On owners, diversity and the future

/ Mezzasez / 1 Comment

Last season I took the plunge and joined the NZ Thoroughbred Owners’ Federation.  The organisation, with which I had quite a few dealings during my time at the NZ Trainers’ Association, just requests a mere $55 annual sub.

For this one gets membership and the promise that they will, on my behalf, work “to improve the economics, integrity and pleasure of the sport of thoroughbred racing.”

If I’m honest, I only joined to see who was running the group and how well they had embraced technology to grow their membership and fulfil at least the latter promise.  I wasn’t really surprised to see that the president was the same one I used to attend meetings alongside back in the early 2000s.  It’s not easy getting people to volunteer for such thankless tasks.

Not wanting to put the boot in – it would be akin to kicking puppies – the Federation seems mired in a time before technology even though it does have a website.  Their communication with members could be so much better, as could their acknowledgement of winning owners who are members of syndicates.  Achieving the latter might even assist when it came to attracting members.

I paid my membership – online, so that must be a positive – and then, sometime later in the mail came a card which declared me a member and was my Owners’ ID card.  Nothing else with the card, no welcome letter or list of membership benefits, just the card.  It did seem to be a waste of an opportunity to maybe recruit new committee members or extend an invitation to up-coming events or, anything really.

No doubt there will be more mail awaiting me at my home address when I return, advising me my membership for the current season is due.

The other item which arrives in the mail – although also available to view online – is the Owners’ Bulletin.  My background in magazines means I have an addiction to all things glossy and printed.  While there is a convenience to being able to read stories online I still prefer the tactile approach while sipping my beverage of choice.

The Bulletin has the potential to provide owners, old and new, with relevant news, information, background, insights as well as the opportunity to bask in the reflected glory of one’s equine stars.  However, this also suffers from the fact that too much is being required from the few put-upon souls volunteering their time to run the Federation and get the Bulletin out on time.

There is only one word for it – tired.  Probably much like the volunteers.

Surely the clearest sign that they struggle to find current and relevant content is the inclusion of an NZRB puff-piece – it would appear the Federation is drinking the NZRB kool-aid!  Running press releases without questioning their veracity doesn’t put me in mind of an organisation which is fighting to improve the economics of our industry.

Owners are footing the bills which keep horses going around in this country and we deserve so much better than the NZRB has been delivering.

A little debate in the July edition which I found interesting was a discussion about diversity within racing.  It amuses me, coming from my current role at a University, when people within racing speak about diversity and assume we are talking only about men and women.  Anyway, I’ll play their game!

So, let’s examine the inclusion (I prefer this term when we are talking the male/female divide) of the fairer (in so many ways) sex within the NZ racing industry.

As everyone knows we are marking 40 years of women competing on an equal playing field with men as jockeys.  And, unlike so many other sporting areas, there has been no gender pay gap, from day one they have earned the same money for the same work.

Female jockeys are an accepted part of racing life here to the extent they nearly outnumber the blokes.  In this area we are leaving Australia behind.

Likewise, we also recognised female trainers many, many, many decades before the Australians.  As far as they are concerned Shelia Laxon was the first female to train a Melbourne Cup winner.  In fact, it wasn’t until that happened that the Aussies managed to ‘fess up that they had indeed done Granny McDonald wrong.  Back in 1938 when her horse Catalogue won the Cup rather than be able to stand up and claim the win as hers, Granny had to sit back while husband Allan was lauded as the winning trainer.

We have females working in most every area of racing here, although I haven’t noticed anyone putting their hand up to attempt commentating.  Considering the feverish backlash in the world of cricket and rugby it may be some time before we find a female with a suitable alto voice and a skin thick enough to take the barbs!  A shout out to Victoria Shaw in Australia here, this is one area where they have beaten us.  Victoria making her calling debut in 1998.

The talk within the industry about diversity, seems to stem from general media talk about representation on boards and the age-old pay parity argument.  Numbers are growing, albeit slowly with the NZX reporting in January that 27% of directors on NZX/S&P50 boards were female, up from 22% the following year.

