Chief Stipe

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.

Been there several times and I'm "from" none of the places you mentioned. Regardless if they were from the Wairarapa and Wellington they were probably Public Servants or Government contractors on holiday.

You are guessing the net revenue. However I agree Champions Day didn't return a net profit in terms of stakes paid to wagering revenue. However do you have an example of a race meeting anywhere in Australia that does?

To have a fair comparison you need to subtract the money coming from sources other than punting revenue. Slot holders are gamblers. Sponsors are looking for marketing exposure and expense their contribution as that. I'm not sure where the Owner money comes into it unless you are calling a Slot Holder an Owner.

Did you subtract the sweepstake money?

Was there no BGP turnover Champions day? Surely they only included NZ sourced turnover? Still nowhere near Melbourne Cup turnover.

Instead of going to your set position of positividdy and laying it on like maple syrup why don't you stop and consider that the people protesting have real skin in the game and have tried and tried to be heard. As for the Trainers Association and the Programming Committees they seem toothless, powerless and/or too keen to toe what they perceived to be the party line. The only time there are changes to schedules is when the "Big Five" Stables exert combined pressure. However they are hestitant to do that when it comes to the Ellerslie track and the all roads lead there policy.

Not entirely correct. There have been many instances in the past two seasons where trainers have protested that they need grass track trials when none had been scheduled. Several big stables exerted their influence (pressure?) to get trials and that was from NZ's most horse populated region.

But they may not be from NZ.

Perhaps for some. I wouldn't worry about the write down other than using it as a means of working out what they expected to achieve profit wise from increased customers and the promised legislation. From what we knew about the financial health of NZTAB before the sale we knew that the business was overvalued by ENTAIN based on those financials alone. There was a discussion on BOAY about that. The deal always did have a smoke and mirrors flavour to it. I look at the 5 year funding promise as a windfall rather than long term. The industry is not spending that windfall wisely. If you take a negative strategic view then you would be spending more on fixing the infrastructure (e.g. tracks) in the first two years rather than throwing it at top end stakes and novelty races. (I think they need to spend another $15 million on the Ellerslie track - $55 million and they have been doing "remedial work" since it was first raced on!). Trentham is a lost cause and Riccarton is lingering (malingering?). Cambridge is dead end. Te Rapa is in sunset and we won't mention Hastings. The biggest worry is ENTAIN are a FTSE 100 company and have corporate knowhow to operate on a global stage. What are the get out clauses in the contract with NZTAB during the first 5 years and after?

I suspect McAnulty and NZTAB over promised with the legislation and the projected financial numbers were inflated. ENTAIN over valued the business from the beginning. The write down is just a paper loss at this stage.

You weren't comparing apples with apples. The large differences in NZ tote pools was when they switched from NZTAB only tote pools to the World Pool. Obviously the latter would always be much larger than the NZ tote. Simply because Race 4 WASN'T a world pool race.

Entain recruits more Kiwi gamblers, but writes down TAB NZ by $322m Tom Pullar-Strecker March 11, 2025 Entain says it is encouraged by TAB’s “accelerating moment”, but has reduced forecasts for its underlying growth.MONIQUE FORD / THE POST British gambling giant Entain says it grew the number Kiwis gambling through the TAB by 10% last year and increased its net gaming revenues by 4%. Net gaming revenues measure the value of bets placed after expenses such as taxes. It said in its annual report that it was encouraged by the TAB’s “accelerating momentum through the year”. “More customers in New Zealand are enjoying an enhanced and engaging sports betting experience,” it said. However, Entain indicated it did not expect to make as much profit as it had expected a year ago from the gambling partnership, announcing it had written down the book value of the business by £142.5m (NZ$322m) to just £89m. Entain attributed part of the write-down to the Government being slow to implement planned technical measures to block Kiwis from easily accessing rival overseas gambling websites. But it said it had also reduced its forecasts for TAB NZ’s underlying growth. “Growth in New Zealand has been good, up 4% for the year and up 7% in the second half of the year, but we're still waiting for the ‘legislative net’, which is the catalyst for the licence market to grow materially,” chief financial officer Rob Wood told investors. “We believe that's on track to come this year, but the delay does mean we're a little behind our original forecasts.” In May 2023, the former government gave the TAB the green light to effectively outsource its entire business to Entain. Entain, whose brands include Ladbrokes, agreed to take over the running of the TAB’s betting and broadcast operations for 25 years in return for half of the TAB’s net betting revenues — guaranteeing the racing industry pay-outs of $900 million over five years from the half share it didn’t take. TAB New Zealand has so far refused to release full details of the strategic partnering agreement with Entain that was approved by the former government in 2023. A request from The Post for the release of the contract under the Official Information Act has been under consideration by the Ombudsman since July 2023.

Yeah Wodeton looked ordinary in his last two wins. The one I like is Tentyris who just keeps getting better and the "experts" haven't rated him but surely they do now. He just missed in the Blue Diamond having to come from a way back late running a couple of sub 11's as well.

That's how I saw it and he lifted again. Only good horses can do that.

So you didn't believe what Shinn said? He said Return to the Conquer got to the front and switched off and then when the other horse came up to him he lifted again. Takes a good horse to do that. As for what happens past the post who cares. The Jockey knows where the post is and arguably in this case so does the horse.

That damn track again.

I have a close friend who has a share in the 1000 Guineas winner. Soon after the filly won the race David contacted my friend and congratulated them. After thanking him for his kind words they asked why wasn't he there oncourse at Riccarton. He said he was spending time with Blake Shinn (he was suspended at the time) showing him the Te Akau operation and that day they were at the Te Akau stud farm. My friend mentioned it to Reese Trumper (Racing Manager) who said the reason was they were engaging Shinn for some of the major races towards the end of the summer. So they put that plan in place in November last year. They got Shinn over a few times to ride trackwork and the large trial day at Matamata in the middle of January. So the Champions Day wins and the milestones of 100 Grp wins for the stable along with the NZB Kiwi win were achieved with meticulous long term planning.