Chief Stipe

There is no "tight five". As many would attest I don't give anyone any favours when it comes to expressing my opinions. I've never been an obsequious fawn like some site managers who run with the hares and hunt with the hounds. However your perception of favouritism is no doubt coloured by the fact that my responses to your posts are sometimes cutting. Why? Another one of my pet hates is industry led propaganda that flies in the face of fact. You repeatedly roll out this stuff and refuse to acknowledge that some of the underlying assumptions are wrong and are based on dubious facts. Yes preach positividdy for as long as you want but the best marketers know that you can only sell the sizzle for so long if the sausage tastes foul or is burnt.

As normal your 🌹 tinted 👓 prevent you from actually comprehending what I wrote. The economics of running a Metro track WITHOUT the additional revenue from a fulltime training centre just don't add up. So Ellerslie, Trentham and Te Rapa are severely constrained. Awapuni and Riccarton now have the operational cost millstones of white elephant AWT's.

Actually you can't blame @TAB For Ever for all the inaccuracies. His Messiah, Messara had a litany of them in his report.

That's because unfortunately envy winds its way through all parts of the industry. New Zealanders are quicker to cut the tall poppy down than applaud their success.

No you have an opinion and that's OK. I've recently had the good fortune to be close to someone who has owned their first horse with Te Akau. They have been very very lucky winning a number of Group races as well as a Group 1. I've been privy to all the communications between Te Akau and that person. I've been impressed. I've seen the contract and indeed have explained to that person what the small print means. I've also had the experience of meeting past syndicate owners from other horses who have the pip with Te Akau for reasons that I can only put down to unrealistic expectations and denial about what they signed up to.

Sam Bergerson and Nicole Shailer are as good as any and both have top pedigrees.

Yes and I've met people who were syndicate owners who feel disenfranchised. I've listened to many of these types of people and invariably there view is based on ignorance.

Get any large group of people together and you have differences of opinion. However when you sign up to any syndicate contract the terms and conditions are clear. If you don't like that then buy and race a horse 100% on your own.

Wrong. Wrong again.

Did they have any more experience than the Te Akau trainers?

Interesting though that Tuxedo ran the same sectional time for the first 400m.

The one's I've heard are not based on any correct facts and are embellished. That's sad to hear. What is the reason for being an anti-fan? Can't be based of performance.

It is a mistake in my opinion. Sand offers no buffer capacity and has very a low water retention rate. Basically Ellerslie is a hydroponic system requiring constant watering which is expensive. The only way they can achieve a forgiving surface for horses is by mechanical intervention. Would be a shame to see Awapuni go the same way. Ellerslie is an artificial track with grass growing on it. Surely with all the money spent and the supposed science behind this customised Strathayr at Ellerslie there would be some repeatable method of measuring the track hardness?

No I'm not suggesting anything regarding the rating of the track. The Soft 5 rating is artificial and is not correlated to any measuring device. Essentially it is nothing more than a finger in the air. As for the times the sectionals don't seem to be consistent. The horses just don't seem able to get get going on it. Of course there are other factors affecting speed. The track remained at a Soft 5 for the whole day even though the weather was fine and there was a breeze. Surely you would have expected the track to improve. A number of trainers have described the track as hard even when the official rating has been a Soft 5.

I hope not. Wouldn't surprise me they haven't learnt from Ellerslie's experience. Seems to have been a few sore horses after Champions Day.

Horses Return to RACE Awapuni Course Proper This week marked an important step at RACE Awapuni, with horses returning to the course proper following it’s reconstruction. Australian track experts, Flemington Track Manager Liam O’Keeffe and On Track’s Callum Brown, visited RACE Awapuni this week for a final inspection. Following their evaluation, it was agreed the track was ready for horses to return to it. The first group of horses worked on the surface on Monday afternoon, followed by another session on Tuesday morning. Feedback from trainers and riders has been positive, and with just over seven weeks until the first scheduled race meeting on Friday, April 25, further improvements are expected as the track continues to settle. In preparation for racing, gallops will be held in the coming weeks, followed by a set of jump outs on April 1 and official trials on April 8. RACE CEO Tim Savell acknowledged the collective effort behind the track’s return, stating, “It’s great to see that all the hard work from so many people over the last 18 months is coming to fruition. “While we are particularly grateful to Callum Brown and Liam O’Keeffe for coming on course earlier this week, the dedicated efforts of our track manager Daniel Amies over the past 18 months and the assistance of Regional Track Advisor Bryce Mildon have ensured the revised return to racing timelines have been met.” “While there is still plenty to achieve over the next few weeks, the team and everyone within the wider RACE Group is looking forward to the resumption of racing at Awapuni when the track is ready.” NZTR COO Darin Balcombe applauded those involved in bringing the course to this stage. “While there is still work to be done, it is pleasing to hear the positive feedback from senior riders and trainers after the gallops this week. We were lucky to have the expert advice of Liam O Keefe and Callum Brown to ensure everything was on the right track and the Club has worked hard to get to this point. We are excited to see the surface continue to improve in the coming weeks prior to their return to racing in April” Jayne Ivil also visited RACE Awapuni to gather insights from Liam O’Keeffe, Callum Brown, and RACE Awapuni Track Manager Daniel Amies.

