing in May. Meanwhile meetings already allocated to Rocky have been distributed to Yeppoon and Mackay for the remainder of April.

The downside of that is Mackay will race on April 20 – the day before Townsville, which is a clash that should and could be avoided. The clash is certain to affect the numbers of horses at both meetings.

How can that happen?

NO one in Townsville is blaming the Cyclone, but there has been urgent work undertaken on the new course proper after the meeting last week. Cluden officially raced on a good 4 that day, but according to the jocks it was more like a soft 7 with large divots clearly visible particularly in the straight.

Chief Steward Paul Gillard called an urgent meeting with the Turf Club next day and immediately set a work plan to rectify what has been generally recognised as the best track surface in Queensland.

Chairman Malcolm Petrofski assures there has been no permanent damage. He forwarded photographs south for persusal by experts and it is believed the damage was caused by excess thatch that has now been removed. Stewards gave the track the thumbs up after an inspection on Thursday and it’s all “go” for Friday week.

THERE is a vacant desk, we heard, at RQ headquarters and there is certainly no sympathy from a few around these ridges, especially Mackay and Townsville that were forced to negotiate with the now departed exec in recent months. We just wonder, however, whether the departed bean counter will be back to give his evidence when former Townsville secretary and  current TV presenter Michael Charge goes to appeal on that pathetic charge of failing to declare a minor interest in the horse Hotel Paradiso. Watch this space.

Let’s just say there is definitely more to come and a couple yet to be named for their involvement in the fiasco that will surely end where it should – in the shredder.

Reprinted with permission of The North Queensland Register