It’s progress but I think amid the clamour to get more women on Boards we should also be considering how many women WANT to be on boards and focusing on having, first and foremost, people with the best skillset, regardless of gender.

Having served on the committee/Boards of three very different racing clubs I can report from personal experience that things have changed since my first experience in 1996 when I was the only female.  A subsequent experience saw me serve as Vice-President to a female president on a committee which boasted five women.  I am certain that was because it was an extremely hands-on committee which held working-bees (read, cleaning frenzies) in the days prior to race days!

Again, it comes back to whether women want to be involved and what they bring to the table.

The Owner’s Bulletin piece seemed to feel the solution lay with the industry attracting more young people who embrace the idea of diversity, after all the future will be in their hands.

While it is a great concept it is also a cop-out.  Great ideas are not the preserve of the young and some people push boundaries until the time comes to push up daisies.

What the industry needs in spades is passion and a desire to see things change for the better.

We need to be part of the solution!

 

 

 

 

Operating costs a mystery to NZRB

/ Mezzasez / 2 Comments

A new season and hope abounds.  So what do we know so far?  The Messara report has landed on Winston Peters’s desk and no doubt will be given due attention once he has dealt with small matters such as the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Singapore this week.

We do need to occasionally be reminded that while racing is front and centre of our minds at all times Winston has had other pressing issues to deal with as he was at the helm as acting PM for the past six weeks or so.

Patience dear readers, we will know what the report contains soon enough but what we need to hope is that this one, unlike the myriad prior, is acted upon quickly and completely.

As a media hound who believes the worst of everyone I couldn’t help but be moderately amused that the NZRB, with its usual tone-deaf timing, released its Statement of Intent 2019-2021 this week.

If you were someone relatively new to the industry or even somewhat less jaded than I am then you might find yourself buoyed by the messages contained within.

My BS radar is so finely tuned these days that I can barely read a sentence without querying the thinking behind it.  I suppose it is nice to know that some of those employed at great expense to the rest of us were toiling away to create this work of art and fiction designed with that grand old police motto in mind – “move along people, nothing to see here.”

As regular readers will be aware I have a real problem with two areas of NZRB expenditure which are of course interlinked – operating costs and salaries, not to mention the numbers employed,  Rather than conduct a deep dive into such a shallow pool of information and risk major injury I have instead focused on those areas when perusing this document.  The findings should have anyone with a financial involvement in the industry questioning how we can let these people continue to operate.

Apparently NZRB “remains committed to undertaking a broader review of our operating costs.”  Good on them, at least they are getting the message I thought.  Only to have to apologise to my office mates for an expletive-laden outburst when I read the following statement:

“This was paused following the commencement of the Messara review and other strategic options analysis but will be reconsidered in the 2018/19 season.”

It took me a while to get my head around this one.  So, the industry is undergoing a review which will examine, among other aspects, how to return more money to participants and the outfit in charge of the dollars WAS “undertaking a broader review” of its operating costs but paused it as soon as the Messara report was announced.

Rather than actually continue to look at how they could apply a little slash-and-burn to operating costs which, until last season exceeded the payout to industry, they decided to sit on their hands and wait and see.

I trust they have done something really useful in that time.  I would suggest dusting off their CVs and working on creating some handy LinkedIn contacts might have been a good place to start.

After reading that statement it was difficult to see this as something other than another NZRB puff-piece.

Prior to it landing this week I was intending to revisit a time when NZRB CEO was newly appointed to his position.

In 2015 with the bright enthusiasm of a newbie, John Allen told NBR that the Racing Board needed to lift distribution to the industry by $40-50million “over the next few years.”

“Unless we can do that and get the facilities right, get the returns to owners right, so we can begin to get the investment into the breeding stock again that we need to support the industry over time, the whole industry grinds to a halt,” he said at the time.

“Basically, every dollar we spend is a dollar that doesn’t get distributed to the codes,” he added.

