Chief Stipe

One of the highlights of my Harness Racing days. We had McShane on course that day. I sat in the Trainers stand to watch the race. They all had stopwatches and were speechless after the race - a world record. They couldn't believe the time he had run. The previous week the crowd were throwing cans at him but that night they were at least 7 deep around the birdcage cheering! We popped into the Drivers room on our way back to the stables and saw Jack Smolenski sitting down looking stuffed - he had blood on his silks that was how bad Lord Module's quarter cracks were.

Mo'unga Verry Elleegant

Bit too much line breeding to Zabeel!!!!

Yeah and Show Day and then the Alan Matson and then the Derby and then........

Toad? Is that millennial speak for something?

Isn't it funny how the Ozzies don't seem to have the same issues with keeping a colt entire whereas in NZ we are quick to cut them for any reason particularly if the get "coltie"! That said that Mo'unga looks a tough sod but a real gentleman. Mmmmm what value a Mo'unga x Verry Eleegant yearling?

What does it matter what age you are? A Boomer? Who cares? Isn't it the quality of your argument that should count? Or for that matter the quality of the science?

@nomates I must confess I grew to become a Trumper once I learnt to go past his style of speaking and analysed what he was saying. He is dare I say a true Patriot. America First. How can you criticise a leader of a country for that? Biden is a walking zombie now the border is a mess, Afghanistan a disaster, the USA now needs to import oil.......

To be fair a lot of the tracks that I mapped are bush tracks however I didn't map those that stated they did camel racing nor those that had overgrown courses that obviously hadn't been used for some time. When you type in a location in Google Earth it zooms out from the current location and flies across the State and then zooms in on the new location. Fascinating tour of Australia!!! What I observed was that any reasonably sized town that had an airport had a racecourse - are the Flying Doctors punters? Now many of these towns don't have TAB meetings but there were equally many that when viewing their location I thought they wouldn't when they did. Lots of picnic meeting clubs but what the hell it creates community involvement doesn't it? I don't buy into the argument that horse racing is in the Ozzie DNA and not in ours. Well it used to be in ours but then we have closed the DNA vaccine i.e. having a racecourse as part of the community.

Just to drive @nomates even more nuts and for @Gammalite I've mapped the known Queensland racecourses. So many I had to create two images.

Your eyesight failing Gamma? Was it Empire Rose that had a go at the end of the Melbourne Cup?

50% of those that get Covid-19 don't even know they have had it. 40% that are symptomatic experience it as a bad cold or slight flu. The remaining 10% have a range of worse symptoms. The average mortality age is 82 and nearly all have other comorbidities. If you died of Covid-19 in Sweden you actually lived longer than the average mortality age.

Have a look at this head on at about 1:04. Great News has a real go at savaging Viteuse just after the post. https://racing.racingnsw.com.au/FreeFields/VideoResult.aspx?MeetDate=2021Aug21&VenueCode=MTg0ODUxMA==&RaceNumber=9&MeetingCategory=Professional&VideoFileType=Stewards

As for the Silver Shadow Stakes you wouldn't have seen a more even race over the complete race distance all day. The horse that went down didn't help itself - Extremetime had the chance to take the gap but didn't go through it and then when Jamaea went for it she tried to attack Jamaea. You can see it in the head on. https://racing.racingnsw.com.au/FreeFields/VideoResult.aspx?MeetDate=2021Aug21&VenueCode=MTg0ODUxMA==&RaceNumber=6&MeetingCategory=Professional&VideoFileType=Stewards

To be fair @Gammalite when was the last time in NZ or the UK you saw 10 Grp 1 horses within a length of each other at the finish on a good track?

@aquaman I had the exact same thought as you regarding Bloomfield's vaccination but immediately concluded I must be wrong. It is really really hard not to be conspiracist sometimes!!! But..... From the UK PHE report 68% of deaths June 22nd to August 15th 68% of those who died aged over 50 were fully vaccinated: With regard to deaths with Covid (within 28 days of a positive test), PHE reports 602 in the double vaccinated and 280 in the unvaccinated in the over-50s in this period.

That's where NZTR are fraudsters. They don't want to close tracks because of cost (what does it really cost NZTR for each West Coast track?) they want to limit the number of meetings available to the Coast and pinch the assets. The latter because they are bereft of any idea on how to increase revenue. The silver bullet is supposedly the 14 meetings a year on the Riccarton AWT. What they don't realise is closing tracks is negative marketing and severely curtails their community reach. I assume you looked at the exercise I did on locating the tracks in Victoria. Is it any wonder that they seem to have a strong and vibrant industry when every town seems to have a sanctioned track?

Exactly the show generally went on. More of the show could have gone on if the ivory tower administrators and West Coast club members had been more flexible in shifting meetings to one of the four courses. Hell they do it in Australia!!!! A few weeks ago the Echuca meeting was flooded by the Murray River - I think it was 24 hours out and they shifted the meeting down the road. In NZ it is all too hard.

But why come down hard on West Coast racing producing "bog tracks" (they don't always do that) when the big boys do it all the time and have been doing it for years?

But it is OK to do so at Riccarton? Or Awapuni, Trentham and Ellerslie.

And Reefton isn't. Out of interest what is the percentage of abandonments at Omoto compared to Kumara?

That was last time. The Government is changing the rules constantly like masks mandatory now and QR signing being compulsory.

Obviously unlike Australia Racing is not considered important enough to have a direct to line to the Governor.

Based purely on geographical/locational advantage @Reefton - a cheap shot in reality. In my view West Coast racing needed Hokitika, Greymouth AND Reefton. You all needed to get more flexible about where to hold the meeting on a given day. If all at one location you'd likely to get more abandonments than less. Of course one location doesn't guarantee a good track either - Riccarton being the classic example of that. The anecdote about the hole in the track is strikingly similar to my experience except the hole I found was four foot deep and the width of a football and 5 horse widths out half way up the home straight at Ellerslie. But then Reefton is perfect is it not?

I thought Waller trained him at one stage or was it someone else? Just checked it was Waller. Aquis own him and they decided to shift him. I remember raving on BOAY about him when he won at Newcastle.