Chief Stipe

I can always back up what I post. Not so much yourself.

PM me.

Lane you had a go @curious on Racecafe and responded really nasty. Your only posts here are to stir and make personal attacks. I think it is clear to everyone what your modus operandi (I have a Latin dictionary too) is. You basically got pissed off here when you I wouldn't get ban @Thomass and a couple of other people. Plus I did respond positively to your request to be a moderator. Strange how you stir here then run over to the Comic Dog and post about it!

Geez you are a nasty piece of work. You actually fit in quite well with the other sides echo chamber where true debate is suppressed if it offends the 12 self-congratulatory society.

Point proven.

Well that counts out the likes of Trentham! What are the "lower overheads"? List them. I can only think of one and that is rates. You still need the same number of track staff to maintain the track and buildings and those costs are the same for every track (depending on the state of your buildings of course). The days of getting a good turnout of members or locals to a working bee have long gone. Don't forget if you shift more racing to these "lower overhead tracks" then the maintenance demands go up.

What has it got to do with RACE or anything they have done? Which Club membership numbers are you talking about? One in particular or all of them? Bear in mind it isn't clear from the accounts if the 1000 members reported in the RACE acounts (which I didn't post above) is the total of all the clubs or just those that joined RACE to gain access to ALL 25 meetings at Awapuni and Trentham. The A-P Club doesn't exist any more. I didn't realise Trainers run their businesses as charities! You miss the point entirely. Trentham and the WRC soley exist for RACING thoroughbreds. That is the sole objective. If there only source of revenue is from holding 12 race meetings a year and that obviously isn't enough to generate enough cash to fund maintenance then they have to be subsidised by the rest of the industry. Or ENTAIN shareholders or some benovelent members. WHERE ARE THE MILLIONS COMING FROM TO BRING TRENTHAM UP TO STANDARD? To say that it is "widely accepted that training operations run at a loss" is naive to say the least. Nearly ALL race meetings run at a loss at current stake levels i.e. they don't earn enough revenue to cover stakes let alone pay for proper Track maintenance. If training operations do run at a loss then there are two reasons - Trainers don't pay enough in fees (i.e. they are subsidised); or The aren't enough horses trained at the track. Therein lies the conundrum for the industry - the biggest asset a racing site has is its very large land area. If you only use it for 12 meetings a year and nothing else to do with horses then it isn't an asset it is a liability. So Cambridge and Matamata are financial because they have the horse numbers. Mmmm - what does that tell you? Ellerslie not having any training is a mistake in my opinion - however they do have Pukekohe. Ellerslie had to sell their hill and put the cash in investments to keep funding the place. They also have the advantage of a very good and well maintained event centre. Does Trentham? Trentham is now a potential cash sink hole - a bit like the Awapuni and Riccarton AWT's.

Touchie, touchie. You are the self proclaimed expert on these things I thought you'd have an opinion? You are not short of expressing it elsewhere about here. Or is that just your shit stirring obsequious natural behaviour?

LOL. I thought you were normally asleep by this time at night.

Sorry don't get what you mean. Where do you end up outside of the site?

Quite frankly I'm past that stage.

What do you mean by "backspace"?

Happy to look into if you explain what you mean.

Too funny - pot kettle... Well what is YOUR explanation?

I see @Pete Lane is still playing ducks and drakes...well more duck than drake.

Leigh McKenzie would you like me to post your crying emails? @Scooby3051

I guess it explains the copied threads.

Wont miss you either. The fact that posts are missing has nothing to do with any one individual. But I guess at the end of the day we are here to server your free loading needs.

Nope she didn't give a shyte.

Start a new thread and ask @Freda and @billy connolly to post again. I'm happy to contribute to a conspiracy on the "missing" thread.

I haven't deleted nor hidden them.

Forgot to add the VRC has a membership of 34,000+. The Wellington Racing Club - 403. Manawatu Racing Club - 112 Marton Jockey Club - 34 Rangitikei Racing Club - 18 Feilding Jockey Club - 30 Hawkes Bay Racing Club - approx. 340. Forgot to add @Dark Beau - the WRC normally only gets allocation 10 race meetings in a year. Awapuni 14 meetings.

