Thoroughbred Racehorse Owners Association (TROA) Chairman, Jonathan Munz, has slammed the management and board of Racing Victoria (RVL) in relation to a new 1% levy on prizemoney and called for board and management change.
The new 1% levy will equate to around $3 million a year and is proposed to be used to subsidise horse trainers for workcover insurance premium blowouts and introduce programs to otherwise help them, including helping control and manage those claims.
“TROA wants to support trainers in these areas, but the money needs to come from RVL’s general budget and not taken out of the pockets of owners. This reflects lazy and incompetent management from RVL – there is supposedly at least $10 million of spending wastage that can be saved in the existing RVL general budget and another $10 million of cost savings available from inefficiencies in the integrated media business, which includes racing.com. Start there please.”
“RVL is already taking a 2% levy from prizemoney for horse welfare and a 1% levy for jockey welfare. We have previously asked for detail and transparency on the $6 million being taken for horse welfare and RVL has refused to provide any detail. I find that outrageous.”
“In my opinion, apart from these issues, Andrew Jones, the CEO of RVL is doing a terrible job and needs to be sacked. There is widespread dissatisfaction across the whole industry with the performance of RVL. Jones is regarded as arrogant, out of touch and lacking racing knowledge and experience. He and his team are considered to be completely out of their depth and apart from fundamental management errors, are seen as pushing a misconceived radical strategy that has alarmed industry investors and participants. Undermining confidence, disparaging our participants and race clubs and putting off our existing customers is not sensible and needs to be stopped. The RVL board needs a major refresh too, with the majority of directors needing to be replaced. They have enabled and encouraged this situation and if anything, are seen as more culpable, given that they appointed and have failed to manage and control Jones and failed to respond to concerns about the damage being done to the industry.”
