RACING CLUBS UPSET.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 46, 22 January 1938, Page 9

RACING CLUBS UPSET.

PRIVY COUNCIL S RULING. BROADCASTS TO CONTINUE. SYDNEY, Jan. 21. Metropolitan racing clubs are very upset by the Privy Council's refusal of the application made by the Victorian Park Racing Club for leave to appeal from the decision given in its case against the Commonwealth Broadcasting Corporation, Ltd. The decision permits the continuance of the broadcasting of racing from outside the courses.

It will have a similar effect in other States.

It has cost racing clubs about £lO,000 to test the litigation. Sir Jovnton Smith, chairman of directors of the Victoria Park club, said : “We shall now be obliged to rely on the State Government to provide protection from the competition of broadcasting. It is useless to expect the Federal Government to do anything, owing to the revenue it receives from broadcasting.” Mr Theo Marks, chairman of the Rosehill club, ventures the opinion that racing prize-money will have to be reduced, as because of the competition from broadcasting and starting price betting, its handmaiden, race clubs cannot longer stand up to the strain. The Australian Jockey Club from tomorrow will close the telegraph office at Randwick and later at Warwick Farm. It is understood that the reason is to thwart starting price and off-the-course betting. Smaller clubs had done this some time ago, their action resulting in an elaborate system of “tick-tacking,” which is operated from positions overlooking suburban courses.

A report from London yesterday stated that the Privy Council had refused the application of the Victoria Park Racing Club (Sydney) for leave to appeal in the broadcasting case. Costs were allowed the respondents. The Victoria Racing Club appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council from the decision of the Commonwealth High Court, the case involving the -right of a person overlooking a racecourse to broadcast a commentary of the racing.