INCREASE AGAIN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 48, 27 February 1939, Page 6

INCREASE AGAIN

WANGANUI TOTALISATOR TURNOVER RELIABLE BAROMETER COMPARISON WITH PAST YEARS Evidence of the improvement shown over several years in the totalisator turnover at summer meetings of the Wanganui Jockey Club is provided in a comparison of the figures with the amount handled at last week's meeting. The advance is so striking as to suggest that, in addition to the general improvement of conditions, the progressive policy adopted by the club must be held partially responsible. To the committee, therefore, a good deal of credit must be due.

At the autumn meeting of 1934, held on February 15 and 17, the amount handled on the totalisator was 113,608 10s, the nadir of the decrease which had commenced three years earlier. In 1935 the meeting was held on Thursday, January 31, and Saturday, February 1, and during the two days £19,406 10s was handled. Strange to relate exactly the same total was recorded the following year, when the meeting was held on Friday, January 31, and Saturday, February 1. The 1937 meeting was held on January 28 and 30, when there was an increase of nearly 50 per cent., the turnover going up to £27,382. Twelve months ago the meeting took place later in February, on the 24th. and 26th., and a further increase, this time of over £lO,OOO, was registered, the total being £37,579.

It is pleasing, therefore, to find still another increase recorded at last week’s meeting, when the turnover at £44,424 was £6845 better than last year. Comparisons have frequently been made between Wanganui and other meetings, and these have frequently been held to be far from flattering to Wanganui. Few clubs, however, can point to Ihe proportionate increase which the Wanganui Jockey Club’s turnover has made in the past five years, for the figures have gone up from less than £14,000 to more than £44,000. The aggregate increase over that period is £30,815 10s, or over 230 per cent. ' The large proportionate increases of the past two or three years cannot, of course, be maintained, but it can confidently be expected that the club will endeavour to hold the ground which has been gained by a steady increase in stakes, and the cultivation of that goodwill so essential in a sport dependent on the support of the general public. The totalisator turnover is a reliable barometer in this direction.