APG Announces Prizemoney Boost and other Reforms to APG 2yo Series

At its most recent Board meeting, APG’s Board made a decision to restructure the format of APG’s two-year old race series.
Key Features of the New Format

The new format will come into effect from Series 28 (i.e. yearlings catalogued for the 2017 yearling sales, which will race as two-year olds in 2017/2018) and will incorporate the following key features:

• Total race series prizemoney will increase by approximately $50,000 to $1.05million;
• Prizemoney for each final will increase from $322,000 to $350,000;
• Horses will not need to travel outside of NSW, Victoria or Queensland until they have qualified for the $350,000 final;
• NSW, Victoria and Queensland will each take turns hosting the $350,000 finals on a rotational basis;
• The additional $28,000 in prizemoney for each final will be distributed amongst the horses finishing fourth to last.  The new prizemoney structure for the finals will be:
  

  Finishing Position	$350,000 Finals
  1st	$150,000
  2nd	$60,000
  3rd	$30,000
  4th	$23,000
  5th	$15,000
  6th	$10,000
  7th	$10,000
  8th	$10,000
  9th	$10,000
  10th	$10,000
  Breeders Prize money	$22,000
  Total	$350,000

• Horses that miss qualification for the finals will have the opportunity to nominate to contest $30,000 Group Three consolation races in their home state ($30,000 consolations will be conducted for each sex in both NSW and Victoria, while a single, mixed sex $30,000 consolation will be conducted in Queensland).

Under the new format, APG will conduct $10,000 heats in NSW, Victoria and Queensland, with the winners of each heat automatically progressing straight through to the Group One $350,000 final. In addition, APG will continue to conduct a single, mixed sex qualification race in Western Australia, with the winner gaining qualification for the final, should they elect to travel to the East Coast.

Following the heats, a maximum of one $10,000 repechage for each sex will be conducted in NSW, Victoria & Queensland, subject to the requirement for a minimum field size of eight horses.  Preference in field selection will be based upon each horse’s finishing position in the heats, with higher placed finishers taking preference over lower placed finishers.
Qualification for the Finals will be as follows:

• Heat winners are ranked highest;
• Repechage winners are ranked next highest, followed by horses that finished second in their repechage, and so on through to horses that finished last in their repechage.
• In the event that a tie-breaker is required to decide which of two equally ranked repechage horses takes preference in field selection, preference will go to the horse that competed in the State with the greatest number of heat runners.  In the event that two states had an equal number of starters in the heats, preference will be decided by random ballot.

Finals Rotation

The ability for horses to qualify for the $350,000 Group One Finals without leaving their home state, combined with the increased prizemoney for horses finishing fourth to last has opened up the opportunity for APG to return to a three state rotation policy for the finals.

Racing Queensland has thrown its support behind a return to a three state rotation policy by announcing that it will conduct a Group Two two-year old race the week following any Queensland based APG final.

This will ensure that any APG horses travelling to Queensland will have the opportunity to not only contest the $350,000 APG Final, but will also have the opportunity to nominate for a Group Two race the following week.

Queensland has been able to demonstrate a significant increase in mares bred to quality commercial stallions in the most recent breeding season.  It is anticipated that Queensland’s re-inclusion into the APG finals rotation, combined with the attraction of Queensland’s lucrative QBred scheme will ensure that Queensland breeding continue to grow in the upcoming breeding season, resulting in strong APG Brisbane Sale numbers in future years.

The new race series format and rotation system will commence with the 2017 yearling sales (2018 race series), as set out in the schedule below:

Gold Bonus Scheme to Continue

The additional prizemoney for the APG Race Series will not impact upon APG’s lucrative Gold Bonus Scheme, meaning that fully sustained APG two-year-olds will continue to earn Gold Bonuses for their first two-year-old win, which owners can redeem at the APG yearling sales to receive:

• $2,000 off the price of a colt; or
• $4,000 off the price of a filly

Owners can also use the vouchers to fully sustain a future yearling purchase (or yearling that has been paid-up as a non-sale entry) for the APG race series.
Further Information

APG would like to thank vendors and owners for their ongoing support.  If participants have any further questions pertaining to the new race series format, please contact APG on (03) 5275 1999.

Approved By Dean Baring www.harnessbred.com
Driving The Future Of Harness Racing