Odds On Racing - Harness Racing

Down Under Racing features Legalized Bookmakers
Harness Racing at Harold Park Paceway in New South Wales, Australia

September 28, 2004
By Kimberly Rinker

THE TRACK
Harold Park Paceway, located just minutes outside of Sydney in New South Wales, Australia, can be found in the nearby suburban town of Glebe. While the track was revamped in the late 1990s to make it into a standard half-mile oval, it had previously been just under that circumference in diameter, and as such, was the smallest racetrack within the whole country.

What hasn't changed throughout the years at Harold Park, however, is the scenery, the action and the people. When visiting Harold Park a fan will find a wide array of sponsorship signs placed low and intermittently along the outer fence of the racing surface. Upon first glance, the mobile starting gate is somewhat smaller than its American counterpark, with a Coca-Cola sign attached to its red doors.

For the most part, racing occurs every Friday night of the year, with the exception of Easter, when racing switches to a Thursday night. The Paceway races another 40 days as well, typically, either on Tuesday nights or on Monday afternoons. Each racing program is known to the locals as a "meeting" and usually has a sponsor or group of sponsors.

Throughout Sydney--a city of over three million people--and throughout most of Australia for that matter, there are countless Off Track Betting Parlors called TABS, which stands for Totalizator Agency Board Sites--a government-operated organization. In each state of Ausstralia the harness club, track and horsemen all receive a commission from the TABS. These profits go back directly into the racing club of New South Wales, the state in which Harold Park is located.

Friday nights are the big nights at Harold Park. The average handle is well over $1.5 million and the average attendence bursts with nearly 10,000 fans and gamblers alike. There are usually 25 to 30 minutes between posts, and the facility offers on-site wagering as well as wagers taken through the bookmakers--who by law in Australia must be on-track and must be licensed. The various harness racing clubs receive a cut of the money handled from each bookie. The major advantage to gamblers of placing a bet wtih a bookie is that the bookies work with fixed odds while the track's tote system offers ever-changing odds--just as they do here in North America.

THE BOOKMAKERS
Australian bookmaker Mark Duffin is one of many bookies who dreamed of being a bookmaker as a young lad. Duffin is one of the most successful and popular bookmakers at Harold Park, and on the entire New South Wales circuit.

"My father was an avid gambler," Duffin recalled. "In order to be licensed by the bookies licensing agency here, you must show assets. This has been a very successful endeavor for me. My average handle is about $70,000 per night."

Duffin went on to explain that the costs to him on a nightly basis can be extremely high. To operate just one stand at a racetrack on any given day or night costs him a minimum of $2,500.

"Then you've got to hire clerks to take the bets," Duffin said. "You've got to pay an armored car to hold the money. You've got to pay a turnover tax, and one-half a percent of what you make goes to the New South Wales Harness Racing Club right off the top."

THE PUNTERS
Duffin said that bettors or "punters" as they are called in Australian and New Zealand often prefer to use a bookmaker for a variety of reasons.

"The main reason is that we play with fixed odds; whatever price you take at the time you make your bet is the price you get once the race if finished," Duffin said. "I think that we add a bit of color and excitement that wouldn't be here otherwise. And the people who bet with us--the bookmakers--are usually really good handicappers. And we--the bookmakers--have to be really good handicappers as well, because these people who bet with us are basically wagering on our opinions."

Bookmakers offer a number of select wagers, although none are allowed to offer either Trifectas, Quinellas or Exactas. They are not legalized for those type of wagers as the gaming commission has stated that it feels that those wagers would be too intricate within the system for the bookies to handle.

The track's tote system does, however, offer Trifecta, Quinella, and Perfecta wagering (called a Forecast Quinella). They also offer a Win bet, a Place bet (for win, second & third), and Running Doubles (doubles on all races or any combination of races) and a Superfecta (the first six race winners) per night. Show wagering is not an option.

THE SYSTEM
There are a total of 46 tracks and racing clubs located in New South Wales alone and according to former New South Wales Racing Club President Lindsay Nicholls, the class structure of the races are determined by the purses.

"We handicap our horses by purses," Nicholls explained. "We've tried to establish a claiming system for older horses, but it hasn't worked out very well. We had some $5,000 to $10,000 claimers at one time but very few of them got claimed. Probably because they are old."

"The Australian owner here is a bit different from the American owner," Nicholls added. "Our owners tend to keep their horses forever. The acceptance of claimers here is slow to come. But I believe it is important for the industry in Australia to be open to change and I had hoped that they'd become a big more accepted."

