Chief Stipe

Something doesn't quite add up though. The sectionals and margins don't match up. Just a gut feel and the gut is suffering at this time of year.

I happened to have a couple of beers purely by chance with Royden Bergerson after a friends horse recently won a Grp 2 trained by Te Akau. I asked him why didn't Sam go into partnership with him and Royden replied that he told Sam that if he wanted to learn as much as he could in NZ then he was best to sign up at Te Akau. Not many people realise that Te Akau Stud/Stable employ 120+ people.

That last 600m sounds slower than it looked! 2:02.5 is a good time on that track. If you look at the sectionals he just kept winding up over the last 800m with the last 200m being the fastest.

How broad is that brush? The industry tends to over react to some things and goes over and above the Court system. In my opinion that doesn't achieve anything except raising the bar higher than applies to society as a whole and creates unnecessary exposure and focus. At the end of the day that focus defeats the intent of having higher penalties. Australian racing relates better to its population because well they don't pretend to be any better than the rest of society.

The Stipes report says - "no rider available".

Yet at Taupo yesterday there was a late scratching because there was no rider available. Not as if the weight was too light at 58.5kg.

Yes but I've never attended a meeting where I wanted to achieve something and not have my ducks lined up well beforehand. But Clubs can't have turnover it there are poor quality low number fields or they can't fill a full race programme for the day.

Maybe "low key" from a recognised elite/star horse perspective but very good betting races with good sized fields and lots of up and comers. Even and competitive fields on good tracks.

So the protocol now is that everytime a horse slips there will be a full track inspection?

Uh? How can there suddenly be a problem after they've already run 6 races?

Or is it? You are either being cute and know what the setup is and how it arose OR you need to look at the various documents and the land transaction that occurred in approximately 2010-11.

Levin RC only pay OMRC $10,000 a meeting to hire the track and all facilities. I'm saying that Levin RC is doing well out of that bargain.

Not directly but their 3 Trusts do. Don't they? More than $10,000 a meeting.

How much time do you need? It isn't exactly rocket science as the variables are known and measureable. Why do you call them "opponents"? Perhaps therein lies the answer to my question - who is benefitting!

Then who is driving things and benefitting? Some have argued that one South Island trainer has held the programme to ransom for a very long time. Has that changed?