BUT

I think and in my opinion more thought should go into it.

this new incentive is like someone giving you a car but you cannot afford to put petrol in it.Only a few can.

Stud fee,VETS COST as all are inplant. whelping , needles more needles ,ear branding.
Either rear or sell. Breeders choice.

And if your bitch misses 10% loss on stud fee , if you want a straw return and the stud dog go up in price you have to pay the difference and approx $800 -$1200 vet cost lost.
Not including travelling forward and back to the vets for progesterone checks.
There are plenty of places and people to rear and whelp pups .
To whelp can have a cost of $4-5.000.plus needles.
Rearing at a quality place $80 up.
If a cesarian required approx. $2000.

So many people I talk to will not breed now because of this situation.
I think The breeding farm may be a money pit and could be short term.

A good business plan should look at the product [pups] and plan from this and maybe look at the end result after setting up the process to make it start.
No pups no race dogs limited number of dogs to benefit from the breeding bonus and less people breeding.

I mentioned to Allan Clayton that they should give a cash bonus of say $1500 [ $2000 would help more ]when a litter is born Answer no.

Does not help the person who's girl missed.

Generally it is to costly to breed in vic. for the average greyhound lover.

Yes everything is expensive and yes everything has increased.
But so has the price of pups.
If you have 4 pups and sell them all, you have covered all cost and made a few bucks. If you have 6 pups you can maybe keep 1 and the others will pay for rearing/breakers. And if you have 8 pups, happy days....
On the other hand, if you have 2 pups and a ceaser on Sunday night....or if you have a miss......you lose.
But statistics will tell you that misses are rare and the average litter size is 6.5
So if you continue to breed, you will be in front either way. Unless you are keeping pups and having them reared at Cheap As Chips rearing facility and trained by Mr&Mrs Costcutta.

Not everyone is looking for Fernando or Barcia pups so there is a market for the $2k-$3k pup. So an average litter will return $12k-$18k. You cannot tell me it costs more than that to get a litter to 12 weeks.
Needles and more needles? Well our last litter of 6 cost us $300 at 6 weeks, then $440 at 12 weeks. GRV provide the microchips and GRV pay for the earbranding. $740 for needles and more needles is not much.
I don't know why anyone would pay someone else to whelp their pups. That's crazy! But not as crazy as GRV giving breeders cash! Why would they even consider that?

We have one bitch now who is 4 weeks pregnant to Hooked On Scotch and her sister who just came on season today, going to Dyna Double One.
I'm so excited, I cannot wait to have more puppies at home after just selling our last lot.
And I promise you, me and Mrs.Q are not financially well-off. Not by any stretch.
But we have an unquenchable passion.
We don't do restaurants, we don't do movies, we don't drink or go on holidays. We breed greyhounds and we love it.

Yes it is costly. But no, not too costly.
I would encourage anyone who wants to do it, to go ahead.

However, it barely scratches the surface when you try to understand why breeding has almost halved over the last five years. WE can list a couple of obvious situations but that does not explain such a massive and continuing drop with such a huge impact on the industry.

More critically, I can't see any meaningful effort from state authorities to investigate why this has happened and then to act to reverse the situation.

Just playing catch-up with breeding bonuses amongst the states won't do it.

Diverting cash to Vic-bred or similar won't do it. (It's been tried and failed).

Similarly, just chucking some bonuses at distance races has never worked either.

Why not do some proper research and establish the underlying facts?

Ten hard facts are worth a thousand opinions.

Bruce, you are our man, go for it. Start your proper research today.

Maybe you could look at what the perception of an independent observer is, when looking at small fields, and the odd meeting cancelled thru lack of noms.

Hardly a thriving industry, with a bright future.

As you say, breeding has almost halved in the last five years.
So has the industry consolidated at all ? Less racetracks, less meetings, reduced administrative staff ?

Having meetings with depleted fields, may be good for attracting international money into the betting pools, but it is not a good look to our outside observer.

Bruce, I will leave you to find the remaining nine hard facts.

GRSA, has become more egalitarian when it comes to spreading the revenue around, the breeding subsidies, breeders bonuses and now guaranteeing 50% of revenue goes back to participants. In Victoria there are no breeding subsidies, Vic bred bonuses are paid only on few select races, unlike the S.A. one here all S.A. bred winners receive a share of the bonus pool each month and S.A. bred maiden winners get a $1,000 bonus, shared between breeder and owner. Topping that off is the WAP payment each month where the prize monies for the previous month are topped up to meet the 50% of revenue guarantee. Victoria is on average only paying out approximately 42% of revenue. Seems like in this area S.A. are leading the field while GRV is asleep on the job, if not they are intentionally steeling from the Victorian participant to build there own empire.

The bonus from the pool of gambling revenue which is on top of the prize money is a very welcome boost at the end of the month

S.A. is doing the right thing by Participants and deserve a big pat on the back !
If you think GRV are asleep N.S.W. must be in a COMA !

I appreciate all the comments plus the positive info re GRSA.

However, these are all answers from insiders looking inside.

The harder question is what influences an ordinary guy to make an investment into a racing sport? Or an existing owner to invest more?

Of course the economics are important. But the sort of potential owner we are chasing is already classified as reasonably well off for discretionary money. Like a punter, he will know there are winners and losers - that there are now guarantees in life but there is excitement.

What we want to know is what will tip his interest in the greyhound direction? What factors are important? What does he know already? What circles does he move in? What is his family or work situation?

Finding out this info will then allow the code to direct its own efforts to areas where success is more likely.

Compare this with the current situation where somebody sits by the phone hoping it will ring. After five years or more it is plain that will not happen.

Sorry Bruce but most of this is nonsense.

You are making the same mistake that the whole world seems to be making. That is, trying to squeeze people into a category then market to that category.

Greyhound people are from all walks of life. The battler who has nothing in their life apart from their dogs, the friend of a friend of a trainer that buys into a syndicate, the man in advertising, the aussie netballer, the business owner, the fence builder, the postie and yes, even the Pastor.

What gets people into the sport?
The dogs running in a pack of 8 for half a minute at up to 70km/h.
Promote that and people will want in.

Sit in an office trying to debate what category greyhound owners fit into will only empty the till and stuff up the whole game.

Raymond a racehorse breeder I know who was my GP before he retired to breed horses once told me 'the only way to make a small fortune with racehorses is to start with a large one' lol.

g/l with your horse and mare. cheers.

Thats it in a nutshell! The marketing of this great sport/industry has been an embarrassment forever and a day and continues to be so!