Jamie and Terry, I wish those were the triggers but they don't stand up. The only worthwhile numbers are those for breeding and they have been terrible (ie halved) since 2015. Even before that, there was a modest but important decline over the previous decade or two but nobody bother to look. Similarly, the fools appointed to investigate live baiting also did not look at the big picture (remember their "overbreeding" conclusions?). Aside from the total figures I suggest looking into today's breeding and sale figures and edit out those due to insiders v newcomers or outsiders. A lot of greyhound money goes around in the same circles, naturally enough. The positive aspect is that (for reasons I don't quite understand) wagering turnover is doing well, therefore funding prize money rises and some confidence amongst participants. Nevertheless, it did not help Meadows last night where eight of twelve races jumped with six or fewer starters. Victoria is routinely drawing races with six starters, meaning many end up with four or five after scratchings. At Wenty yesterday for a feature meeting, only three of ten races had reserves - all three due only to structural reasons - ie qualifiers from heats of the big races. Other NSW venues have an erratic number of races per meeting and/or short fields and/or horrible 300s. Clearly, there is no need to change the title of this thread. Much better to find out what is really causing it and then doing something about it (other than throwing in a few bucks). All that is the responsibility of the state administrators - no more, no less.
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