The losers in all this include everyone in NSW that remembers when racing in NSW was at least as good as in Victoria -- and that memory is fast fading into an unrecoverable oblivion.
Hmm, I am not going to argue anything else you have written, but I do want to address this. What you say has definitely been true for the last 15 years or so, but I think things are taking a turn for the worse in Victoria. What has made Victorian racing the strongest in Australia (apart from being the most subsidised by the State Government) has been the all open races on Saturdays policy, with the odd restricted race here and there when there is a excess of meetings, usually around Public Holidays. Over the past 3 or 4 years, there has become an insidious creeping of restricted races onto Saturdays, particularly at this time of year. Robbie Griffith mentioned yesterday that he backed up one of his horses yesterday because there wasn't another 1400 open race for a few weeks. 1400m opens have been a staple of Melbourne Saturdays for a few years now, so if there isn't any for a few weeks that indicates, to me at least, they have lost their way a little bit. I don't know if the idea is to try and boost up the numbers/quality for the night meetings at the Valley, but Sydney has felt, if not stronger, then at least holding it's own the last few weeks. Things will probably get back to normal once we get into the New Year, but it seems troubling to me that Racing Victoria don't actually know why they have been so successful. My guess is that they are a lot less competent than we would like to think.
