Telstra is said to be responsible for the blackout that affected Sky Racing and TVN broadcasters yesterday.

Punters and racing enthusiasts were forced to listen to races without vision for eight hours after a problem occurred at around 12.45pm yesterday.

Racing administrators in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria believe they have lost more than $1 million in turnover as a consequence of the blackout.

Sky Racing representative Brendan Parnell has placed the blame entirely on Telstra.

“It is a Telstra problem and we will be asking questions as soon as they come up for a breath,”he said.

“It is a massive problem that should not occur, it is not good enough.”

The Hawkesbury meeting’s figures were down more than $200,000 on expected revenue, with a TAB turnover of $983,000.

Hawkesbury Race Club CEO Brian Fletcher stressed that the implications could have been much worse.

“It certainly isn’t ideal,” Mr Fletcher said.

“The only people who got to see the races were those on track.

“It wasn’t disastrous, we would normally hold around $1.2 million.

“But what would happen if it was a Doncaster meeting?”

Tabcorp executive Ian Mackay expressed his dissatisfaction with the turn of events.

“People will opt not to have a bet if they can’t even watch the race.” he said.

The only race meeting that was broadcast throughout the day was Wodonga, with vision being sent through an older satellite that was not operated by Telstra.

It is understood that a power technician was sent to fix the problem; however, an unexpected fire alarm meant the building had to be evacuated.

Telstra are yet to release a statement concerning the costly meltdown.