Sorry Chris I agree with you on many things, but I don't agree that starving 90% of participants of prizemoney and creating an elitist structure of prizemoney is actually going to grow the sport Don't look at Victoria as an example. It's a false gold in many ways. You need an exceptional pup to go down there and be competitive. Think what will happen when everyone sends their good dogs down there? The races just get harder to win. At the moment down there you need almost need a Group dog to compete in their 5th grade races at tracks like Shepparton etc Demon Bale won a 5th grade there last night. The rest of them were no where near his grade. What happens to all the other dogs and their prizemoney earning capacity. The class of SA, TAS and WA racing has improved over the last few years because dogs that were otherwise competitive are being pushed out of Victoria. The reason that few of them come back to NSW is because we have the worst grading system in the country. There is this underlying old school theme that believes in burning 10 dogs to get one 1 decent one. Well that thinking has to change. The game has changed, and all the dogs and the participants investing their time and money into the sport need to be looked after. Those other 9 dogs that were otherwise burned and treated as wastage, now need to find a place to have a meaningful racing career that at least gives their owners a chance to recoup their investment to reinvest and get their dream dog. They also need to be looked after in retirement. Not just the top 10%. I am a big believer that if you share the pot more equitably then the incentive for participants to stay in the game will improve. The sport could actually grow and younger people could be provided with a career path to train dogs professionally. That is the only way the sport can maintain any traction. If you keep burning 90% of participants with rubbish prizemoney you are actually accelerating the downward spiral of the sport. Elitism leads to wastage of animals on a much larger scale, which we hope we have learned is now not acceptable in this society. Elitism leads to unfair prizemoney allocations that disincentives people to stay in the sport. I am sure you would have loved being beaten half a length in that maiden final, breaking 30 seconds and collecting only $500 whilst the winner collects a cool $10k There is no equity in that. As much as you don't like it, bread and butter prizemoney earned regularly keeps the people in the industry in play. Waiting 10 years to get a Group dog and pouring funds into a bottomless pit to do so, doesn't. As they say in the classics, Money Talks, B/S walks.
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