Chief Stipe

So Labours approach to improving the stats was to let Maori out of jail? What happened to the billions given in Treaty settlements and topped up via other "social" programmes? Go cry me a river.

Open Handicap racing in NZ is on life support. Novelty races with big prizes is the wrong way to save it.

Who apart from you cares Chazza?

https://fb.watch/nVImBvU5Nx/?mibextid=NnVzG8&startTimeMs=1352

Reminds me of my best horse. She would be asleep in her stall prior to track work or a race. Relaxed as. When it came time to saddle up you'd scratch her head and and show her the saddle. She'd give her head a good shake and wakeup. Next you placed the saddle on her back with the straps undone. She'd stretch each leg one by one then stretch as far forward with her front legs together and as far back with her back legs as she could with her stomach just about touching the ground. When I first saw her do it I thought she was going to break every tendon in her body. Once she'd done that she'd light up and mean business.

Tell us where National spent more on electioneering than Labour? It wouldn't have made a difference anyway. We still have no idea who you preferred.

Remember the drama when he got caught in traffic due to a crash on his way to the Magic Millions. He suffered badly from the heat while stuck in the float for four hours. The races were delayed and he had a police escort to the track. He duly won. He subsequently lost the race because he returned a positive to regumate - which is only normally given to mares to regulate them when in season. The owner sued Queensland Racing and took them to the Supreme Court and have the disqualification overturned. All sorts of issues ongoing from that descision. https://www.racing.com/news/2022-12-24/news-industry-alligator-bloods-disqualification-voided As for the ownership issues - the original owner went bust and was ineligible to keep owning him. I believe there is still an ongoing court case with Queensland racing over that issue. Gerry Harvey stepped up bought him.

Interesting that the article says a third of thoroughbreds suffer from the condition but it only seriously affects a few.

Sigh.... He was nearly retired in 2020 due to spinal issues requiring extensive spinal surgery. https://www.vrc.com.au/latest-news/alligator-blood-back-with-a-vengeance/ I loved the story about the carrot exercise where they put a carrot between his front legs to get him to stretch his back. Apparently he ate bags of them. Probably something @Freda you should add to the training programme.

Might swap out Fangirl for Romantic Warrior.

@holy ravioli conveniently overlooks the contributions from the unions to Labour.

Who's going to wager on them?

My thoughts exactly. The NZ novelty races are worse because we have fewer horse numbers than OZ to draw on. A bit deja vu. Reminiscent of past so called "boom times" where the industry wasted money on similar races. Remember the Kelt! I see these new ones have nice PC names as well.

Full terms and conditions. Innovation Races 23-24.pdf

Piss off and ruin another Topic somewhere else while adults discuss this concept race and its obvious flaws here.

@Freda can probably tell us but Te Akau are there and Kenny Rae(?).

Good point but those Karaka races have some quality about them. Here we are leading up to Cup week at Riccarton and there is an Open Handicap 1400m race on Saturday with 13 starters with an average rating of 81.

Actually thinking about this a bit more isn't the industry going down the same stupid path it has done before? Spending windfall profits on stakes for a few while neglecting the infrastructure. Wouldn't $350k a year be better spent on improving the track and training facilities at Riccarton?

That's one way of looking at it. But what quality field would you get? 16 horses over 1600m? I'd imagine the quality would drop off real quick after 7 or 8.

So that's the objective? Give South Island trainers only the chance of winning a $350k race? The whole concept seems to be a bit off.

What isn't clear is the objective of the race. What are they trying to achieve? If that was clearly defined then the rules would be easier to make!

Had a wind operation I believe.

I imagine Te Akau will be targeting it. On The Bubbles is now resident in the south.

FFS take a long look in the mirror. You're an irritant who speaks in ideological slogans and throws clown emojis around like confetti. Barely any of what you write makes sense. If you don't vote Labour or National I can only assume you don't vote at all as far as I know there are no Communist party candidates.

I take it you are not laying Imperatriz in the Manikato? Or are you waiting until closer to the race? Presumably to see which way the blades of grass are leaning.