Horse racing - I Wish I Win retires: New Zealand sprinter’s remarkable career ends By Michael Guerin NZ Herald· 12 Mar, 2025 04:00 PM4 mins to read Save Share I Wish I Win winning Golden Eagle (2022). Photo / Supplied I Wish I Win has come to the end of a road he probably had no right ever to be on. The brave New Zealand sprinter was retired on Wednesday, ending a remarkable career that very nearly wasn’t. Born with the worst legs imaginable, I Wish I Win went on to win over $12.8 million in stakes and become the most surprising sprinting star of his generation after transferring from New Zealand to Victorian trainers Peter Moody and Katherine Coleman. The one-time Group 1-placed miler won the A$10 million Golden Eagle (1500m) before downing the reigning Everest champion Giga Kick in the TJ Smith over 1200m at Randwick. He almost went one better in the richest race of them all, The Everest itself, when in 2023, representing New Zealand in the Entain/TAB slot, he finished a close second to Think About It. But now one of racing’s fairytales has ended. Not the way owners Mark Chittick and Moody would have chosen, but without one regret. “Moods and Katherine were getting him ready [for the] Ryder Stakes in Sydney, and he galloped well enough on Tuesday, but they thought he was a bit off after,” Waikato Stud boss Chittick said. “They brought him out of his box around 4pm on Tuesday, and he wasn’t right. Moods termed it 3 out of 5 lame, so the decision was made straight away. “He has been too special, too brave, for us to take any risks with. “He will come home and have a paddock right outside our house for the rest of his days. He will be looked after like a king, because he is one.” Everybody who loves racehorses has marvelled at the pictures of I Wish I Win as a foal, the son of Waikato Stud’s other king in Savabeel looking more like a kid’s drawing of a horse than one who would become one of the best sprinters in the world. Chittick and his staff deal with hundreds of horses a year and the hardened horseman believes, with a slight quiver in his voice, what I Wish I Win was as a foal helped him become I Wish I Win the superstar. “When a foal is born like that, it is a big effort just to survive, and that is when we knew he had heart. “I think that is what made him special later. That will to live became will to win. “Before the race, he would give you that look like he was going to go out there and give it his best. “You end up loving horses like that. It is not about the money they win, it is because they are brave.” But the mega-money races are also occasions, and I Wish I Win has taken Chittick and his family on the journey of a lifetime. “Races like the Golden Eagle and the Everest haven’t been around for that long, so to be part of them, it is a real privilege. “For the Golden Eagle, we were partnered with the Muscular Dystrophy Foundation of NSW, which was incredibly special. “Then, when he won the TJ Smith, plenty of my family were there and Savabeel sired the ATC Derby winner [Major Beel] the same day. “They are the days people like us dream of, and he made them come true. “To represent your country and the New Zealand industry with him in the Everest, to know so many people here were behind him, that was amazing and hard to put into words.” Now the career of one of the greats has come to an end, Chittick’s gratitude overflows. “You don’t have a horse like this, an experience like this without so many people helping,” he says. “It wouldn’t have happened without our staff here, Jamie and Chanel Beatson who broke him in, Jamie Richards [first trainer], of course Moods and Katherine and all the jockeys who looked after him so well. “We have loved it, and I wish I could go on, but the horse comes first. So he is coming home.” I WISH I WIN Breeding: Savabeel-Make A Wish Age: 6-year-old gelding. Breeder: Mark Chittick. Owners: Mark Chittick, Peter Moody. Trainers: Jamie Richards (NZ), Peter Moody and Katherine Coleman (Australia). Career record: 25 starts, 7 wins, 14 placings. Stake earnings: $12,844,300. Career highlights: Major wins: Golden Eagle, T J Smith (2023), Kingsford Smith Cup. Placings: 2nd in Everest, Doomben 10,000, Lightning Stakes; 3rd in Newmarket Hcp, Memsie, T J Smith (2024), Manikato Stakes, Futurity Stakes.

Simply you cannot get a decent return on the capital invested (e.g. land value) to maintain the infrastructure required to hold racing. Once you pull out of providing training and stabling facilities on a Metro course your options for earning revenue are limited to holding racedays. Given most of the funding from NZTR goes towards Stakes the only source of revenue to maintain your assets comes from raceday attendances and hospitality revenue. Raceday margins on hospitality would be below industry averages I would assume.

That statement is a little bit embellished. York racecourse is to the south of the City of York and has predominantly farmland to the south. Indeed the perimeter of the City is ALL farmland - that perimeter is about 2.5km from the centre of town i.e. the distance between the Auckland CBD and Ellerslie! Ellerslie has been landlocked by industry and residential housing for a very very long time. Within a 25 mile radius of York there is roughly the same population as Auckland. That distance is the same as between Ellerslie and Pukekohe. The population of York City is about 200,000 and hasn't grown much at all nor is it likely to. The population has only grown 2% in 10 years! York may have a capacity of 60,000 but when was the last time it had a capacity crowd? Over the 4 day Ebor festival the total attendance was 77,000. With the max on one day being 28,000. The attendees come from all over the UK (pop. approx. 70 million) for that meeting.

How does this post relate to what @Wingman posted?

How do you know they don't have a sponsor? Did the Mitchell family not pay anything to present the trophy last year?

Yeah but if they who decide the programme were on to it and knew what they were doing then there wouldn't have to be "factual approaches".

They'll have to do both. Trentham should be the first asset sale. They've let that go too far. Build a course in the Wairarapa or Kapiti Coast.

My view is now instead of worrying about if a race makes money we should be focused on making sure that the money we have been promised is spent on the right things to make racing sustainable. Stakes isn't anywhere close.

That may very well be the case but "think" is subjective.