Australia, 3 July 2009

The Australian Jockey Club has announced prize money cuts oas part of a A$8.5 million budget cutting programme for next season. The cuts wil affect the purses of the 16 Group Ones run by the AJC at its Sydney tracks, plus 15 more feature races. The AJC has also announced staff redundancies.

AJC chairman Ron Finemore told the Sydney Daily Telegraph: "Racing in NSW is under siege from corporate bookmakers and Betfair who are undermining the core wageringrevenue stream.

"It is not possible for the AJC to continue to protect prize-money in the face of corporate bookmakers assault on critical wagering revenues.

"There was no other option but to reduce the level of prize-money on feature races to achieve a break-even budget for 2010."