The Chief Stipes response was: Fake news. But I guess 12 meetings in 12 months is a bit taxing for Trentham i.e. once every FOUR weeks. Well these are the facts: 1 January 25 to 17 May 25: Jan 3 days Feb 0 days Mar 3 days Apr 1 day May 2 days to date. That's 9 days on four and a half months this year! Throw in Dec 3 days and that's 12 days in five and a half months! But that's it isn't it. They've had 16 meetings in 12 months!! NO Trials! NO Jumpouts! Don't forget there were only an extra 3 meetings due to transfers! Hardly a profit making situation is it!!! FFS no wonder the track was "OK" on Saturday! Champagne Turf treated with silk gloves!!!! By comparison over the same period Flemington had 67 Race Meetings (22), Jumpouts and Trials. The latter two being equivalent to a Trentham Race meeting! The VRC had a loss of AUD$24 Million! Do you @Dark Beau seriously think that Trentham is viable? With a track that needs serious renovation, a new irrigation system, an electronic timing system, new stalls and facilities for horses, serious repairs to existing buildings AND NO resident horse population, no trials, no jumpouts. Declining membership and a total lack of interest from the Wellington population!!!

The industry pays regardless. However some clubs have pissed away more than others. At the end of the day all a Trainer wants is safe track to race on and a safe stall to tie the horse up in before and after.

Jamie Searle - terminal but thankful Michael Fallow May 17, 2025 Wingatui trainers Terry and Debbie Kennedy, former top South Island jockeys, visit Jamie Searle at the Otago Community Hospice in Dunedin this week.Supplied Jamie Searle is pegging out with a strong sense of uplift. The former Southland Times racing, sport and regional reporter has written thousands of stories for a community that is now gathering support around him as he faces the tail end of a terminal diagnosis for a rare and pretty brutal form of stomach cancer. And now he’s become a story himself. Word of his illness has sparked a detonation of support, making for an uncommonly busy deathbed as he fields calls and messages. All the busier because his stricken situation, until very recently, didn’t stop him making work calls and filing stories from his hospital bed. As he saw it, life in general, and the likes of Easter races in particular, were still providing news that deserved be put out there. “Everyone’s got a story to tell.’’John Hawkins / The Southland Times Tears come readily to him nowadays - “I’ve had my meltdowns’’ - but they’ve more often been of gratitude for the messages and calls he’s received. It’s perhaps not easy for a modest man to say publicly, but he acknowledges that if there’s one phrase he’s found himself saying a lot, lately, it’s “I love you, too . . .’’ As for those messages - quick, Jamie. Pick an example. “Oh, fundraising offers to get me special medicine. Too late, guys. But wasn’t that typical New Zealand? Typical Southland. They get behind you. “I’ve had pillars all around me, helping me along the journey,’’ he said. “I’ll walk into a new world feeling I’ve been lucky. Done what I wanted in life.’’ Searle, 61, spent 36 years at the Times, 28 as a dedicated racing reporter, then moving into other sport, and community reporting. Jamie Searle in his element.Nicole Gourley / The Southland Times The Times was “more than home to me. It was a family,’’ he said. He lightly describes himself as “the slowest reporter in Southland’’ but it has been a characteristic of his career that he has always strongly preferred personal contact to zip-zap phoned interviews. From teenaged sporting up-and-comers to Anzac veterans, to just about anybody he’s ever met at an A & P show, he’s come to realise ‘’everyone’s got a story to tell’’ . “You just need to spend a bit of time with them to get it: People live interesting lives.’’ When necessary, he’s stepped up to cover stories of conflict and reproach, but his nature and his professional approach have always been to more ardently seek stories of achievement and positivity. Jamie Searle, listed among colleagues and friends.Supplied His ardour for racing has never dimmed - he’s owned more than 200 horses in his day, typically those he’s assessed as deserving second chances. He is an inductee into the New Zealand Trotting Hall of Fame’s media honours board. On industry racing programme The Box Seat, presenters recently shared memories and thanks for his “enormous’’ contribution to Southland racing, his support for the south, and his collegial presence as a man who would willingly lend a hand to anyone he could help. An “enormous’’ contribution to the racing industry, in particular.Shaun Yeo / Stuff The thoroughbred, harness and greyhound codes and Ascot Park Consortium have decided to name a piece of lawn that greets racegoers on their arrival at the venue the Jamie Searle Lawn. He’s touched, of course. “If they need a flash mower for it, I”ll buy one for them,’’ he added, brightly.