Chief Stipe

Why do you think Tony Lee got pissed off being REQUIRED to do it?!!

@Thomass you're on the thin ice of moderation if you keep manipulating the facts with misinformation.

Yep they were really confident that the blinkers would "work" first time...yeah na! Mr Brightside would probably have won without them just as he did in the Makybe Diva Stakes over the same distance at the same track in September with essentially an identical field!

You forget to mention that Mr Brightside had won 7 Grp 1's without them. As for the journalist hyperbole you leave out the rest of the article... Will Hayes said the blinkers were actually father David’s idea, and though he and J.D. were nervy before the jump, it all worked out – just. “The old man in Hong Kong suggested it, but it’s a team effort and Mr. Brightside represents our team so well,” he said. “It was always a flight risk, and I can tell you, me and JD breathed a nice sigh of relief – we were standing next to each other when he left the gates so well. It was, ‘oh, thank goodness’. “I'd like to say it was an easy watch after that, but it certainly wasn’t.

The other interesting aspect of the race was Mr Brightside wasn't tasked with dragging the field up to a lunatic tearaway Pride of Jenni.

Perhaps but did it really make a difference? His last 200m might have been quick but they ran 1:36 for a Grp 1 on a Good 4 track. The maidens at Riccarton ran 0.8 of a second slower on a Soft 6!!!

Mr Brightside has done that many times before WITHOUT blinkers. His form has hardly been poor preceding yesterday.

There aren't that many horses to program for in the South Island. BTW I thought NZTR drove the programming? After all it seems the programming committee doesn't have much influence.

What does "work" mean? Up until yesterday Mr Brightside had earnt $15m, won 6 Grp1's and won 45% of the time. Fairly good data to support you don't need them. Plus his form is best at Flemington. In my opinion he would have won without them like he did in September in the Grp 1 Makybe Diva.

In my opinion that isn't related to how much irrigation was applied on the Thursday. It is a combination of a number of challenging factors to manage. For example - how much do you apply? 5ml? 10ml? 12ml? You don't seem to disagree that am amount should have been applied. In my opinion the issue goes back before Thursday. We don't have full access to the daily water budget for the track. But if smaller amounts had been applied more regularly then that would negate the need for a large dollop all at once. One of the reasons you need to apply large amounts is when the track is dry you initially get run off and because of disparity in underlying soil and drainage some sections will get wet quicker hence the creation of fast and slow lanes. So ideally you keep the track and moisture level in a narrow soft range and THEN play the weather forecast closer to raceday. Perhaps they did that but because the top layer soil structure is stuffed you don't have much buffer to get it wrong. Well we did have some trainers joining the hundreds of experts. The track managers should be blamed the least for these issues. They are trying to manage tracks that have had no substantial renovation or annual maintenance investment for decades.

Research and an open mind.

Or look at the stopwatch?

If the choice is race on a Soft 6 or have a horse spend 12 hours in a float because the meeting was abandoned after Race 1 then I'd go for the Soft 6. However the reported ratings and other rating metrics (or lack of) are a nonsense and ultimately detract from the good efforts of track staff. Why didn't they upgrade the track rating later to what was obviously a Good 4?

Yeah well it wasn't a Soft 5 midway through the raceday.

The track seemed to play quite fair today.

That's exactly what the R75 last race at Riccarton was won in.

They went 1:33.89.

2:02 isn't too bad for an R75 2000m either!! Definitely was a Good 4 at least by then.

Geez judging by the time in the Guineas it's probably a G4 now.

Well got that wrong. If anything the track might be a Soft 7!!! Doesn't look as warm as forecast.

I thought you were going to get there @Freda. Would have been poetic justice given the out of order humourless comment from @billy connolly! Just beaten by a longer horse!

Swayzee is looking in good form.

Very good point about the saline. Do nitrate levels affect it as well? I suspect the Rating might be one point out which seems to be common for most track reports that we get. In the absence of penetrometer or Going Stick readings I can't see how the Track ratings can be anything but finger in the ground subjective guesses. So expect to see a one point upgrade after race one taking it to a Soft 5. Then a one point upgrade after race two - G4. Then a retrospective upgrade of another point in the Stewards report - G3. Everything will be a recommended G4 improving to a G3 by mid-afternoon. Which means it will probably end up a G2. The big question is - where is the fast lane and who knows where it is?

Meanwhile at Flemington:

No penetrometer reading. Have Clubs been advised to do away with this measure? Thinking about the moisture meter variation - wouldn't you have to take readings from the same spots for it to be accurate? Unlike the penetrometer the moisture meter would be influenced more by localised soil structure. On the flip side it is more likely to be affected by uneven irrigation.