Chief Stipe

Looks like Kinnaird is another cheap colt going places. Purchased for $340k at Karaka 2025 by Te Akau. Look at the breeding - NZ and OZ's best sires on both sides of the pedigree, his dam has already left an Australian Derby winner and his 3rd dam was the mighty Solveig.

Looks like Kinnaird is another cheap colt going places. Purchased for $340k at Karaka 2025 by Te Akau. Look at the breeding - NZ and OZ's best sires on both sides of the pedigree, his dam has already left an Australian Derby winner and his 3rd dam was the mighty Soveig.

The horses were tougher but I think there was more respect. Most licensees called the Stipes "Sir".

The "good old days" being better than today winds me up. I think part of the problem is we THINK things were better but the difference is we didn't have all this information (much of which is negative) at our finger tips. The number of races that were televised in the 70's and 80's was very small. We didn't even have videos! I remember replaying vinyl record replays of my Dad's horses winning at Addington and then we moved to cassette tapes. When dad was living in Nelson his horse Dunhill was racing in the Timaru Challenge stakes in the early 80's - he couldn't get 3ZB where he was which was the only radio station broadcasting the races. So he rang me in Christchurch and I went around to my Uncle's and we held the phone to the radio so he could hear the race! The grass tracks were as rough as guts. It took an age to queue to get a bet on. But it WAS easy to set a horse up for a big punt!

So says Mark Jones.

Tokyo Rose wins Fruit Bowl Sunday, 23 February 2025 Bruce Stewart Journalist The Sangster Electrical Fruit Bowl at Cromwell today turned into a bit of a fruit salad. It took three attempts to get the race underway. The third attempt was also messy and robbed of some of its interest when Always On Sale appeared to shy at the tape release turning sideways and wrecking the chances of favourite Pinseeker who was pulled out of the race. However at the end of the 2600 metre harness racing feature it was Tokyo Rose (Captaintreacherous) trained by Mark Jones that came out on top. Once the field was finally away from the start line, driver Blair Orange slotted Tokyo Rose into the one one. With 700 metres to run and with other runners starting to improve, Orange shot his mare round the field and got her rolling for home at a good clip. At the line she was four and three quarters of a length in front of second placegetter Homebush Lad. “We got all the favours in the one one and did no work, so it was the perfect trip for us. She can hold her speed for a long way. She’s got a high cruising speed and he drove her perfectly as you’d expect from him (laughter),” Jones said. Tokyo Rose (File - Bruce Stewart) Tokyo Rose raced on Friday (the first day of the Cromwell meeting) running second to Ebury Street. Having raced the mare over two days at Blenheim twelve months ago, Jones was confident she’d back up. “She won both days and probably went just as good on the second day. I was pretty confident she would back up today.” The win was the five year old’s seventh and fifth on the grass but Jones says her future lies in Australia. “She’s probably going to head to Menangle shortly with the mile racing over there for mares. She’s getting up in the grades here so it’s not going to be easy. She’ll race there for twelve to eighteen months and then we’ll bring her back in foal. She’ll love the mile, she’s quick off the gate. A good mile is a good stayers race. She’ll go 1-50 no worries.”

This is a classic example of crap headline grabbing by @Archie Butterfly . As you can see the inference is that the win by Tokyo Rose NZ at Menagle was acheived by something nefarious being done by Jason Grimson. The fact is when you read on you will see Mark Jones (who trained the horse in NZ) predicted in February 2025 that she would go 1:50 at Menangle. Not surprising when she has run a 1:51.2 mile at Wyndham!!

Just don't mention the NZ Oaks.

What changed after six races? Did it rain?

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?

Even worse if you like a horse that is in two futures market races for the same day and is nominated for both!!! Money for jam for the TAB. Got burnt once never again.