Chief Stipe

TAB trending down as Minister’s letter of expectation goes live by Brian de Lore Published 26 September 2019 The downward trending TAB results has provided a double-edged sword problem for RITA in both the sustaining prizemoney aspect and the value of the TAB for any future outsourcing negotiations. Meanwhile, yesterday a letter from Minister Winston Peters to RITA Chair Dean McKenzie which was dated July 25th was posted live on the RITA website two months later. Why would that occur unless it had come as a directive from the Minister himself? The introduction to the letter states: “The Minister for Racing, Rt Hon Winston Peters outlines the matters that the Board of the Racing Industry Transition Agency (RITA) are expected to address in the business planning process for the 2019/20 financial year. This Letter of Expectations is provided under Clause 3 of Schedule 1AA of the Racing Reform Act 2019 (the Act).” The letter is well worth a read and can be located at https://www.rita.org.nz/201920-ministerial-expectations-racing-industry-transition-agency How do you fathom the reasoning for the delayed publication? The letter strongly reinforces the said NZ First racing manifesto, the terms of reference for MAC and RITA and seems to send a strong reminder message that RITA needs to get on with it. Is the Minister, who devotes only two hours weekly to the racing portfolio and relies on delegation to get the job done, himself becoming impatient with a lack of visible progress? Draw your own conclusions but the letter suddenly appearing two months after receipt is not standard practice. Some would suggest the Minister wouldn’t be happy with the current rate of progress and that if he looks closely at the way the TAB is trending then he may subside into semi-depression. In the week to September 15th the five thoroughbred meetings at Tauranga, Wingatui, Awapuni, Ruakaka, and Rotorua were collectively down 18.81 percent in tote turnover for the same meetings last year which is the statistic most critical for thoroughbred racing’s income. The tote provides the thoroughbred racing code with a net 14 to 15 percent of its income for stakes. Fixed-Odds-Betting increased by 10 percent for the same week, but remember that when the margin on the FOB is eight percent, the net return to racing is a mere two percent. But since the FOB was launched the margin hasn’t been as high as eight – it was only three percent early, five to six percent after six or seven months with anecdotal evidence saying it’s still nowhere near eight percent. The financial benefit to racing from FOB sports betting requires a turnover seven to eight times greater to equal what racing gets paid from the tote. Why the codes ever allowed this happen is beyond belief. Why they didn’t unify and go tear down the NZRB walls at Jackson Street Petone, is a mystery? Probably because most of them reside in the same building – very cosy! If this isn’t proof that the unscrupulous executives at NZRB didn’t deliberately cannibalise racing’s tote betting for the benefit of sports betting and promoting its FOB platform, then what is? No one with any racing in their blood would have done that. And they used $50 million belonging to the racing codes to do it. Anyone who opens the TAB website will see that sports betting is to the forefront, and you have to go and find racing. For that level of misuse of shareholders funds in a public company, jail sentences would result. But in racing, no one cares what happens to it, least of all a civil servant organisation such as the DIA which now has a firm grip on racing’s testicles and isn’t letting go anytime soon. But back to the double-edged sword problem facing RITA. For instance, the deal the TAB could negotiate in a partnership outsourcing arrangement would be far less attractive today than it would have been 12 months or two years ago. No use crying over spilled outsourcing milk, but as the TAB turnover declines, so does your attractiveness to a company such as Tabcorp or Sportsbet. Outsourcing is the big carrot. The primary component in the goal of the Messara Report is to double prizemoney with the main contributor identified as an outsourcing arrangement. RITA has stayed quiet on the subject and said in the Interim Report that outsourcing is not a foregone conclusion. A seventh member to the RITA board (Minister’s prerogative) with expertise in that area has so far failed to materialise – nothing to date which