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C—Prize Money.
The Associated Board has ho control over the fixation of minimum prize money. Each body determines independently the value of its programme.
Although no less than one hundred and four unregistered meetings were held in the year ended 30th June, 1929, the amount of prize money distributed at them, namely £30,763, was insignificant, as compared with that given by the registered clubs, namely £119,430 for sixty-two meetings.
It has already been pointed out that many of these unregistered meetings were run at a loss, or yielded only an insignificant profit. Kedron alone has made substantial profits such as, under ordinary conditions, would justify an increase in its prize money. But even at Kedron, a substantial increase in prize money appears highly improbable while an annual sum of £7,000 is required to meet payments to the vendors.
On the present scale of distribution it is impossible for owners and trainers to subsist on prize money alone.
A prize of £20 divided between first, second, and third horses is usual. Even less sums, so divided, are frequent. After deduction of the cost of nomination and the jockey's fee, a winning owner, who is generally also the trainer, receives less than is sufficient to recoup his outlay in the preparation of his horse for racing, and nothing for himself. Owners are thus forced to rely for a living on successful betting, and many of them are driven to dishonest practices.
The conclusion drawn by the Commission from the evidence on the point is that the prize money offered at unregistered meetings would not be sufficient, even with an improved control, to ensure clean racing, and is certainly not sufficient, in the majority of cases, to justify its continuance as at presented conducted.
Fewer meetings, better conducted, should be better attended, and might enable an increase in prize money sufficient to ensure to owners, trainers, and jockeys alike the possibility of earning an honest livelihood.
D—Race Meetings.
Meetings at all unregistered courses are held on week days, generally Mondays and Thursdays. They consist, as a rule, of about six events, sometimes including a trot. These events are run on the divisional system already explained. In unregistered racing, however, five divisions are run, as against four divisions at Albion Park.
All races are run over short distances. These range, at Kedron, from 5 to 7 furlongs. At Coorparoo the distances are even shorter. On these courses the length of race is perhaps determined by the shortness of the track. At Goodna, Strathpine, and Ipswich, although the course affords scope for longer races, all races are also in the nature of short "sprints."
While the meetings thus cater in the main for an inferior class of horse, the divisional system secures that even the worst of such horses are continued at work after their best days are past.
In handicapping, a scale of weights considerably higher than that prevailing in registered racing is adopted. This is done with the object of permitting the employment of jockeys too heavy to ride at the usual scale of weights.
