Chief Stipe

Liar.

FFS Reefton it was laid 23 years ago! I have no idea who consulted on or did the track renovation 23 years. However after 23 years it needs to be done again which is on par with the Metrop tracks in OZ. Actually compared to them it is well overdue. Also I'm sure that the constraints under which they had to work limited the scope of doing a good job e.g. financial constraints and minimal downtime. Take Flemington for example - in 2007 they spent A$12m on renovating the main track. This is what they did: The turf was laid on 300mm of a specialist soil profile designed so that it would retain 9% moisture. "The soil came from Nyora in Gippsland (approximately three hours drive south west of Melbourne)," explained Mick. "We did a lot of testing during the reconstruction; we tested all the material in and out, twice, and if it didn't comply it was rejected. A third of the material was rejected and had to be reblended; so, it was costly but, in the long run, it will prove to be cheap." Under the soil profile is 100mm of bluestone and below that a total of 25km of herring bone drainage. These feed into a collector drain that has a pumped storm water system attached. The previous system relied on gravity and the course was at the mercy of the river level to drain in the event of flooding. "All the drainage runs across the track at a 45 degree angle, so any rain falling from the outside of the track has got to cross four drains to reach the collector drain on the inside," Mick continued. "In the new track we have also designed in a fall of 1.5% in the home straight, 4.5 % on the first bend, 2% on back straight, and 2.5%/3.5%/2.5% transitional on the top turn, which also evens out the running for the horses, particularly on the bends." Every 6 months they perform turf renovation timed after their Spring Carnival and Autumn Carnival. There is 7 weeks between the last meeting of the Spring Carnival and the next meeting. Now this is a track that can take 52mm on Melbourne Cup Day and still race. We mow the track down to 60mm, sweep up the grass, and then hollow tine core the track at 80 x 80mm spacings to a depth just below the thatch. We sweep up the cores and remove them, then top dress the track with the exact same sand that is in the track currently. We then verti-drain the entire track to a depth of 190mm, brush the sand into those holes, oversow the track with Perennial Ryegrass and Kentucky Bluegrass and then fertilise according to our soil reports. Finally we irrigate and let the track rest from there and recover.

Not enough sand.

All that aside they are still dominating NZ racing.

Ah JJ Flash - are you no longer capable of posting? I guess that happens when you frequent an echo chamber.

I'm not sure. Our Stipes don't seem to do much. Very few of our Trainers or Jockeys bother to walk the track in the morning of a race meeting. Who is the Top Aussie Jockey that always walks the track with an umbrella? I won't bore you with yet another of my horse racing stories. But I always walked the track when I could and of all the tracks I walked Ellerslie and Te Rapa were the worst.

Reefton I realise you are pissed off because your investment with Pitty is subject to the vagaries of the Riccarton Turf track but.... It is the same issue. Yes there has been no investment in our turf tracks and at the end of the day it comes down to the soil structure. As I said in our private conversation - Caulfield were able to put 6mm of rain on the track last Saturday on raceday morning and present a good track for everyone. Except Sir Dragonet! As I've said to you the only way to keep our stuffed tracks within range is to mechanically rip them and then keep the moisture level up so that you can fine tune with irrigation. Otherwise the track gets away on you and irrigating during hot days at the last moment does nothing. The grass looks green but it only takes a little bit of drizzle to make the track in some parts a skating rink (in my opinion H&S stops meetings that in the past would have continued). Now the reason that some parts don't absorb the water at the same rate is because the SOIL STRUCTURE is stuffed. Your only solution is to NOT IRRIGATE! But that wouldn't have helped on Saturday because there was light drizzle on the day. Same result I'm afraid.

Correct. It's a bit like bringing up kids. Never threaten a punishment that you cant or aren't willing to follow through with. A horse will soon learn that waving a whip at it means nothing nor yelling "Hurry up Gammie because if you don't I might whip you"....

But they cause pain and fear. So if you apply the same philosophy you'd ban them too. FFS you have to get a vet out now to "painlessly" remove a steers horns! And what's that done? Just made your steak dearer!

Then you object to Thomass using her as an example for his Crusade? I assure you Lisa isn't shy of giving a horse a solid rebuke when it needs one. Isn't it funny that most champion racehorses are real arseholes. Some only on raceday others all the time. If they were human you probably wouldn't like them. Reminds me of a story. Michael Walker rode the good mare I had a share in. Now she generally was a nice placid mare but the moment you put a saddle on her she switched. She'd be asleep in the stall so you'd put the saddle over her back, not tie anything and the first thing she'd do was shake her head and pushed her front legs forward and stretch her whole body to the point where her belly was damn near touching the ground. Then you could strap the saddle up. Her nostrils would flare and watch where you were in relation to her legs. When she won the Taranaki Cup she nearly swiped the strappers head off with her front foot. Andrew Calder rode her that day - why do all the good ones struggle with weight? Anyway different race with MW. BTW I dont rate Michael Walker as a horseman. A great rider on the right type of horse but not a great horseman in my opinion. So Madam was switched on for this particular race and being assertive behind the stalls but a good horseman would have went with the flow. MW decided otherwise and fought her to the point he gave her a tap on the head with the whip. Just a tap. She threw him off! Just stood there! Didn't take off or run away.

