TAB Ltd bosses just don't understand: it's time to get off the beaten track

That's the much-maligned inside track at Randwick. The one this columnist named Clodsville, then Rortsville.

Now it is Off-Limitsville.

The one that NSW Thoroughbred Racing Board chief steward Ray Murrihy deemed all but unsafe. The Executioner told Australian Jockey Club chairman Bill Rutledge so after the May22 meeting held on what could be best described as a beach.

The one Australia's most powerful trainers, Gai Waterhouse and John Hawkes, have all but abandoned. On May22 they each had one runner there. Enough said on the trainers' front.

The same track dynamic trio Darren Beadman, Corey Brown and Chris Munce who are locked in an intriguing Sydney jockeys' premiership battle have declared a ``disgrace". They are not alone in the jockeys' room.

But TAB Ltd will have none of it. Its customers are the losers.

Last Thursday, heavies at the once-jolly green giant, now an ogre, informed the AJC it could not transfer five mid-week winter meetings from Off-Limitsville to Warwick Farm.

The TAB refused to sanction the highly commendable move, threatening to financially penalise the AJC.

``The punter, trainer, owner and jockey are only interested in getting the best surface and they will not get it on the inside track," Murrihy said on Saturday. ``Aren't we all looking for the best result in racing? Racing on the inside track is not the best result."

After the May22 meeting, with the sand still flying, the AJC inhaled before relenting to criticism. The AJC decided to give the track about three months off. It had suffered 18 months of hard racing as the course proper was rebuilt at a cost of $5.5million.

Everything was done in the best interests of racing. A point not lost on AJC chief executive Tony King, who said: ``We are trying to do the right thing and the TAB has threatened to penalise us."

King added that the AJC was ``not prepared to put the course proper in jeopardy". That course was opened for play on March30 Doncaster-AJC Derby day and was lauded by all and sundry.

To host the five contentious meetings, along with two Saturday ones already pencilled in, would put the main track at serious risk.

After all, it is winter.

For all the right reasons the AJC deemed Warwick Farm the best option. The TAB did not. The AJC thought three months of rest for the inside track would help it.

If it didn't, the committee would have decided on its future. It might have ripped it up and put down a simple grass track, with no mesh. But now it will never know.

Of course, the Ogre told the AJC to race at Rosehill. Great idea, that one. Put Rosehill under great strain with five extra meetings and it would be short odds the track would be a mess.

Rightfully, the AJC didn't bother pursuing that option. It is looking to rehabilitate and manage tracks, not damage them. The club is obliged to run only 37 of its annual 59 meetings at Randwick, but it upped the ante to 47, thinking the inside track would handle the load. Everyone was to have been a winner, but unfortunately Off-Limitsville fell apart.

The TAB is interested only in the bottom line. Shareholders should be concerned. Racing is the poorer and the metropolitan tracks may end up stuffed.

It doesn't matter to the bean-counters at the TAB. They've slashed and burned from day one of the privatisation. They are in the final phase of selling agencies in their bid to boost an all-but-stagnant turnover.

And don't forget TAB Ltd is in dispute with NSW Racing Pty Ltd. It is the financial conduit between the TAB and the three codes of racing.

The three codes believe the TAB owes them some $10million and a claim has been made. Mediation was followed by arbitration and court is likely.

TAB Ltd forked over $3,096,852 in regards to a short-fall from pay-television. The Ogre then deducted $5,715,550 from the third-quarter product fees paid to race clubs. The reason: the AJC shifted meetings from Randwick to Warwick Farm last year while the course proper was being rebuilt. TAB Ltd didn't sign off on the move.

It lost revenue because Randwick meetings turn over more money than those at Warwick Farm. Not on the inside track. Certainly not with several professional punters declaring the track off limits.

And the TAB wants its customers to bet on it? For that it stands condemned.cyoung@access.fairfax.com.au