The Victoria Racing Club has released their financial summary for the 2012/2013 racing season; with the club recording a remarkable profit of $7.5 million.

The staging of the 2012 Melbourne Cup was one of a number of events that allowed the Victoria Racing Club to announce a substantial profit for the 2012/2013 racing season. Photo by: Race Horse Photos Australia

The profit was a substantial increase on that recorded in the previous year and included a total revenue figure of $150.5 million, which includes race-day catering, events, marketing, broadcast rights, TAB distributions as well as membership revenue, which is up over seven percent on the revenue generated during the 2011/2012 racing season.

VRC Chief Executive David Courtney told Racing Ahead this morning that the entire club was delighted with the figures and said that the increased profit had allowed them to eliminate their debt as well as fund a number of new innovations.

“We have done that by growing our revenues by five percent while containing our spending at about half a percent,” Courtney said.

“It has allowed us to repay our remaining bank debt of $9 million and continue our investment program on race course improvement of over $10 million and we have also been able to increase our prizemoney through the year by $95,000.

“That really does set the club up well to deliver on our master plan and we will be able to do this by limiting our increases on our membership subscription.

“We are very pleased with the financial results.”

Membership revenue was responsible for $17.9 million of the total of $150.5 million and Courtney revealed that the figure will increase following the completion of the new grandstand at Flemington in the next three years.

“We have just over 30,000 members,” Courtney said.

‘We have a waiting list now of three to four years but we will be able to admit all of those on the waiting list plus all of those additional members once we complete our new grandstand in 2016 or 2017.

“We are looking to lift our membership numbers from 30,000 to 35,000 and many members take up the opportunity for a guest card so in a sense we need to cater for those guests as well.

“That will put us north of 45,000 people.”

Courtney said that paying off their bank debt was vital for the VRC but said that they were just as pleased to be able to fund a number of infrastructure improvements that were able to be taking advantage of by trainers, owners, punters and the general racing public.

“With strong financial performance it means that we can continue to invest and implement our master plan,” Courtney said.

“The Hill Stand upgrade was a key part of that and we invested in Wi-Fi systems, new screens, the training tracks were upgraded and we also invested in some cell plants so that we can become a little bit more self-sufficient in terms of water provision.”

Flemington has not hosted a race meeting since Emirates Stakes Day over a fortnight ago but racing will return to the famous track on Saturday December 14 for the Western Health Community Raceday.