Chief Stipe

Take a look at Quarter Horse racing (provided by our very own TAB Trackside). Over 300m they whip every stride!

Where are they published? Can we see them? Bernie - why aren't you using the tools available to you to engage the industry and get input?

That's bollocks Curious. The national average for accidents involving horses that require medical intervention is 3% of total. Half of that is in the Waikato region. Now the percentage of that percentage involving racing stables is very very small. As the figures include ALL injuries involved with ALL horse activities. It also includes those who got kicked standing by a horse i.e. accidents not involving riding. That protocol isn't an infection reducing protocol. It's a statistical nonsense. How many farm kids have been looking after their ponies and bringing the cows in on horse back? Na they are probably using the 4 wheeler!

Get them to wear masks. They already wear gloves. Sanitise the gloves before each race. Not everyone is "connected." Did a NZTR/RIU representative turn up and educate? On the other side of the coin those in the industry who have more rural connections will have a near total disdain for MPI. They only put others at risk if they have Covid-19 at an infectious stage and they have a huge uncontrolled bubble. FFS what does your average trainer and staff do each day? Gets up before a sparrow farts - feeds up, dungs out, takes the horse covers off, put a bridle and saddle on, work the horse, wash the horse, wait for it to dry, put the cover back on, maybe put it in a small paddock for a pick of grass and some space, bring it back in for the night, feed up. Go to the pub for a beer and yarn. Repeat next 6 days ad-infinitum. How many trainers gallop more than two or three horses at a time side by side? As for MPI..... If you can't enforce the rules (no matter how bullshit they are) then there is no point in them. Compare with Australia - Waterhouse staff member hugs someone in birdcage celebrating the winning of the Golden Slipper gets a month holiday, jockey stood down for going through wrong door, jockey fined $2,000 for breaking protocol. Yeah na - how guys would rather hide in bushes.

Health AND economic well-being ISN'T a dichotomy. They are inherently linked. That's where much of what we are seeing is being driven by ideology. One policy for ALL yet they turn a blind eye to illegal actions such as what are happening in the Far North and East Cape. Again political ideology and no thinking through unintentional consequences. You mention the Warehouse what about the few local butchers that are left? Most you wouldn't ever get more than 6 people in at once. You know the butcher the one that for decades been wrapping meat in environmentally friendly brown paper. Nup stuff you says the Government. Stuff you New Zealanders - you have to queue outside your Australian owned supermarkets and buy overpriced poorer quality meat in plastic trays wrapped in plastic. It cost me $9 for 6 sausages yesterday - $1.50 each! I don't know what is in them but the good thing is their use-by date is 11 days away! The bright side of the visit to the supermarket was meeting a very attractive woman in the booze aisle. Which was straight after the fruit and vegetable section. We both looked at each other's trolley's and laughed. She had 8 bottles of red wine and I had a 12 pack of pilsner. (Before you a kaftan, sandal wearing tree hugger has a go at me - it has been 4 weeks since I have had a beer. I normally only drink socially at the local - never been one to drink alone at home. Covid-19 is pushing me closer to the "vulnerable" category!). I said "you have a more refined alcohol consumption than I"....she laughed and said "thank god the kids are going back to school." I bet the kids are happy too! No we didn't get within 2 metres of each other - I would have liked to..... Ideology and the law of unintended consequences. I still can't work out why I can buy overpriced beer in an Australian owned supermarket yet the New Zealand owned liquor store across the road with cheaper product can't open. I guess it isn't essential and it stops the poor from spending their benefit bonus in the wrong places. There is a point here somewhere..... Managing Covid-19 isn't all about lockdown's - the lockdown cure will have unintended consequences that make the cure worse than the disease. There are some upsides - the road toll has plummeted. Did you know in normal times on average 1 person dies on the road every day? I gather the Greens are about to rush through policy to close the roads permanently - we can't have more deaths on the road than Covid-19. Back to the point.... Managing Covid-19 is about protocols, reducing infection rates and protecting the vulnerable. It ISN'T about eradication. If you think it is and that we can eradicate it. It is time to smell the roses (don't go for a walk to do that - they have to be in your own garden and it is recommended you sanitise the rose before smelling it). Covid-19 and similar viruses are here forever. I see it as a product of our over-population (the rest of the world that is). We haven't eradicated polio (that ain't going to happen now that Trump has thrown his toys at WHO), measles, tuberculosis, HIV (more people have been infected and died from that virus than most pandemics) or influenza. I believe as has been shown in Australia, Hong Kong, Macau and Japan that racing can continue with protocols that support the goal of keeping infection rates suppressed. It probably won't happen here - the RIU will probably refuse to work.

