Last evening, Wednesday 1st April, on Sky Thoroughbred Central,
Greg Radley and Ray Thomas interviewed Racing NSW CEO Peter V’Landys who
“Guaranteed” racing would continue in NSW for all participants and of most importance from an racehorse owners perspective, should the government force racing into a temporary shutdown,
V’Landys stated that Racing NSW, would inject a cash splash and would “pay” (not the Racehorse Owners) - to keep horses in training, and this money will come from the
massive cash reserves Racing NSW has in its cash cow called the “Future Fund” established for times of crisis, such as we are currently seeing through the pandemic.
In essence, it removed any hesitation or reservations from Racehorse Owners that they would incur an actual or perceived financial loss by paying for training fees upon their racehorse, if their horse was not allowed to race. This ensures should any shutdown be enforced; horses will be ready to race immediately such a ban is lifted.
The interview was typically light on detail and long on rhetoric, going over nine minutes but below is an extract which has relevance to racehorse owners and industry participants.
PVL: We (Racing NSW) have always had a
“Future Fund” and we are (currently) running all our race meetings at a loss, but we want to keep participants going, so we want to use our funds for the industry as a whole, and moving forward, we can replenish the future fund once were back and full steam.
Prizemoney (distributed) is always less than revenues and we make a profit, which then goes into a “future fund” to ensure that we can survive crisis like this, and we have been fortunate that we do have this “future fund” and we do have cash in the bank, so we can continue to race and incur these losses and absorb them moving forward.
Ray Thomas: Is racing under the same stress as other sporting codes? Is racing better placed financially to absorb this pandemic?
PVL: We are because we are continuing to operate, and while we continue to operate that keeps all our workforce employed, it keeps everyone going, but we are preparing ourselves and have prepared ourselves, for the worst-case scenario where the industry could shut down.
We want the industry to continue working and we would employ a similar process as we did through Equine Influenza where we (Racing NSW) would pay for the horses to remain in work, so we’ve got sufficient cash at the moment to keep the industry going, or in the worst case scenario it shuts down, we’ve got the capacity to keep paying payments out to all our participants.
Greg Radley: So, you believe racing is capable of absorbing a shut down which hopefully won’t happen, but that’s obviously across all three; Country, Provincial and Metropolitan areas?
PVL: Yes – That’s what we have budgeted for in the event there was a complete shutdown, we would be making payments to keep the horses in work, as we did during the Equine Influenza, except this time, we would be funding it, not the government. The government has got sufficient problems on its hands with other industries and keeping them operational.
We are and can be self-sufficient and that’s exactly what we will be, but I am not thinking at all about a shutdown. I am focused about keeping the industry going for as long as we can and at the moment we have proven to government, and to the public, and to the community, that we can run these race meetings risk free, there is no risk to anyone. We are administering the highest bio-security measures I have ever seen, even more so than when we had Equine Influenza.
Our team here at Racing NSW has done an excellent job at implementing all these bio-security measures and while we have them in place, I believe we can continue to race even if there was a complete lockdown, we show no risk to the community and that’s important.
We are taking every action to keep them (participants) safe, it’s just as important to keep our participants safe, as it is anything else, and we are very confident they are extremely safe on a racecourse.
We temperature check everyone coming through. If there is anyone who shows the slightest elevation in temperature, they are sent home.
We have put in zones with jockeys, as we did through Equine Influenza with the horses, so we can minimise the risk to the jockeys, that’s just a couple of measures we have implemented. There’s a lot more, you would have seen the separation between the jockeys and the trainers, and there is more to come. We want to continue our bio-security measures and make it less of a risk.
Ray Thomas: On that theme, if we get to the point that the state government goes into lockdown, can you mount an argument that racing can be self-sufficient and continue to operate safely for all those people employed in the sport?
PVL: We have already prosecuted that argument with government and to date, the government is supporting us and I can see no reason it won’t. There is going to have to be some catastrophic situation for it to change and I cannot see it on the current trends that there is any catastrophic change, so I am pretty confident that we will see this through and we will continue to race and while the curve is going down in NSW and the infection rates are going down, it’s even less of a risk. So, if we can get through the next 2-3 weeks, I think we will see it through.