“It’s really important that the codes trust us to be efficient and effective with that money.”

Reading that is was apparent that Allen had been well schooled on what the industry needed. So, a few years down the line and what have we seen?

Back when Allen originally commented the NZRB 2015 Annual report showed operating costs at $139m, with staff costs $62.4m while the distribution to the industry was $134.2m.

The following season operating costs had dipped ever so slightly to $138.7m, staff costs peaked at $66.8m and distribution was $135.3m.

The 2017 annual report listed operating costs as $136.2m (a drop of $2.5m – remember those figures), staff costs at $63.6m and the return to the industry finally bettered operating costs at $137.6m.

Just a couple of notes around the staff expenses for the past two years – in 2016 that number was made up of $60.2m in salaries, $1.8m in termination costs and $4.7m in (covers a multitude of sins) “other staff expenses”.  In 2017 those figures for the same items were $59.2m; $18,000; and $4.4m.  However, included in this was $1.3m of expenses relating to strategic initiatives ie FOB, Racefields Legislation, Customer and channels programme, and Optimising the calendar.

So what of the future according to the overview of the 2019-2021 document?

The prediction is distribution for 2018-19 “budgeted at $151.6m” explained thus: “a $0.8 million increase on last year (2017-18) to offset increased venue services charges to the codes from the vision capture upgrade. This includes the $12 million of additional funding targeted at increasing stakes across the 2017/18 and 2018/19 seasons that has been approved by the Board. A further amount of $2.6 million is being distributed to fund the continuation of the activities and expenses of the Event Marketing and Logistics (EML) business, which was transferred to the equine codes on 1 August 2017.”

So that increase included the $12m that we have borrowed to ensure our stakes aren’t a total embarrassment, yet the work on reducing operating costs was paused.  How are we meant to take these people seriously?

We are now living outside our means with a three year revolving debt facility having been established during the current season.  According to the SOI document this was to allow for “critical investments in growth initiatives.”

No need to panic though as they assure us “as the benefits of the strategic projects are realised, NZRB will take a prudent view to repaying debt while continuing to invest and increase distributions to the industry.”

I don’t recall anything in the NBR  article where Allen mentioned they may have to borrow to get close to the $40-50m he recognised was needed when he took the reins.

And what of the costs, of which, need I remind you, Mr Allen said every dollar they spent was one we didn’t get?

Well apparently in the 2017-18 year they are expecting “underlying operating costs to increase by $2.5m to $136.2m.”  Yes, that is correct – Increase, and what’s more this is in line with their budget.  So much for looking to rein in their operating costs.

The more observant of you might notice that $136.2m is actually the figure given as operating costs in the 2017 Annual report, which had me scrambling to back and double and triple-checking the figures.  I went so far as to seek the independent advice of an accountant (a real one, unlike those obviously used by the NZRB) and he confirmed my suspicions when he walked me through the figures.

If you check out the figures used on page 5 of the SOI under the heading Managing Costs you will find the following: “Excluding investment behind our key strategic initiatives, underlying operating expenses in the 2016/17 year decreased by $5.0 million (3.6%) to $133.7 million compared to the prior year ($138.7 million in 2015/16.”  So the mystery $5m decrease which leaves us with $133.7m is largely fictitious as the actual figure in the 2017 Statement of Profit or Loss is $136.2m.

Perhaps I should’ve been alerted to the fact this was not going to be a document which could be relied upon for its veracity when an email follow-up was sent out one day after the SOI was released into the wild.

It stated: “Unfortunately, there was an error in the summary document of the NZRB Statement of Intent sent to you yesterday. The document should have read ‘ Reported net profit before distributions of $173.5 million is budgeted for 2018/19, $201.2  million in 2019/20 and $219.6 million projected in 2020/21.”

If you fancy torturing yourself then go read the fantasy document yourself.  I’ve read so many of these promise-the-world documents over past decades that I believe none of it any more.  The creative accounting/obvious muck-up just confirms that my skepticism was well placed.

