Chief Stipe

I hear Wightman aka @Transparency is on the warpath on a particular Facebook group site. As usual is only antagonising people. Talks about democracy when that site is hardly the epitome of it. @Bird Cage Bill

Who's "camped in whose head" @nomates, @Pete Lane and @Comic Dog ? LOL

Is there much difference per 1 tenth of a point? E.g. 5.2 vs 5.3?

Where is the evidence they are pushing it? Perhaps they are just assuming that people want Fixed Odds as that is the most popular option. Either way the punter needs to specify otherwise how does the Tote operator know? Then again how many people don't use their phone app to make a bet? What proportion of oncourse punters don't know to specify the bet type? Does it matter to new punters who are just there for a day out? LOL in many respects they are likely to get a bargain if they bet early as often the Fixed Odds meander towards the tote odds. In many respects wouldn't it be in ENTAIN's interest to promote the tote? A bigger tote pool gives them more opportunity to lay off closer to start time.

Probably both us but the difference is I don't really care as much as you do obviously.

LOL here we go again your fall back - psycho-analysing! I thought you would be all across this as a partner in the site and your extensive IT background. Quick to poke the borax like a prat when it suits your agenda but when the boot is on the other foot...keep spinning.

I'm looking silly? @Comic Dog has you on full Spin!

It's not an "argument". Track ratings are important for a number of reasons. For example if I'm a trainer and I've set my horse for a R65 1200m at Trentham but I know it will have issues on a very firm track. On raceday morning the track is rated a Soft 7 and I say "great perfect". The horse lines up and they run 1:07.4 (after adjusting for the hand timing). My horse feels the track badly and can't keep up. I now have a sore horse to take home and its upcoming programme screwed. Isn't that a bigger problem than the track being a holding or puggy Heavy 10? BTW that example I used is based on fact.

Oh dear @Pete Lane surely you can do better than that. Really "a portion of our hardware infrastructure" "caused a major technical issue throughout the South Pacific" ?! LOL.

What's your hypothesis? Do you think that Trainers have gone through a learning curve with how to use the AWT in their training regimes? If there is a variation in fatality or injury rates between Cambridge and Awapuni and Cambridge has a lower rate what would you suspect is the cause?

But neither of those subjective terms are measures of firmness. In terms of firmness a Heavy 10 is very very soft. You didn't read what I wrote. I acknowledged variation between tracks and but that you can calibrate the measurement per track to deliver consistent ratings where in terms of firmness a Soft 6 at Riccarton is a Soft 6 at Riverton. Most of us know that the ratings at Riccarton and Trentham are suspect regardless of any variation in the respective tracks.

I don't think anyone is suggesting it is a new practice just that the science supports the practice of stressing horses at an early age to prolong their racing. However that is where the stats presented by Massey may be skewed e.g. what was the training history of the fatalities reported?

Who in the industry asked for a report the largest part of which is a Literature Review probably done by a graduate student! It is not impossible to calibrate your measurement systems to ensure that when a Soft 5.5 is published it is the same as any other track. With a single measure being the result of multi-factor measures. Variability in the measure doesn't help trainers or punters alike. As W Edwards Deming said - to paraphrase: "If you can't remove the variation then you can't shift the mean". That is if you don't reduce the variation then you can't improve things.

Oh thanks for clarifying @Pete Lane - I guess we all have a different understanding of...what was it?... "Just to let everyone know I have bought Pete Lane onboard as part of the RC team in a partnership."

Not a problem Ross. I've taken the liberty of putting up the official description. Mauve, black seams (body & sleeves), scarlet cap with black seams

Hi Ross - do you have a written description as well? Are the colours just one colour?

want to provide advice on the best way forward for the industry From a breeder or owner or punter perspective? I've always wondered where these guys were when our racetracks were heading downhill? Did they offer any advice about the Iconic redevelopment of the Ellerslie track? Will they "advise" that stakes at the top end are raised further? Shouldn't this "powerful" group provide advice to NZTR and HRNZ rather than trying to tell ENTAIN how to suck eggs when it comes to generating wagering revenue?

I'm surprised @Pete Lane you haven't posted the offical communique from your vendor.

It is suspect and I doubt there has been any attempt to normalise it for the very reason there isn't enough collarborating data. Hell @curious we have been banging on about this lack of data and its inconsistency for a very very long time. I always had a hope that what we thought we were seeing was wrong. So will Riccarton and Trentham get away with what they have been doing going forward ( @Dark Beau ) ? As we have been saying theorectically Trentham has been unsafe for two reasons - the track has been rock hard and has been rated as not. The latter makes it hard for trainers to make informed decisions about the safety of their horses. I'm surprised other forums have been apologists for this problem. Not that many will connect the dots between the report and reality. One concern I have is that we will become fixated on producing a Soft 5 track which isn't necessarily a safe track. Firmness is only one metric and shouldn't be the sole one.

Hi Scooby @Comic Dog and @Pete Lane! Bit of pot kettle going on now isn't there!

No Stats alone are not misleading - if the data is flawed then the stats are flawed and the decisions ensuing are flawed. What it does highlight yet again how important it is to standardise the measuring of track ratings (essentially firmness) across the country and to enforce Quality Control standards. I would have thought that this would have been one of the prime responsibilities of NZTR, the National Track Manager and local track managers. Even Horse Welfare and Safety have a need for accurate data. The NZ data Massey University used in their report is suspect at best.

Geez @curious this type of data might cut the mustard in social science but... Take the Track Condition measure for example - hardly a quantitative metric largely subjective in this country. Have they taken the Trentham and Riccarton data out of the analysis? We know their track ratings are BS. For that matter have they taken Trentham's times out of the data? They've even taken the average track rating down to two decimal places - really? The Firm track stats are from two meetings?! Does it seem logical that a 3.7% increase in speed results in over a 100% increase in fatality rate? I wonder if they would release the raw data. I'm afraid they are drawing the wrong conclusions from suspect data which will lead to poor decisions.

But isn't like saying speed or race time is an accurate measure of the firmness of a track? Let alone correlating it with safety.

How do they "tighten" it? Run a roller over it? Or is it the action of horses galloping on it? Or weather? If it is horses galloping on the surface would the track "tighten" during the course of a race meeting?

The correlation between speed and injury seems rather spurious in my mind. I'm not sure the statement that horses are running faster on synthetic vs turf tracks stands up either.