Dear friends in harness racing,
Much discussion, publicly and privately, has followed APG’s notice to the industry that the Company will not be conducting sales in Melbourne and Sydney in 2023.
In the wake of this announcement, there has been a flurry of false and unsubstantiated commentary on social media and certain websites, questioning APG’s ability to meet its financial commitments, and hence our ability to conduct sales in Western Australia and Queensland.
APG are taking this matter extremely seriously and have engaged the Company’s solicitors to take immediate action against one particular purveyor of mis-information, whose intent is clearly to cause serious harm to the business of APG and the individual reputations of its Officers and Directors.
The Board will not hesitate to proceed with taking the required action against anyone who chooses to make further baseless allegations which publicly diminish APG’s financial status or its viability as a sales company. I would also counsel against the publication of such defamatory commentary for two reasons: one, you never know who is listening, and two, it just ain’t true!
In relation to our financial viability, APG wishes to advise the industry that it recently had its accounts audited, which revealed no concerns regarding APG’s management practices or its solvency.
APG looks forward to conducting our incredible race-series in the coming years for yearlings sold through our sales in 2020, 2021 and 2022. Our decision about the 2023 sales will not have any impact on existing race series, with these proceeding with advertised prizemoney and bonuses.
APG has a very strong relationship with Racing and Wagering Western Australia and Racing Queensland, both of whom have committed to supporting APG sales races for fully-sustained graduates of our 2023 sales in Western Australia and Queensland.
APG has been selling yearlings and funding futurity race series for over 30 years. For most of those years, APG Directors were representatives of the Principal Racing Clubs in Victoria, NSW and Queensland. The NSW Harness Racing Club at Menangle still retains membership of the Company and I, Chairman of Club Menangle, am currently the Chairman of APG.
APG is in a financially sound position. The prizemoney for our race series is guaranteed and vendors at our WA and Qld sales in 2023 will receive their payments within 28 days of the sale, just as they have done for the past 30 years. Any suggestion to the contrary is simply false.
Sincerely,
Robert Marshall
CHAIRMAN
Australian Pacing Gold Ltd