Like so many who have watched our industry driven into the ground by people with no skin in the game I am tired and jaded.

However, I am also damned if I am going to walk away before I see this current mob marched out of their cushy NZRB offices and replaced by people with the dedication to see this industry succeeds. Let’s make sure it happens.

No pressure Winston, but it’s up to you now.

Time to learn from the past and forget the piecemeal approach

/ Mezzasez

When I was a kid, a journey with my grandfather was a travelogue of often defunct racecourses and anecdotes of what had gone on there years earlier.

My favourite tale involved the old Carterton track where he claimed he broke his little toe.

Between the time he quit race riding and established himself as a trainer many of the tracks he used to frequent had gone the way of the Dodo so there were plenty of stories.

So, what has that got to do with anything you ask?  Well, last week the NZ Herald, finally realising the Messara report was an eventuality whether their NZRB-employed “reporter” liked it or not, ran what I refer to as a “non-story”.

With the report yet to be released and so consequently light on any facts the writer went for the divide and rule approach by focusing on the fact Messara had been asked to focus on the thoroughbred code.

The reasoning was twofold he decided – our code had “fallen the furthest behind its Australian equivalent in terms of stake money and infrastructure, particularly New South Wales racing” and this doozy – “it was serious players in the thoroughbred industry, like Sir Patrick Hogan, who were among the most vocal Peters supporters before last year’s election.”  Right….so now we have established the level of media we are dealing with, lets move on to another aspect of the piece which left readers in no doubt as to the writer’s absolute terror that the gravy train may be about to derail.

Lacking an actual story, he decided to attempt to provoke the provinces with the following statement: “Reducing the number of racing venues in New Zealand also looks certain to be recommended but again that will be met with considerable resistance in some regions.”

No prizes for either assumption.  There is no doubt that, for our population, we do have a surfeit of tracks, likewise, if you are going to suggest to a club that they might want to curtail their activities and relocate then you had better be armed with a good argument.

Not every club is double-blessed in the way the Feilding Jockey Club, New Zealand’s best example of a club moving down the road, was – with the advantage of owning land someone else was prepared to pay money for AND being driven by a forward-thinking president and committee who put industry interests first. If you need further convincing just compare their Cup stake these days to the figure they ran for at their old home track.

Considerable resistance is an understatement based on my personal experience too.  I am old enough to remember going racing at the Opaki track just outside of Masterton – in May, it wasn’t pleasant.  At the time, working at BloodHorse magazine I was already aware of the glut of tracks in the country and the fact that some of them were looking pretty shabby and struggling to survive.

In my youth and naivety I suggested to a few of the locals – all heavily involved in the industry – that it wouldn’t be long before we saw racing in the Wairarapa solely at Tauherenikau.  Needless to say the reaction was instant and negative.

The same suggestion, it turned out, was made in the 1946 Finlay Royal Commission, although no one reminded me of that at the time!  Eventually it did happen, albeit about 40 years after Finlay and co’s recommendation.

The Herald picked the right irritant if it wanted to stir up anti feeling prior to the release of the Messara report.  The arguments around which clubs should survive, which should amalgamate or pool their resources and which should just pack up their tents have been hotly contested since Finlay’s Commission mooted the same.  

Anyone remember the Otautau Jockey Club or the Waiapu Racing club or the Tolaga Bay Racing club?  Those three were among six clubs the Commission recommended have their licences withdrawn and relocated to other clubs.  By the time the 1970 McCarthy Commission was back revisiting some of the same ground those three had gone, while many of the others which it was suggested might rethink their futures were still raging into the night (I’m looking at you Masterton)!

So here we are five Commissions of Inquiry down the track – yes, FIVE – 1911 Clifford; 1915 Hunter; 1920 Kent; 1946 Finlay and 1970 McCarthy – obviously we are very slow learners, something Waikato Stud’s Garry Chittick reminds us of regularly.

