Susan - In August 2016, I wrote about why I was not grateful that Racing Australia was proposing a rule change that required foals to be registered under the Rules of Racing for the stated purpose of horse welfare.
The horse transfer form and $55 fee came unannounced from that change.
I sold a colt at the Vobis sale in 2018. That colt was prepared, entered and passed in at a ready to run sale in October 2018. The My Racing Australia horse record showed that until two weeks ago that colt was residing at the place he had been born and had never left.
He turns three on 1 August. Racing Australia says it is up to the purchaser to fill out the transfer form. That doesn't happen until a horse is named which is sometimes never and certainly not straight after sale. Until last week when the colt was named, I was technically on the record as responsible for a horse that had been through public auction twice. If the horse hadn't been named but simply sold on and on…… and or died or being subjected to neglect or cruelty, there was no record at all.
The neat little transfer cost inserted into the process is annoying and has failed to deliver the promised outcome. Today I was asked to sign a transfer on a horse sold in May last year; last month on a horse sold 18 months ago. If they weren't being named there is no trace of their whereabouts or their welfare and the record is no more advanced than it was under the old system.
Racing Australia's latest annual report says that the change was to improve animal welfare through traceability and transparency. So, is the $55 transfer fee being used for that purpose? 35% of Racing Australia's revenue comes from the breeding industry and covers almost half Racing Australia's expenses but the question is how has any of this been applied to improve traceability and transparency on what applied before. What is the measure of this rule's success?
Dear Racing Australia, your rule has failed. It was never going to achieve what you said it would and it hasn't. It is time to revoke the rule and start again if the intended purpose is horse welfare and not revenue raising. The proof of an effective business plan is the measure of its success. Not seeing it and still not grateful.
Mary Bray offers the following - Importantly, the rule seeks to capture all transfers which occur before the horse is first registered/named, regardless of how many transfers take place and when those transfers take place in that period. It is not acceptable for the ownership records to be corrected at the time of registration, which could be a year or more after the transfer occurred.
This is where the conflict lies. Here is the usual sequence of for naming a horse:
1 . Horse is born – ownership record goes in – no fee – happens when you submit your mare return
2 . Foal may be sold/transferred – new ownership record goes in $55 fee
3 . Horse is named $110 fee – now here is the problem. Almost every time this occurs you will have a new set of owners that are going to participate in the racing of the horse – RA is expecting another lodgement of foal ownership change before this goes in - $55 fee, however in my opinion (shared by a an increasing number of trainers, owners, syndicators who have been caught by this)
- a.The foal ownership is NOT changing per se
- b.The newly named horse is getting it's racing ownership with all the bank details and percentages etc as has always happened.
- c.Adding a separate requirement and fee for this is seen as a fee for no service and totally incorrect.
- d.You have the foal ownership at the time of the change and the new ownership in the named horse. This gives you full accountability of the provenance of the horse from foal to racehorse.
4. I believe this needs an urgent review from Racing Australia as although the underlying policy is a worthy one, the implementation is clearly wrong and the overwhelming response from your affected clients is that they are being charged for nothing.
Also please note that in point 3, this also affects trainers/syndicators who purchase at auction, put in their change of ownership as required within the 4 week period, then have to pay it again when they get together the list of owners and the name for the horse which is rarely within 4 weeks of purchasing a foal or yearling. I believe the only people unaffected would be owners such as Darley who have their foals continue in their name as racehorses.
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