Nicholls explained that--as in the United States--a percentage of the money generated from the TABS is returned to the horsemen. And, as in the States, the Thoroughbreds, known as the "Gallops," receive a higher percentage than do the harness horsemen.

Respected Sydney Morning Herald racing columnist Bill Whittaker says that he believes that the TABS have been a salvation for the Australian racing industry.

"In the twenty years since we first organized the TABS, racing in this country has flourished," Whittaker said. "Racing here would be destitute without off-track wagering. People here bet more on Interstate racing than they do on the local races. The racing clubs of New South Wales could shut up tomorrow and they'd still make a mint, however, there'd be no more purses to pay out for the local horsemen."

Whittaker cites the major differences between North America and Australia as the wagering formats (bookies) and the size of the tracks (smaller Down Under) as the major differences.

"Also, we don't have as many good-bred horses here as we do in your country," he added. "We need more horses like Cardigan Bay and Westburn Grant. In North America you see those types of horses every year and here, we just don't."

THE RACING
The racing at Harold Park Paceway is interesting--to say the least. The track is kept spotless, and in fact, should a horse deposit a "road apple," uniformed men appear on the scene within seconds to scoop away the unwanted item(s). A patron can expect to see very few warm-up miles take place too.

Prior to racing, horses are walked, harnessed to the race bike in a saddling enclosure akin to how the Thoroughbreds are walked in this hemisphere prior to the call to the post. Once they do hit the track, they take a very brief score and then are stopped in front of the grandstand for equipment adjustments and then are rushed to the starting gate.

The race bikes look like our jog carts, and the lines have no hand holds, just three successive loops to grab on to. Once the race is over, the horses line up at numbered positions trackside and judge checks each of the driver's whips for batteries or spurs. The whips have ends on them similar to jockey's whips with no snappers. The horses, in general, are extremely well-mannered and many race without overchecks.

Overall, the Australian style of racing is very similar to the North American style--another major difference being the odd distances which are raced. Little attention seems to be given to leg remedies and legs in general for that matter. Few horses wear bandages while resting, and in most cases, horses are poulticed and no bandaged are applied.

THE EXPERIENCE
This writer had the good fortune to share a day with one of New South Wales' top conditioners--trainer Brett Goss. Brett allowed me to tag along in a non-descript fashion as he went about his day with his modest stable of trotters and pacers.

The thirty-something Goss begins his day at 5:30 every morning, arriving at his "yard," where he feeds his horses a light breakfast. His stable (yard) consists of a series of outside paddocks, where separate covered stalls allow horses to wander inside or outside, depending up on their preference. His horses wear a heavy-duty turn-out blanket year-round--the famous, green New Zealand rugs.

Brett's dual-wheel horse trailer--or transport--as it's called in Australia has a very high ramp and runs on natural gas. He loads seven horses side-by-side (with no dividers), and heads down the road to a most-unusual training location--a small cove adjacent to the Pacific Ocean.

Here, near a spot called Palm Beach, we find a small--perhaps an eighth of a mile oval--sandy and deep. The appearance is that of a very cushiony North American Thoroughbred track. The seven horses were quickly unloaded and then tied to the side of the trailer.

To jog his horses, Brett hooks one horse (who stands quite patiently) and then ties a horse on either side of his jog cart shafts, and then ties another to the back of his seat. He then proceeds to jog all four horses in this style for some 40 minutes or longer. In this manner, Brett is able to get four horses worked at once. His assistant, Scott, jogged the remaining three.

"We jog them strictly based on time, not on distance," Brett explained. "This sand footing really helps to build up their strength and endurance."

No kidding. Most of these well-conditioned animals had barely broken a sweat when they were finished with their jogging session, however, most looked refreshed and ready for more work.

After the jogging, the horses were tied back to the trailer and then were led in groups of two or three to the edge of the cover. Brett climbed into his rowboat and then rowed out into the cove, swimming each group of the horses for another twently minutes.

The horses all appeared relaxed and seemed to thoroughly enjoy their swim. When they returned to shore they were allowed to roll in the sand for five or ten minutes, and were then sponged off in the water at the shore's edge. Light-weight turn-out blankets were put over their backs, and they were then loaded back into the trailer for the short ride home.

After returning to his stable yard, Brett applied poultice to some of his horse's legs and then placed them back into their respective paddocks. Horses are fed in the morning at night, and given hay for lunch.

Brett's training methods are not unique to Australian horsemen. Some trainers make two, three or even more trips per day to the "cove," depending upon the size of thier stables.

-30-