On top of these Commissions we’ve also had a Ministerial Review, which I vaguely remember in the early 1990s; the PwC industry report of 2002; the Ernst & Young Performance and Efficiency Audit of the NZRIB of 1997 (what I wouldn’t give to see something like that delving into Jackson St these days!); the Racing Industry Working Group report in 2003 and that is probably only scratching the surface.

And where do we find ourselves people?

Being controlled by an obese organisation which is haemorrhaging money via the open oozing wound which is its operating costs.  It suckles 870+ employees, with the knowledgeable and necessary being squeezed out at the expense (and I mean expense) of the six-figure earners who are disconnected and disinterested.

We are racing for stakes which wouldn’t – at the lower level – be out of place in a racebook from thirty years ago, while costs have continued to escalate.  The following from the 1970 McCarthy Commission report would not be too far removed from how NZ trainers are operating today – “training fees charged by the licenced trainers barely covered the costs of feed and labour…trainers relied chiefly on their customary 10 percent share of stakes for their personal income.”  You want to know why so many of our promising young horses are sold off-shore, there’s your answer.

Our infrastructure is struggling to remain fit for purpose thanks to decades of neglect – if it wasn’t for the weight of Health and Safety demands number eight wire would be all that was holding us together in some places.

Make no mistake, this Messara report will paint a clear picture of what needs to be done and don’t be surprised if it sounds vaguely familiar.  After all, we’ve had a swag of Commissions and reports which have recommended the way forward. In each and every case these have been adopted in a piecemeal fashion, with the hard decisions avoided to our detriment.

The 1970 McCarthy report, in its conclusion, was wary of this after stating its recommendations were designed with the object of presenting one comprehensive plan of reform.

It stated: “Piecemeal adoption would lose much of the advantage of a plan aimed at ensuring a viable future for the industry as a whole.  Hopes of this are less likely to be fulfilled if the recommendations are not seen as inter-related.”

The final statements of that Royal Commission are worth repeating in full:

“We cannot leave our task without stressing once more two points which we have made often during this report.  The first, that though racing and trotting are merely different parts of an industry which includes other groups as well and which must therefore have machinery to co-ordinate and direct it, yet we firmly believe that the two codes should be left to decide their own internal structures and run their own affairs as they themselves would wish, without direction from others, save when the economic welfare of the whole industry is involved.  Because of this belief we have refrained from some positive recommendations which we might otherwise have made about matters which we think would be better changed. The second point is, that though we are convinced that the industry will experience increasing difficulties and challenges in the years ahead, its situation is far from desperate; it has much vitality and many forces for good. It must, however, prepare for the future by mobilising and employing them with the greatest efficiency.  Only if it does that, will it live vigorously and prosper.”

We had the chance in 1970 but lacked the cojones to make the changes needed.  Let’s not make the same mistake this time.

 

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Today, 15 July 2018, marks 40 years since the first New Zealand women rode against men at a totalisator meeting.

Last week, through a happy quirk which sees me now working in the same faculty, I asked former National MP Professor Marilyn Waring about her recollections of how things played out back then.

“I remember lots of it,” she said, adding that Linda Jones, who was the face and driver of the movement to get women licensed, had come to her as a constituent of her Waipa electorate.

“Linda had applied two or three times for a licence to the Racing Conference, she’d ridden miles of trackwork and she wasn’t the only one,” Professor Waring said.

“She showed me the correspondence they’d had and the main reason the Conference gave every time was that there was no separate toilet and changing facilities and racing clubs couldn’t afford to put them in.”

Here, she paused to allow those words sink in, before saying wryly, “As we said, how much did it cost for a curtain, if they were really that fussed.”

What played into the hands of Linda Jones and the other women wanting to ride was an election promise from National in the 1975 election.

“The National party had a commitment to establish a human rights commission,” Waring explained.

“And when that draft bill was ready, I sent a copy with a very polite letter – and it was – to the NZ Racing Conference which had always been split on the matter.  There were a couple of good guys in there but they kept being out-voted.”