Boating and yachting are not allowed because supposedly anyone who does either is more likely to require emergency services which is a crock of... I know an elderly couple who are theoretically breaking the law at the moment not that the law is very clear and I imagine challengeable in a court of law. They have a nice yacht - nothing big or overly flash. They are in the vulnerable category in terms of age and some normally relatively minor age related conditions. They decided early in the piece to stock up the yacht and head out and cruise around local bays (not Auckland) - they were motivated by their own safety. They come back to their mooring once every 10 to 14 days and a member of their family drops the groceries off and leave some fresh fish for their family. Never within 2 metres of anyone. They catch a few fish, read books, skype the grandkids, even have a little TV on board. They have sail and motor power and a little dinghy. Never too far from shore. The keep in touch with mates by radio. If I had the same setup I'd be doing that too - not because I'm vulnerable but because I wouldn't be relying on anyone, I wouldn't be stuck in this ruddy cabin and I could change my view everyday. As for Team Sports - that would be easy to fix if you ran a competition like the NRL. Find an empty hotel (lots of them around) within walking distance of a stadium that has training grounds. Lock down the perimeter. Test everyone the first time they enter the "bubble". Ask for volunteers to live in house at the hotel to cook and clean - pay them for their services. Easy peasy.

I didn't realise MPI had a role in this. Explains everything. MPI wouldn't know what direction the sun rises. Actually thinking about this a bit more. I thought the protocols were about reducing the chance of injury and thus reducing pressure on our "over stretched' hospital system? At the end of the day Curious if you are worried about your health you can always strengthen your bubble and stay there for another 18 months. I'm sure we could find someone to drop groceries off to you.

Before you all start wandering down some great conspiracy path about the "missing PM's" as I eluded to in my first post on this topic I've been beavering away on the behind the scenes stuff that runs BOAY. I won't bore you with the intricacies of what has been done but you will have noticed a marked improvement in website speed. That is just a start. For all those "experts" that tried to tell me that the speed performance problem was related to advertising or other theories. You were all wrong. I didn't engage in arguing at the time. Being locked in the cabin I've spent many many hours on behind the scenes chores. Unlike others I can't afford to under pay minions to do the work nor are there volunteers. Not that there would be many capable of doing the work. Although I've had 25+ years in IT the work done this week was an entirely new technical area for me. I'm largely self taught on these things so from time to time I'll make the odd stuff up. Rest assured your PM's were never deleted. What happened was when I was moving the database to a new server one Table amongst over a 100 became a little mucked up. That table was the one that mapped PM's to a Conversation. The table didn't contain the PM's as they are stored in another table which was OK. The system created a new mapping table which only mapped PM's that were created post the database transfer. So I had a back up of the old table and a new table to merge. Given the new table only had 25 new maps in it I decided to do the merge manually. Coincidentally two users have ID's that have the same 3 digits with just the last two in a different order. I mistakenly transposed those last two digits. Now the system is pretty smart and it said the map table was corrupt so it dumped the old and created a new one. That's when messages disappeared. I then did a new remerge and things are now correct. So to conclude no skulduggery, no conspiracy, just a little snafu that was fixed. Enjoy.

Suggest you check again.

Are you saying your PM's are missing?

