Horse Racing

While designed to thrash out issues relating mostly to New South Wales racing, several Victorians will attend the meeting on Friday week.

Moonee Valley Racing Club chairman Bob Scarborough, Thoroughbred Racehorse Owners' Association chairman David Moodie and multi-millionaire owner and breeder Jon Munz will join a host of prominent NSW breeders who called the meeting.

Arrowfield Stud principal John Messara, Coolmore's Tom Magnier and Gerry Harvey, one of the country's biggest owner-breeders, are among the NSW-based signatories.

The meeting will focus on the issues that are potentially threatening racing's future, with corporate bookmakers' fees to the industry pivotal.

Corporate bookmakers and Racing NSW are embroiled in a legal battle over what is a fair and equitable payment method: turnover, as Racing NSW insists, or gross profits, as corporate bookmakers claim.

A court decision is not expected until November, but its ramifications will flow to Victoria, where corporate bookmakers pay a product fee of 10 per cent of gross profits -- a figure bumped up to 15 per cent during the spring carnival.

According to the invitation, the reductions in prizemoney recently announced in NSW could spread to other states if the issue is not addressed.

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