indicates a lack of desire to go down that road. In July RITA’s CEO Dean McKenzie said that on the question of outsourcing he would look at everything from the status quo to full outsourcing. A committee was set-up by MAC five months ago to investigate outsourcing, but its appointees are nameless and findings remain a guarded secret. Last season’s distribution to the codes was $151 million of which $40 million was used-up in administrative running-costs – $20 million for thoroughbreds and $10 million each for the other two. Why is that figure so high and particularly in the case of Greyhounds NZ which recently announced its unique version of self-harm by appointing former NZRB Chair Glenda Hughes as its interim CEO – the gravy-train continues – the only difference is it’s changed tracks. In John Allen’s Statement of Intent (SOI) released in August 2018, it budgeted distribution to the codes of $151.6 million, but the failed strategic initiatives including the FOB will see a shortfall of around $18 million for distribution – that’s the historical figure which means that NZRB/RITA has been using-up cash-on-hand to pay for their commitment to keeping the stakemoney minimums of $10,000. In the Half-Year Report released last January, it showed NZRB had at that point only $8 million in cash. Since then, the income to outgoings ratio situation has worsened to the point where $12.5 million per month ($151.6 million p.a.) is required to keep the status quo, but the TAB profit level has dropped to $10 million per month, a short-fall of $2.5 million every month. When the Minister announced through RITA that the stakes would stay the same for the current season, and CEO McKenzie in July stated it would be a challenge – it was racing’s understatement of the year. It’s no coincidence that the budget for season 2019-20 which normally would have surfaced in August has not yet seen the cold light of day. I have only hearsay evidence that incumbent but albeit resigned CEO Allen made four attempts to deliver a budget to RITA quite recently, but all were considered works of fiction and accordingly rejected. As every week passes the perilous state of New Zealand racing worsens. Forget the arguments on venue closures because this is far more serious and it’s blatantly obvious it’s been a cover-up. The resignation of Allen should by rights only be the start of further departures including the CFO and the rest of the executive team. These are the people that signed this industry up to committed payments of $17 million annually to Paddy Power (10 years) and Openbet (five years). Not knowing the detail of those commitments a guestimate could be a $130 million commitment in total. Add the cost of building the FOB at $50 million, plus other strategic initiative failures and all the exorbitant salaries paid over the past four to five years and you arrive at a total wastage round figure of $200 million. And since The Optimist posted last week’s blog, CEO Allen has picked up another weekly pay cheque of $13,000, just to make the industry happy. The cash on hand in January this year of only $8 million was by July supplemented to the tune of $4 million from the first year of the Betting Levy rebate but if the monthly deficit is $2.5 million it doesn’t take an Einstein to conclude this business is running out of cash at the rate of a good gallop. Further to racing’s woes, the economy is slowing and betting turnover will take a hit on that factor alone. The predicament again reemphasises the cost of not having the Betting Information Use Charges agreements in place for July 1st which should be bringing in $250,000 every week. If the current trend continues, then sooner or later the monthly creditor payments will be slowed, or the codes will be slow-paid, and as a consequence owners stakes payments will be slow paid. But the apathy displayed by this industry to the situation has been mindbogglingly staggering. It’s a little like a community’s hurricane warning that goes unheeded. The Minister’s letter is very stern about what he wants from RITA, and he is focused on what he sees as the end result for racing. Be aware, racing is deeper into the crises than it’s ever been before, and that predicament is mostly a man-made one through exceedingly poor governance. Peters has passed the ball to McKenzie who he now expects to maul his way up the length of the field with the rest of RITA and get over the try line. Nothing less will save the industry.