Damn. Corona Relentless beaten a nose. Finished fast. When he gets up to 300m and the blinkers are off he should bolt in. An up and coming breed at the moment - By He's Relentless out of Corona Concierge.

BTW the data I'm using are from here: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

They are but it varies by State. For example the Queensland TAB has a different setup to Victoria. From what I understand is that the Queensland TAB sole source of income is race wagering. Whereas TABCORP earns their revenue from Gaming (Tatts, Lotto etc), Pokies and Racing. I don't know if Vic Racing gets revenue from Gaming and Pokies. Queensland Racing has slashed stakes and overheads but its revenue is up more than 20%. The only game in town at the moment. My biggest point is that with some strong leadership we could still be racing in NZ or at the very least training in preparation for racing resuming. In some ways I admire the trainer(s) who is trying to work around the system as it is. If I had my own training track I'd still be educating the young horses and getting them ready for racing. Yes I would be fast working. Hong Kong is still going to be in the market for ready to go horses. Yes when we had the referendum I voted for prohibition. I saw it as a great opportunity! Mardigras - we both have opinions and I enjoy arguing the point with you. That's what BOAY is about - robust debate!

Omen bet in R5 - Corona Relentless. Paying $8 FOB.

Get on! Quarter Horse racing at Remington Park - Oklahoma. Horse racing over greyhound distances! Fixed odds betting available at the TAB. Greyhound size tote pools! Horse are only quarter horses so a bit like greyhounds but with a rider!

We assume it is earning revenues from elsewhere. We know it ISN'T earning revenue from Pokies and Sports (assuming there is a National Table Tennis Association in NZ). As for earning revenue from OZ - well we know that there are fees associated with that and we also know that we don't know how our bookies are doing. We do know that they do worse than the tote. We do know that our punters are not racing to bet on those obscure american races - e.g. R4 from Remington Win pool $141, Quinella pool $118, Trifecta Pool $185. Do we pay fees for those races? Mind you you would expect reduced pools and fees because they are Quarter Horses. Aside from the wage subsidy we know that the cost structure for the revenue earning arm of the industry has not significantly changed. We also know that NZTR, HRNZ and GRNZ are supposedly still being paid by RITA and they haven't reduced their cost structure either. We also know that they are not receiving any income from licensees - e.g. no nomination or acceptance fees etc. It is a given that each of the industry funded organisations needed to slash costs BEFORE Covid-19 turned up.

That graph contradicts your interpretation.

Excuse me what have I quoted that is anecdotal? You're taking the piss now Mardigras. You know that our margins on OZ events are less than NZ ones. No outgoing's on stakes means no returns to those that do the work. What makes it worse is we still have large loans to service and still no sign of significant job cuts at RITA, NZTR, HRNZ, RIU etc etc.

What data are you using?

Not the magnitude nor the fact that certain businesses were impacted unfairly. The economic relief package and the business lockdowns could have been better targeted. Save whose lives? I think society needs to take a big reality check on this.

My evidence regarding the racing industry is not anecdotal. It arises from plain observation and factual information. Thoroughbred race meetings in Australia tomorrow: 15. 12 TAB, 3 non-TAB. NZ - Zero. Betting turnover in Queensland in the first two weeks of the lockdown was up 21% on last year. Looks like they are doing better than us!

Well I don't know what figures you are looking at but if it took 46 days to get to 100,000 compared to 31 days then surely the UK gradient is flatter!

Sweden's latest estimate for peak unemployment is 9% up from 7%. The have increased their Government spending ceiling but haven't borrowed what we have.

Not the UK. The UK went from 100 to 100,000 cases in 46 days. Spain 31. Italy 35. The death rate for those that have caught Covid-19 in Spain is 10%, Italy 13%, UK 13%.

How can we be sure? Our Parliament was shut down and decisions have been made by executive decree. In a broad sense I don't think anyone opposed restrictions being implemented however how they were implemented and the degree to which they have been implemented there has been disagreement. With the contagion of mediocrity and lame leadership that has swept the western world it isn't surprising that everyone followed everyone else like lemmings.