Chief Stipe

I've been in a bit of a discussion with BOAY'er Bill about why the venues that are opening for racing NEED to have fibre optic connected. I think this is what you would call a "non-tariff trade barrier". That is it is a decree from the central organisation to stop provincial tracks from racing which doesn't have any valid reason for it. So I've moved the posts relevant to this topic to its own separate topic. I think it is important as it shows where the industry money has been wasted and has actually reduced the market by excluding punters from seeing racing.

They seem to be better than ours.

OK BOAY'ers what's on RITA's Board Meeting Agenda next week? Post five items for a prize. Redundancies; Executive and Board member pay cut; Release of the half yearly financial report; ANZ line of credit; Liquidation appointees - Korda Mentha?; ........

Yes but I don't think that is because he has an issue with Sky but because he wants to do something different. The issue he will find of course is earning income for the information he provides.

You are assuming that NZTR and RITA with their 600 employees with state of the art IT and data networking were actually working. Many of us were recalibrating our business during the lockdown. Planning and looking for opportunities post lock down. Afterall there will be $80 billion of cash slurping around the system. I've been amazed at how agile OZ racing has been. I guess that supports the concept of competition right through the supply chain. The best thing Government could do is deal to the monopoly that RITA has in the NZ market. Under free market conditions I'd be happy for Hokitika or Reefton racing clubs to fold.

We will be. I'd be looking for cheap shares for those tourist companies that have good reserves. Get in now!

So you agree we should be back racing?

My opinion is based on my analysis of the data and a few years of working for the MOH. Sadly I thought you might have been useful in the MOH as I thought you understood how to quantify risk. But I guess not.

Pam fast working under Covid-19

Why is it too soon to tell? There is data out there from December 2019. What we do know is that 50% of our hospital beds are empty! What we do know is that pre-Covid-19 a large proportion of the un-occupied beds were booked for a variety of reasons that deferment will lessen the quality of life and may end in death. I would have managed each region on a regional basis not a decree for the whole nation. Why should essential workers such as surgeons, doctors and nurses be sitting at home in lockdown while the police are out stopping people from being on the beach? I would have triaged surgery on the list (there is a huge backlog) and made sure that it kept happening based on my hospitals capacity. With most surgeries nowadays you are out of hospital and home very quickly. If critical Covid-19 cases incoming started increasing then I'd review my capacity. Our thinking is being coloured by the USA mess. New York City has one of the highest population densities in the world. They have 70,000 homeless people and 4,000 people who live on the street each night. Primary care in the USA has been stuffed for decades. Fortunately we have a great primary care system - which we closed down for Covid-19!!!!

Getting back to racing. Was the loss of jobs in racing inevitable? Note: no jobs lost yet at NZTR, RITA or HRNZ.

On what data do you base that "opinion"?

No not scientists - but career bureaucrats. A bit like the 3,000 MPI employees who somehow know how to ride a horse. Did you know that during 4 weeks of the lockdown 13 people died from Covid-19. All of them were in the departure lounge pre-Covid-19. 2,688 died in NZ NOT including Covid-19. Do you know the difference between now and before Covid-19? Well for 2,688 families (those who couldn't afford storage) they couldn't attend the funerals.

All good Mardigras - I hope you did that without the taxpayer pitching in to fund your fixed costs. However the decisions made by the Government have made more people more sick they just don't have Covid-19.

It's a bit like your bakery Mardigras. You sunk all the capital costs into it, you are still paying your staff but you decide to reduce production to 50% when demand is more than you can produce. Isn't that dumb?

Why?

Because 50% of our hospital beds are empty. ICU is empty. 14 occupied out of 300. There are people out there that were on surgery lists to fix issues that if not fixed will reduce their life expectancy. I personally know one. I could process the numbers on my laptop. By world comparison the numbers we deal with are not huge. FFS our systems fail when we try to trace 85 people a day! Google does that in real time for the whole population that uses the internet!

85% their normal "best average" occupancy. Even that is crap.

Doesn't have to. You are disappointing me as much as Curious. You use historical data to assess risk/value/reward to determine where to spend your punting money. Why can't that type of analysis be used to determine other event outcomes? Our hospitals are 50% empty. Covid-19 in 6 weeks has only filled 14 ICU beds - predominantly with people with comorbidities. Surely doing some risk assessment we could have done better than that.

Na not true. Andrew Bensley is retiring at the end of racing tomorrow from Sky Sport in Australia. Good luck to him. What a knowledgeable and enthusiastic racing commentator. Can anyone think of the last NZ person you would put in the same league?

Disagree there is more data out there than we have ever had in history. Our Bureaucrats have never been smart enough to utilise it. Anyway back to the draft calendar - we should be going to the Sir Humphrey Appleby's with what WE want NOT what we think they'll accept. NEVER negotiate from the low ground. For those of you who don't know who Sir Humphrey is - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphrey_Appleby That's where our industry leaders are letting us down. Love him or hate him I wish we had someone like Peter V'landys at the helm.

So we are being governed on opinion not science?

As was mine. I'm surprised that you would give any credence to that graph you posted.

That is your opinion and an assumption. My gripe is with the Government bureaucrats like MPI that are determining what we can and can't do. If you look on another channel the little ex-dwarfs are using their platform to try and nail someone who is training their horses faster than others on their own property. I do find some irony in that given tomorrow is ANZAC day.

No. I'll try organic next and then the lady finger variety. If I have to keep it up....the supermarket visits I'll take some plastic ones.