Chief Stipe

As pointless as you running for office in the industry.

Or go down market and eat with Little Leo at HQ.

I guess that explains your Twitter account.

Great so you will have at least one horse racing on the AWT.

At least we all agree (even Pitty) that the Riccarton track is more often than not is crap on raceday. If as you and Pitty constantly bang on about believe that irrigation is the problem why has that problem been fixed? However from the observations I and others have made it doesn't seem to the cause of the problem. What @billy connolly describes matches what @Freda has posted. Clearly it isn't an irrigation problem. So where is the money coming from to fix the South Islands Premier Track? When will it be fixed? Only 5 months to Guineas Day and Cup Week. Time is running out especially if you want to use machinery without further stuffing the soil and turf.

Has your horse had soundness issues?

Poor stock selection and reluctance to quickly weed out the slow ones.

A lot of these questions would be answered or given some perspective if the RIU released the level of methamphetamine that was detected. For example the level of morphine in the recent Te Akau case was believed to be minuscule and nowhere enough to be even therapeutic. Allegedly the RIU Manager was tasked with addressing this problem of environmental contamination a very long time ago. Needless to say it appears nothing was done.

Correct. What did I say that contradicts that? Hell Cambridge proved you don't need people on course nor flash facilities to have a race meeting! His delivery model might be but I bet he won't pass on any cost savings to his owners. The $48 million invested in AWT's might reduce Pitty's training costs or make his life easier but just because Pitty is better off doesn't make the industry as a whole better off. The $48 million is invested in AWT's which are a higher cost to service and maintain than a turf track. We can't maintain our premier turf tracks because we don't have sufficient income. There is no evidence that the AWT's will produce enough extra revenue to cover their own operational and maintenance costs let alone have any left over to fix the premier turf tracks. Now places like Timaru and Riverton have excellent turf tracks and are run by clubs that pay their way - i.e. they are low cost. Riccarton is relying on the capital from a Timaru cash up to fix their own turf track however it is unlikely to be anywhere enough.

Just did above. The proposed stake structure at Ellerslie will do the opposite to what they think it will do. It will weaken the rest of the clubs just as the $48 million invested in the AWT's will do. Look at OZ they are doing the opposite they are investing in their country and provincial clubs just as much if not more than the metro clubs. Why? Because it develops and sustains interest in racing in disparate communities. What are we doing? Centralising to locations where we have to compete with every other show in town and creating a high cost delivery model.

How is it Fake News? Sure raise money and build a Strathayr but the proposed Stake structure is egotistical wank and would join the AWT's as changes that will kill Thoroughbred Racing in NZ. It distorts the market by utilising industry capital that Ellerslie has built up through gift and subsidisation.

You could achieve much of what you are proposing now by dropping the stupid tiered racing structure and reducing and redistributing top end stakes. We are in dreamland at the moment with our Group Racing. If we don't redistribute and quickly then watch the status of many of our Group races go through the floor. Even if you redistributed the stakes to the bottom end you would still get the same horses running around. We need to start again and build back up.

Yes I support it. But they don't need to sell the hill to achieve what they are aiming to do. If they are committed to that location then selling off the hill and reducing the land available is ludicrous.

Well that's where we are at. No point closing down good tracks either and pissing the money away on white elephants (AWT's) and stakes and not fixing the turf tracks (e.g. Riccarton). Get back to the core fundamentals - horse racing other horse's on a consistent and safe turf surface. Which equals a quality product that punters have confidence in punting on which leads to more revenue which leads to better returns to Owners. Don't get the cart before the horse. FFS @barryb assuming you are an owner you can't tell me you haven't been really pissed off with some of the surfaces that your horses have had to run on.

Don't disagree. But as an Owner what was/is worse is pitching up with your horse for a targeted race and the track condition is a lottery or worse unsafe. Doesn't matter then how much the stake was/is or how good or well trained the horse was/is as it becomes luck. Those same issues don't encourage the punter either! Then if luck does go your way on an unsuitable track and your horse is a useful gelding you get rorted by the handicapping system. I've said it many a time on BOAY - I owned a very useful galloper who ran 1:20 at Te Rapa and returned a cheque everytime he raced. Lost money overall as an owner! BUT would have made money if the tracks had been more consistent and he was handicapped out of contention.

Where do you think I got my education from? Hint: It wasn't from attending Ellerslie, Te Rapa, Awapuni, Trentham or Riccarton.

