Australian Thoroughbred Bloodstock

RVL Announces New Deal for Owners and Trainers

The board of Racing Victoria Limited (RVL) recently announced approval of a $3 million package which includes an increase in prize money and a cutback in racing fees paid by owners.

The initiative began at the start of the new racing season on August 1st.

Prize money will now be paid to tenth place in all races except Group and Listed events which will keep the current practice of paying to eighth place. The existing procedure of paying a starter’s subsidy to all unplaced runners will be stopped.

$2.5 million in fees currently charged by RVL and clubs to trainers and subsequently passed to owners will be removed; this will include the non declaration fee and training facility fee.

In late July RVL made an announcement relating to prize money as part of the annual budget and prize money review process.

Phase 1 of this plan will commence from August 1st 2008 to meet the industry’s key objectives to increase prize money levels in country races and midweek / night metropolitan races. Key highlights of the increases applying from 1 August 2008 include

-Increase in country minimums from $9000 to $10,500 and from 12,000 to $13,500 for Thursday and P1 Sunday meetings.

-Increase in midweek and night races to a minimum of $27,500.

Phase 2 of the plan is set down to commence from February 1st 2009 and includes

-Increase country minimums to $12,000 and to $15,000 for Thursday and P1 Sunday meetings

-Increase in metropolitan midweek/night races to a minimum of $30,000 and Saturday/feature night races to $70,000.

When the 2007/8 drew to a close on the 31st July , it was pleasing to see Darren Weir win the Victorian Country racing trainer of the year with 93 winners(Darren also finished 5th in the Melbourne trainers premiership) and young apprentice Sebastian Murphy winning the leading apprentice award for the season. Sebastian also finished 2nd to Craig Williams in the coveted Scobey Breasley award, the Brownlow medal award for Jockeys in Victoria. Congratulations to both of them.

At Australian Thoroughbred Bloodstock it has been an incredibly busy time with all of our yearlings (20 of them) being broken in and now working through the stable system with their first pretraining experience. These horses spend six weeks in the stable and are introduced to the racetrack, barriers, working with other horses, swimming in the pool and walking on the walking machine. They have all thrived through this experience and the early running types are now spelling, and the 3 yr old stayers are now in the stables.

The shares in our horses are moving quickly and in October we will launch the 2007 crop onto the market. To assist us with sale we have appointed Ashley Connick to our Sales team, managing the Murray- Mallee region for Mildura and surrounding areas, and Chris Cannon, managing the Geelong region. Ashley can be contacted on 0419802296 and Chris on 0419156460. We welcome both of them to the team and stand by for more appointments.

We also formed a partnership with Tim McDonnell, The Big Australian Punter. Tim now provides all of our registered owners with free weekly race tips. If you are an owner and are not signed up to received these tips, call Tim on 0394176491 and tell him that you have a horse with us, give him your email address and the tips, and winners will be there each week for you free of charge.

At Manningtree Park, we are continuing our seemingly never ending stud upgrade project with the current focus on more new fencing, creating a further 3 new paddocks, a new isolation facility, 2 new day yards and replacing all of our current yards with a new yarding system.

This month we have launched our future Stallion prospect, a 2007 colt by the champion Falbrav, out of Amanusa, so this colt is a ¾ brother to the $1.1 Million prizemoney earner and stakeswinner-Delzao. This is an outstanding colt with a super pedigree and we are offering 20 shares at $8,000 each which includes costs until 1/1/09, except vet and insurance costs. A trainer is yet to be selected for this exciting colt. See all the details in the for sale section of this website..

With Spring just around the corner, the mares are not far of foaling and we look forward to seeing the first of the new seasons foals being born.

Congratulations to the owners of Furet Visage— Ken Colwell, Glenn Rippon & Phil McEvoy on winning this year’s ATB Horse Of The Year award. Their horse has produced an outstanding record since travelling to trainer David Brunton in Tasmania. David and his wife Julie were over from Tassie to join in the celebrations as were Brian & Rosemary Fellows who owned Furet Visage’s mare.

Owners of Furet Visage receive their awards at the Christmas party at Moonee Valley.