SUCCESSFUL SEASON

Evening Post, Issue 28, 1 August 1936, Page 22

SUCCESSFUL SEASON

BETTER TURNOVERS

.REVIEW OF FIGURES

The racing season 1935-36 has ended amid general congratulations and with the feeling that the new season that opened today will be even more progressive, in some directions at least. As the old season proceeded, totalisator increases gained added momentum, and the total figure of £3,462,335 10s for racing club meetings only is as high as most people were prepared to prophesy last August. This represents a substantial increase in racing club turnovers of £532,405 10s, compared with last season's aggregate. The figure for the past season brings the sport back almost to the 1930-31 total of £3,608,953, but it is doubtful if the totalisator business will ever again, in immediately future years at least, reach the peak year, 1920-21, when £7,945,699 was passed through the machines. MILLION MARK PASSED. Auckland was the only province to pass the million mark in the past season, and it has made the most notable advances in stakes. In fact, all the nine : provincial districts,-with the exception :of Hawke's Bay, showed a higher ■ average of stakes, and all have had substantial increases in betting. With approximately the same number of days' racing, the figures are as , follows:— • I Races. 'Stakes. Totalisator. ] £ £ ! Auckland/ ~ 401 85,167 1,277,186^, Canterbury .... 231 35.217 476,20414 Dunedin ...... 378 23.18S 253,685'/. i Greymouth'.: 118 0.G68 51.4551,4 | Hawke's Bay.. 252 37,722 177,112% Southland .. 141 15.1015 197,167 Taranakl 93 12,100' 159,191 Wanganui ..192 24,960 ■ 300,6:15 Wellington ... 221 38,461 533,756 The figures speak for themselves, but j a further comparison may be made ml the average of stakes per race. In the Auckland Province the average prize ' reached the good figure of £211, compared with £ 198 for the previous term. The respective... mean prize-money j in the other provinces was:—Canterbury, £165 (£163); Dunedin, £130 (£120); Greymouth, £82 (£78); Hawke's Bay, £70 (£70); Southland, " £126 <£114); Taranaki, £122 (£113); Wanganui, £130 (£117); Wellington,. £172 (£166). J INCREASED STAKES. \ The stakes -.increase for the season was 4.6. per cent, and the totalisator showed an improvement of 15.4 per cent. This'is. the fourth yearofa rise I r- \from the depression mark-of £2,559,575, I experienced-in the 1931-32 season, and i the upward trend, if maintained at its , present rate, should bring the total at the end of the new season to nearly £4,000,000. ' Before concluding this review of the season's racing figures it may be of additional interest to note how the ■movement towards better turnovers has progressed during the season just . closed. The. trend was in evidence at the meetings early in .the season. For the first third of the term, till the eve of the Christmas-New Year meetings, the increase worked out at nearly 13 per cent. During the Christmas holiday period the percentage was nearly 20, and it was maintained near this rate during the next 'three months till tne approach^ the Easter holidays, mainly as a result of the "miid boom" in the Auckland district. Over the •Easter period the rate of in- • crease went a,'point or • two ' higher \ than 20 per cent.-, the best- relative! return for more than ten years. After Easter, however, with bad weather1 at many of the early winter meet-J ings and the changes .brought about by the readjustment of the King's Birthday holiday dates, the rate of increase dropped back to what it was in the early months of the season. All the concluding meetings of the term recorded increases, one or two of'them substantial. - : ■ '■.'■> Although the figures in the'vtrotting • Sport have not been worked out in -. full detail, it may be said' generally r, that trotting clubs also enjoyed success comparable with that experienced by the racing clubs. At the beginning of the season the trotting turnovers . W.ere not greatly, in advance of the previous season in aggregate, but they giowed a 12 per cent, increase durin" .- the Christmas-New Year holidays' dropped a little during the next three • months,.were over 20 per cent, better '■' -+U £ r> =!nd finished on a high note with the Ashburton and . Auckland - ySf^ m v June- the latter. fixture benefiting through gaining the King's Birthday holiday. For the season the trotting increase would be between 10 and 12 per cent. >■ '