Last month we advised you about the release of Victoria’s racing and wagering performance for the first half of the current racing season, being the period from August 2017 to January 2018.
The summary of our story was that the industry had continued to enjoy positive growth in engagement, participation and wagering, noting however that there are challenges emerging into the future.
We thought it was important to revisit these results and update those who may have missed our initial correspondence.
The Spring Racing Carnival is our flagship event and it was pleasing to report growth in excess of 5% in both attendance and turnover throughout our 2017 edition.
An 18.2% growth in television ratings on Channel 7/7Two for spring’s 13 feature racedays and significant increases in engagement with Racing.com certainly complemented this.
Total attendance has grown to 931,257 in the first half of the season, which is a terrific result given the major infrastructure works that continue at Flemington.
With increasing challenges and consolidation in the wagering landscape, the turnover growth rate slowed throughout summer to sit 3.3% up at the end of January with a record $3.75 billion wagered to date.
The number of individual horses competing in the first half rose by 1.4% with connections sharing in some of the $16.3 million in prizemoney increases delivered for the season.
Victoria maintained field sizes well above the national average in the first half and importantly, from a wagering viewpoint, we were able to reduce the number of races with less than eight starters.
Our vision is ‘Racing for All’ and thus it’s pleasing to report of the continued growth in female participation with a dramatic 20% increase year-on-year in the number of rides secured by our female jockeys.
From the commencement of the season 1% of prizemoney has been allocated to assist funding each of equine and jockey welfare.
We have received requests since on what initiatives we are undertaking in these vitally important areas and thus we’ve taken the opportunity in this half-yearly report to provide some context on our current investments.
We are forecasting to spend $5.25 million across equine and jockey welfare in 2017-18, whilst enhancing our commitment to other participants with initiatives like STABLELINE – the nation’s first free 24/7 support service for stable employees, trainers and their immediate families.
In the interests of transparency, we’ve also taken the opportunity to provide you with some of the key performance indicators that we are targeting by June 2020 to foster continued growth and success within the industry.
As flagged, whilst the numbers for the first half of the 2017-18 season are very positive, there are some challenges that we face in the second half and beyond.
Most significantly, the wagering landscape is continuing to rapidly evolve through consolidation and regulatory change and the inevitable introduction of a Point of Consumption Tax is one that provides considerable risk to the future funding of the industry unless implemented appropriately by the State Government so that Victorian racing is no worse off.
Thank you to all our customers for their continued support of Victorian racing, our participants for their dedication and commitment, and our Clubs for their tireless efforts in showcasing our sport.
To view Victoria’s racing and wagering performance overview for the first half of 2017-18 season click here.