Racing’s lucky escape

By Kath Gannaway
YARRA Valley Racing Centre (YVRC) has come out of the racing industry’s five-year blueprint unscathed. They will keep their status as a training facility.
Healesville Amateur Racing Club (HARC) has also survived the threatened cuts, retaining six of their seven meets. Under the original proposal by Racing Victoria Ltd and Country Racing Victoria they could have been left with just four.
YVRC CEO Brett Shambrook welcomed the decision which had given the organisation and the trainers peace of mind.
He said however the ‘win’ didn’t come easily.
“We put in a fair bit of work, in conjunction with the Shire of Yarra Ranges and with our trainers, to make our case,” he said.
The shire’s economic impact statement indicated a $9m detrimental effect on the local and regional community.
Mr Shambrook said construction would commence soon on a new $350,000 sand track.
“That project will ensure the YVRC has a suitable training facility well into the future as far as capital expenditure goes,” he said.
Mr Shambrook said the organisation was in the process of finalising their master plan which included the development of a hotel on course and a number of other projects which he said would increase the use of the facility on a greater scale.
HARC president John O’Neill acknowledges the decision could have been much worse for the volunteer-run club but says even so, it has effectively put them back to where they were five years ago.
“We would rather have kept the seven, so you can’t really say you’re fully satisfied with the result. Losing a meeting affects your income stream.”
The change will come into effect in the 2010/11 season and the club doesn’t expect to find out which meeting they will lose for nine to 10 months.
If they have a say, it will most likely be the Easter Saturday meeting, according to Mr O’Neill.
“It’s the most difficult to get sponsorship for, a lot of people go away and there is the added risk of bad weather at Easter,” he said.
Racing Minister Rob Hulls hailed the five-year blueprint as “a plan by the industry for the industry”.
“It marks the first time that country clubs have had a five-year blueprint outlining race dates, training track structure and maintenance funding, and country club meeting funding,” he said.
The plan will be backed by an $86 million infrastructure package funded by the State Government and the racing industry aimed at improving rural and regional racecourses.