THE Australian Jockey Club yesterday announced prizemoney cuts of $3.96 million from its feature races over the next year, ramming home the dire financial plight of the NSW racing industry, reports Craig Young in the Sydney Morning Herald.His report adds: The club also cut seven employees, taking the tally to 19 over the past year, and revealed $8.5 million had been slashed from its latest budget. The AJC expects to make an operational loss for the current racing season, which ends this month, o

THE Australian Jockey Club yesterday announced prizemoney cuts of $3.96 million from its feature races over the next year, ramming home the dire financial plight of the NSW racing industry, reports Craig Young in the Sydney Morning Herald.

His report adds: The club also cut seven employees, taking the tally to 19 over the past year, and revealed $8.5 million had been slashed from its latest budget. The AJC expects to make an operational loss for the current racing season, which ends this month, of more than $5 million, which comes some six weeks after the Sydney Turf Club announced a $3.8 million loss; the country racing sector has a $5 million revenue shortfall.

"These were very difficult decisions, ones taken with a lot of pain but it would be irresponsible to budget for a loss and maintain prizemoney," AJC chairman Ron Finemore told the Herald yesterday.

The dramatic announcement comes in the midst of a controversial State Government report recommending the AJC and STC merge. The authors of that report, Ernst & Young, say an upfront $21 million in savings would be generated.

"There were two alternatives," said Finemore, who was thrust into the chairman's seat of the oldest race club in Australia in April after a bitterly fought AJC board election. "One was to increase revenue by increasing track fees by 500 per cent, or reducing prizemoney. Reducing prizemoney affected fewer numbers."

In an earlier statement, the AJC declared racing in NSW "is under siege from corporate bookmakers and Betfair, who are undermining the core wagering revenue". The AJC said it subsidised training at Randwick and Warwick Farm to the tune of $5 million a year.

"There is a global economic crisis but if the race-fields legislation money was available to us, clearly we wouldn't have to do this," Finemore said.

Racing NSW has collected $30 million from wagering operators since the legislation was introduced. It is being challenged in court and no money has been forwarded to race clubs. The AJC believes it is awaiting $9 million.

Racing NSW chief executive Peter V'Landys said the ruling body had been warning participants for the past two years that "enormous upheaval" was inevitable unless race-fields legislation money was forthcoming.