Five years ago the prizemoney for winning a race at the Capalaba dogs on a weekend was $630 per race, across the board.
The winner got $441, the second home got $126, and third got $63.
Fourth to eighth got nothing except the thrill of racing.
As of January the 1st 2022 – in five days time – the prizemoney for a maiden race at Capalaba will be $2 380.
The winner gets $1 495, second home gets $460, third receives $230, fourth $115, and fifth to eighth gets $20 for coming.
Mixed grade races are worth an extra $200 at $2580 all up, with the split being first $1 625, second $500, third $250, fourth $125 and the other runners $20.
Top grade events – best 8’s – carry $2780 in prizemoney: $1 755 for first, $540 for second, $270 for third, $125 for fourth, and $20 others.
On top of that all runners are paid an appearance fee of $60 ($480 in total per race) to assist connections to defray their costs, and to encourage people to enter and remain in the industry.
All up, payments at the base level have grown from $630 to $2860, and payments at the upper level for ordinary races at everyday race meetings have increased from $630 to $3 260.
In plain terms, under the sterling leadership of club President John ‘JC’ Catton and his team, and with the assistance of the quiet and unassuming, but super high-achieving greyhound rep on the Racing Queensland Board Dale Cartwright, prizemoney at Capalaba has increased four and five-fold in the space of just 5 years.
That is one of the greatest racing administration achievements of the 21st century.
Allow me to put the magnitude of what the Capalaba board has achieved into clear perspective.
Everyone quite rightly lauds the superb achievements of Peter V’Landys in NSW racing, but V’Landys has had the benefit of indexed and ever increasing tax parity compensation money that he negotiated from the State Government to play with, whereas the Capalaba crew have had to do it all on their own, and through voluntary labour rather than hundreds of paid staff like PVL has at his disposal.
Yet for all the advantages that V’Landys has enjoyed, and all the resources that he has had available to him, prizemoney in Sydney metropolitan racing during the same 5 years has increased just 30%.
30 percent versus 400 to 500 percent.
Peter V’Landys has been knocked off his perch.
PVL is not Australia’s greatest racing administrator.
John Catton is.
Take a bow JC, and give him a standing ovation greyhound folk.
The kid from across the wrong side of the creek deserves it.
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Editor’s Note
I grew up in Geebung at the same time that John Catton, who is a couple of years younger than me, was growing up 100m away on the other side of Downfall Creek at Wavell Heights. Johnny and his family did it tough after their Dad – a footy hero who played in the halves for QLD with Clive Churchill died far, far too young.
A kindly neighbour stepped up to the plate and helped John’s Mum and Grandma out as much as he could with the boys, John in particular. This good man trained greyhounds, and every day for years after John’s dad died he would take the kid with him on his early morning walks with the dogs. It both gave John a sense of grounding in a time of chaos, provided him with a father figure that active young boys who suddenly and unexpectedly lose their hero and role model need, and instilled in JC a life-long love of greyhounds.
The man asked nothing for his kindness – in our childhood neighbourhood it was just what real men did – but for John it created a debt, one that like all others he was determined to pay. Not a debt to the man as such, but a debt to what he held dear. The sport of greyhound racing.
I reckon he’s paid it, don’t you?
Good on you JC.
You’re my sort of bloke.
Editor’s disclosure
JC trains my wife and kids greyhounds, and those of my kids Godfather Matt Cranitch, who also lost his Dad far too young. All of life is a circle, and time reconnects the arcs.