Perhaps but he is absolutely wrong in his assertion that top riders world wide don't use the whip. Just out of interest is the stock whip banned now behind the barriers? I'm in favour of retaining the whip. There are worse practices in the development and racing of a Thoroughbred. Banning the whip is a slippery slope. Dont give an inch and focus more on the positives of racing to counter the animal activists. The nonsensical compromises around how many times the whip can be used and at what distance are just giving the fodder to those who want racing stopped. Read my lips: THEY WANT RACING STOPPED! Jockey recruitment, ability and training is a big issue in New Zealand and in Australia. Those issues should be addressed first before kowtowing to the PC Woke brigade. The upside of doing that is you actually solve a lot of the problems. I guess people didn't learn from the Prohibition Era - prohibiting the sale and consumption of alcohol didn't stop anything! Perhaps the resources that went into the rules and regulations and the policing of them would have been better applied to education.

I'm not sure who "Linda" is but both Kah and Danielle are excellent proponents of using the whip when in a pressure situation. Horses for courses as they say.

In New Zealand if you did that you would run the risk of a prosecution under the Animal Welfare Act and a fine up to $1,500.

I think the usual problem occurred. A dry period followed by light rain/drizzle on the day. I doubt an inspection would have found the issue if the drizzle occurred during the first three races. One other consideration is that one horse slipped - in the past that wouldn't have abandoned a meeting. Rightly or wrongly there is zero tolerance nowadays.

Mmmm Matamata abandoned after race 3 after horse slips at 700m. Track inspection shows 100m "slippery patch". Are any tracks in the Waikato up to scratch?

So I guess like Thomas's arguments the obvious conclusion and desire on your part is to ban racing.

So are you going to ban them from ALL parts of the horse racing supply chain?

Thomas advertises himself online as NZ's most prolific tipster of winning Thoroughbreds...at VALUE So here's a challenge for Thomas - post on BOAY your "VALUE" tips for a meeting of your choice for this Saturday or "VALUE" tips for a number of meetings this Saturday. I'm sure other posters will rise to the challenge. Surely there must be some substance to your claim Thomas afterall it is posted on the internet so it must be true!

No tell us all what your objective is. Arguably galloping a horse at speed over distances that it isn't designed for causes pain. As for how much pain the horse feels from the whip, one of the many flaws in so called science you didn't provide links to, is that it doesn't measure the overall level of pain the horse is feeling in the last 200m of a race. From personal experience as an athlete that last part of a race in oxygen debt can be sheer torture. I doubt it is any different for a horse. What's your view on that? Is that the next area of attack on your agenda as a shill? BTW if you could post the links of your spurious research to Neil Davis at Formpro (as per your Twitter account) why couldn't you post the same here?

That's very sexist and discriminatory of you but then your association with hypocrisy knows no bounds. So 15% of the BGP membership are women. What's your point? The BGP should be representative of society? Why? That isn't their objective. Are you suggesting that some bureaucrat passes legislation to force some notion of equality on the BGP membership? Thomas you are so "Woke" that you are blinded by sleep!

Yes an excellent Jockey. Known for her skill at being kind to the horse. So you are an expert on Jockey skills now? From what I've seen it has been a long time since you were on a horse. Actually I doubt if ever. What's your point? I'm starting to come to the conclusion going on the tenor of all your posts that you are one of these animal activist shill's or sock puppet's that has one objective in mind and that is to close racing down.

Unfortunately I can read your crap although it requires some mentality agility to make some sense of it. Why don't you post here in the same literary style that you do on your Twitter account? Where is your proof that they discourage "women and kids"? BGP understandably has an R18 restriction as they are predominantly a punting syndicate. Those who own Kiddies Castle's discourage the BGP. So what?

Another point I was making Gammalite is there doesn't have to be special entertainment for kids. It is about interacting with them when you are there. I hate it when I hear "Oh a racecourse is no place for a kid!" Why not? Sure there are people drinking, gambling and sometimes misbehaving but they are safe places. Generally safer than many City malls. When my daughter and I went on our annual holiday together it was often the only holiday I had as well. Did I stop going somewhere to have a cold beer? Course not. Did I leave her sitting in the car with a can of coke, a packet of chips and an iPad? Course not. I took her with me. She'd have an orange juice and a packet of chips and Dad had a couple of beers and we would have a bit of a yarn. We'd occasionally meet people and I taught her to introduce herself, to converse properly and to be polite i.e. learn how to socialise correctly. Yes occasionally there might be something that was a bit off. But I'd explain that to her. Quite frankly Thomas's view pisses me off. All he does is unjustifiably reinforce the view that a racecourse isn't a place to take a child. Hell if my daughter had heard the BGP chanting she would have laughed. She wouldn't have thought about any hidden meaning or innuendo which seems to be fixated in Thomas's mind. Cancel culture - I hate it. Making rules and regulations and supposedly protecting our children from dangers only makes them more vulnerable and confused. FFS now they have to worry about whether they identify themselves as man, woman, gender neutral, binary and so on! LOL I remember when I took her (age 11) down to the local at St Heliers one holiday. Pitched up to the locals table - truly representative of the St Heliers community - white, male, rich. She'd already met a few of them and she was made welcome. The boys gave her a seat. Anyway the "new All Black anthem" screened on TV - all in Maori. Well there was a varied opinion about that I can tell you. It set one guy right off. Ranting, raving, swearing - a real performance getting more and more wound up. Anyway with perfect timing my daughter chipped in "Jimmy you really aren't showing the aroha there are you?" Stopped him dead in his tracks - speechless with a slowly emerging grin. I was gobsmacked and proud. The rest were cracking up - here was this young lady very politely putting Jimmy in his place when they were about to tell him to STFU!

Didn't worry many of the horses of yesteryear.

Our handicapping system has been absolutely screwed. The 2kg female allowance doesn't help nor does it achieve what it was brought in for. It is easy to focus on one stable and one Jockey as a means to vent our frustrations. But they are only symptoms - the issues are more fundamental than that.