HRV's Less meets but longer programs strategy

[Njcstables]

Doubt you will see 10 races at a Warragul meeting. The club has lost one meeting and the hope is those eight races will be "picked up" across the remaining eight.

But as it was pointed out to me recently...with only seven of the nine programmed races standing up at the July meet, should that trend continue that will be 16 less races on the track for the financial year, or a loss of two equivalent race meets.

The reduction of meets at a track means less use of a venue (some of these recently upgraded at great expense) plus smaller returns on a lower scale to casual staff, local businesses, course photographer, caterer etc IF the extra races don't get up!

Your right Kyle so the onus now is on Hrv and its programming team to program meetings so that clubs in the same zone aren't racing close together eg. Warragul/Cranbourne. Also programs need to be matched to suit the class of horses in the zone and more importantly to the available horse population at the time. Therefore allowing for maximum field sizes of evenly matched horses with as many races on the program as possible. It shouldn't be that hard!

[Amlin]

Your right Kyle so the onus now is on Hrv and its programming team to program meetings so that clubs in the same zone aren't racing close together eg. Warragul/Cranbourne. Also programs need to be matched to suit the class of horses in the zone and more importantly to the available horse population at the time. Therefore allowing for maximum field sizes of evenly matched horses with as many races on the program as possible. It shouldn't be that hard!

It seems to be a huge challenge as Warragul has been experiencing this drop off in field sizes since around 2004 when they had 13 meets a year.

Further observations:

The regions horse population is highest during the period Warragul races

There is apparently a 3 week gap in the calendar with no meet between Wgl/Crb/Yarra

It seems about one third local to two thirds visitors at Wgl/Crb meets so if the visitors don't come your numbers will be down

The C4-6 race has been programmed 6 times this year at Wgl and has been deleted three times, the three times it has stood up it has had less than eight starters. It is programmed again in August!