Just read a very interesting blog post in the New York Times online by Bennett Liebman regarding the "Reasons for the Decline of Horse Racing" and whilst it was thoroughbred related, it certainly hits home with Harness Racing as well and well worth a read.
http://therail.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/reasons-for-the-decline-of-horse-racing/
Nearly every point listed (all 15 of them) is relevant with Harness Racing but there were a couple of things that weren't touched upon that I will also add.
Bigger tracks produce better racing:
This is a total crock, by far the best races to watch are the Gloucester Park mobile races where they tend to run from the start yet they probably have the worst Metro track in Australia. Sure, I will grant that the best racing I have seen this year has been a couple of the Group meetings at Menangle but apart from those meetings it is the most boring place ever to watch a race. It all comes down to the quality and WA is the strongest state by far currently, other states don't simply offer racing opportunities for M2 or better horses and they are the ones the punters have built up some affinity with over time. Will also give Queensland a pass in regards to this issue as well.
In other words, stop spending millions on new tracks and instead put some money back in to retain the quality horses by having races they can go round in instead of being continually sold to WA or the USA.
Bigger fields create higher turnover:
Administrators get sucked in by a statistical anomoly that I will explain - as a rule, all races with 12 runners in the field are stand starts and its the impulse punter that makes the difference here. SKY will generally cross to a race whilst the mobile is scoring up so the impulse punters get about 20 seconds to get their bet on but in stand starts, getting 12 horses to stand still and get all the tapes across can take a couple of minutes but SKY always crosses early when the lines first start to take shape so instead of 20 seconds to bet they get around 120 seconds. That is where the extra revenue comes from guys, not the increase in field sizes. Just watch how much the win pool in a mobile race increases when there is a false start.