Didn't used to be. Whose fault is that? Closing down perfectly good race tracks isn't going to help.

It doesn't improve race fields but a consistent surface that plays evenly assist punter confidence i.e. they are more likely to have a bet. That's where you and I differ. With the state of New Zealand's "Premier" tracks at the moment (abysmal stakes aside) I have zero motivation to buy a yearling at all let alone buy a share in a syndicate. The surfaces are just not up to scratch. I'm starting to think that it isn't helping our good horses when they trip across the ditch either where they have dozen's of what you call "flash tracks". Chicken and egg to a degree. But we've tried throwing money at stakes at the expense of investing in racing surfaces and that has failed. Why has it failed? Because we have ignored those who actually provide the revenue - it isn't the Owner it is the Punter. At the end of the day most Owners have already had their biggest punt by buying a horse. It doesn't take long when owning a horse that punting everytime your horse races only adds to your losses. The "Flash Shop Front's" are the huge empty grandstands and members bars. I'm not ignoring the product supplier - I've been one myself. What was most important to me was a good, consistent and safe surface for my investment to run on. Hell I've had the thrill of my horses winning all round the country and I tell you when they did I didn't give a shyte about the facilities! But I tell you what really fucked me off was when I had a very valuable horse and found it housed on course in a stable or yard that was falling apart and even dangerous and a track surface that was inconsistent and dangerous. Then to see the horse struggle in the conditions because the Jockey hadn't walked the track like I had and didn't pick the right lane to run in!

You would assume that it would be a significant amount of on-course betting. But there is no longer a significant amount of on-course betting. As a metric on-course turnover is now superfluous and it is difficult to measure. More and more people are using their smart phone apps on-course. No less or more of a hunch than you however it is easy to compare oncourse turnover versus offcourse turnover and the difference in magnitude is heavily skewed towards offcourse. I remember as an owner in a large syndicate that in 52 races there was only one day (NZ Oaks) where nearly the entire syndicate turned up. The majority of the time there was only one owner present. Also owners who do like a punt listen to their trainer and even newbies over time get very knowledgeable about the competition. On more than one occasion the syndicate I was involved in took the TAB to the cleaners on Fixed Odds i.e. the TAB suffered a net loss in revenue. What you are suggesting is a loyalty type programme for owners who wager but your proposal although with good intentions has a number of flaws. For a start it would involve data sharing between the codes and the TAB regarding ownership and percentages. As we have seen with Harness recently those records are not very accurate. There would also be questions of data sharing and privacy. That aside what is the objective of your suggested loyalty programme? In my opinion there can be only one objective and that is to increase revenue and therefore ultimately increase stakes and therefore rewards to owners. Your proposal doesn't do that. Essentially what it does is reduce revenue by offering discounted bets. As others have pointed out it would be far better to competitively price the product. It would also help if the focus was on improving the quality of the product i.e. the tracks and the race fields. That would attract more wagering on our product and lead to more stakes to distribute.

Did you walk the main turf track as well?

I accept the first part of your statement. Afterall you are paying shyte load of money for your hobby. But how do you know about the latter? I would suggest that owners are not the source of the majority of horse wagering revenue. Far from it.

Rule Number(s): 869(2)Following the running of Race 8, The Breeders NZ Pacing Oaks, an Information was filed by Chief Stipendiary Steward, Mr N Ydgren alleging a breach of Rule 869(2) by Open Driver, Ms S Ottley. The information alleged; ”S Ottley used her whip with more than a wrist flicking motion in the home straight”. ... (Feed generated with FetchRSS)View the full article

Rule Number(s): 869(2)Following the running of Race 8, The Breeders NZ Pacing Oaks, an Information was filed by Chief Stipendiary Steward, Mr N Ydgren alleging a breach of Rule 869(2) by Open Driver, Mr G O’Reilly. The information alleged; ”G O’Reilly (SWEET BELLE) used his whip with more than a wrist flicking motion in the ... (Feed generated with FetchRSS)View the full article

Are North Island vets crap?

Actually I'm thinking that there are bigger problems than not changing in play odds for sports as in the newspaper report. I've seen some funny things recently. I saw a horse paying around $10 on the tote and $30's on Fixed odds. I liked it regardless of the price but definitely jumped on the $30's. The Fixed odds price went out more (after the tote closed!) as did the tote price which ended up at $16.