“I drew the attention of the organisation to the equality in employment, or discrimination in employment clauses in the bill and suggested, that given their treatment of women who were applying to have licences, they should have a copy of the bill because they would probably need to make a submission if they wanted to continue with their particular position,” she said.

“Linda tells me that, at the meeting of the board, the letter was received and almost immediately someone said, ‘well we’re not going to have any choice are we, so we might as well move to do it now’ – and that’s what happened.”

At the time, as a local MP, she said attending race-meetings was something she did regularly because it was where people were.  She also remembered a number of studmasters and trainers being within her electorate.

These days she is a little more removed.

“It’s not like I pay a great deal of attention, but I get a thrill whenever they’re top of the table,” she said.

When the history of women earning the right to compete against men is recalled the part Waring and Linda Jones played is, rightly, to the forefront.  Likewise the fact that licensed Canadian Joan Phipps put a burr under the saddle of the NZ Racing Conference when was brought over to compete in 1977 – they couldn’t deny her a licence and she struck a blow for the movement by riding a winner while she was here.  

Then 15 July 1978 rolled around and the first of the Kiwi girls hit the track.  

First up on that auspicious day was Joanne Hale riding in a hurdle race at Waimate.  In what is now an awesome piece of synergy the race was won by King Bard ridden by Jim Collett, father of this season’s premiership winning jockey Samantha.

Jockeys are renowned for having elephant-like memories when it comes to their winning rides and, Jim Collett had no trouble recalling that day at Waimate 40 years ago.

Those watching our often depleted jumping ranks would probably find it amazing to know that 14 hurdlers went to the start that day.

Collett said there was little or no stick given to Hale, “jumps riders are a bit different, they’re a bit quieter and they tend to look after each other,” he said.

Another interesting fact he dredged up from the day was that there was a false start in the race.

“We had to go back and jump the first fence again, because a gate didn’t open,” he said.

Collett could give chapter and verse about the brilliance of his ride to win the race, but today is all about the women!  My memories are centred around Jo Hale and the fact that about six months after that momentous day I was lucky enough to get to know her.

At the time I was (allegedly) attending Canterbury University but, in reality I was hanging out with my best mate from secondary school who was working at Barrie Taggart’s stables and flatting with Jo Hale.

She had an impact on both of our lives at the time.  My friend remembers just how much: “She picked me up on Riccarton racecourse when I was just a kid potentially headed down a bad path and taught me the value of hard work; the need to be smart; that class didn’t really account for much; how to look people in the eye and the power that comes from that and that you should always be picked on talent, not gender or whatever else.”

Those were pretty big life lessons for a teenager, and as my friend added, there were a whole lot after us that she inspired too, including her own daughters.

My strongest memory is that she pushed me so far out of my comfort zone I found myself doing something that, at that age, I never would have anticipated.  She made me get over my timidity and actually believe I could stand up in front of a crowd and speak….it wasn’t pretty and no one but Jo could have given me the self-belief to do it.

Jo didn’t talk much about that first ride – it was more about living in the moment – but I do remember one conversation we had about wanting to be the first to do something.  She said that was part of what drove her and found a newspaper clipping which quoted her to that effect. 

My time in Christchurch was short-lived and later contact with Jo was through the ubiquitous Facebook.

In the intervening years and now known as Jo Giles, she had remarried; had a family; represented New Zealand at pistol shooting; competed in motor-sport; entered rock ‘n roll contests; run for parliament; started her own local body political party; run for mayor of Christchurch; and presented a TV programme on Christchurch TV.

In February 2011 she was one of the victims of the Christchurch earthquake in the CTV building.

Her contribution to racing is commemorated with a plaque at Riccarton racecourse. Those who she inspired remember her regularly as the larger-than-life character she was – we thought she was indestructible.

Photo: The writer “horsing around” with Jo Hale in Christchurch in 1979.

 

 

 

 

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Remembering a milestone racing anniversary

/ Mezzasez