I appreciate what you are saying but from my perspective it seemed to be largely OK. If you did have two days down then I am assuming you were trying to access from a corporate environment where their DNS update policy is archaic. Probably their network provider is Spark!

It was nowhere near three days! Plus YOUR account was never suspended. The internet in some places was pointing to the wrong server. Depending on where you lived in NZ some wouldn't have experienced any issues. The main telcos in NZ can't get their shyte together and we have third world performance. Major DNS nodes in the world make the changes in minutes. In NZ it was all over the place. In some cases those sitting behind a corporate DNS server could have taken days. But that is just bad practice on their part.

Did you really expect a response any different to the one you got? I understand Weasel didn't get a lot of love either.

No not sunk. Still chugging along. To be fair not making any ground but haven't lost any either. I had to make some hosting changes this week which involved shifting to a different server. Was paying huge costs for a lot of storage I didn't need. I entrusted the last part of the transition with the host company thinking it would be easier. However I was wrong. Add to that the archaic internet infrastructure we have in this country there was a lag time between when things came live in the new server. If you lived in Europe like Bulgaria or Albania you wouldn't have seen any outage. Some BOAY members thought that I had suspended their accounts but in fact it was the old server account that had been suspended. On reflection the NZ TAB would be be better hosted offshore than with Spark. I suspect that the Trackside streaming is using similar services to Spark Sport. The reality is all they are doing is retailing off the back of overseas vendors. They were a bit mischievous in blaming overseas.

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Fairytale story halted as injury shatters New Zealand Cup dream Logan Savory14:40, Sep 26 2019 KAVINDA HERATH Owner Tom Kilkelly and trainer Kirstin Barclay with their horse U May Cullect which has been ruled out of a shot at the New Zealand Cup because of a tendon injury. [File photo]. Kirstin Barclay is doing her best to remain positive. Her dream of training and driving a horse in the 2019 New Zealand Trotting Cup has been shattered. The connections of U May Cullect were handed news on Thursday morning that Southland's star race horse will be sidelined for between four and six months. U May Cullect was initially scratched from Sunday's Hannon Memorial race because of a minor stone bruise. However earlier this week Barclay and fellow trainer Paul "Tank" Ellis felt the horse still wasn't right. A vet check on Thursday morning discovered a small tear in the lower tendon, ruling out any hope of him lining up in November's New Zealand Cup. The horse had quickly become the talk of Southland racing this year on the back of the left-field rise to New Zealand Cup hopeful. Tom Kilkelly bought the horse for just $5200 at a weanling sale in Auckland, although he never made it to the race track until he was five. Two tendon injuries held him back and Kilkelly acknowledges giving up on him as a racehorse was a possibility at one stage. However, U May Cullect, or Carlos as he's known around the stable, went from an unqualified five-year-old horse to winning seven in a row. Carlos become the fairytale story of New Zealand harness racing. "What he's done has been amazing, not just for us, but he's been really good for the industry. A lot of people outside [of harness racing] started to follow him," Barclay says. She admits the injury is gutting for everyone involved, including Barclay herself who was eyeing a shot at a drive in the New Zealand Cup. "We were so close to having a crack. It's the dream to race in the biggest race, but it's not over. "He could have another shot next year and we've got other promising horses coming through." It is a new injury rather the reoccurrence of older tendon problems, which Barclay says is positive. She doesn't see any reason why U May Cullect can't return for another campaign next season. "He's showed he can come back from an injury. I'm staying positive." To add to an already tough week for Barclay, her dog, which ironically is named Carlos after the horse, was kicked by another horse and required surgery on Thursday afternoon.

Rule Number(s): 638(1)(d)Following the running of Race 8 (Windsor Park Plate) Information No. A11652 was filed with the Judicial Committee. It was alleged by the Informant that Mr Lammas allowed his mount HELLO IT’S ME to shift inwards shortly after the start when not clear, crowding SULTAN OF SWING and DARK PRINCESS. Mr Lammas ... (Feed generated with FetchRSS)View the full article

Rule Number(s): 642(1)Following the running of Race 6 (Hawkes Bay Breeders Gold Trail Stakes) Information No. A11651 was filed with the Judicial Committee. Mr S Ritchie the Trainer of the fourth placed horse JENNIFER ECCLES, protested against the third placed horse LOIRE, on the grounds of interference in the home straight. ... (Feed generated with FetchRSS)View the full article

Rule Number(s): 869(3)(b)Mr Renault alleged that Mr McIlwrick (ZONED SCARLETT) drove carelessly near the 4 00 metres in race 9, the WAITAKI REFRIGERATION LTD HANDICAP TROT, by striking the wheel of CLYDE (Mr Thornley). Mr McIlwrick admitted the breach and was present at the hearing. Mrs Tibbs, Stipendiary Steward, demonstrated ... (Feed generated with FetchRSS)View the full article

Auckland Cup? They wouldn't have enough room.

Thinking about it a bit more. One of most memorable days out was to the Wellington Cup Day about 18 years ago. A group of friends and I were guests of the Dockside Bar. Met there for champagne breakfast and then onto Trentham. Most of the day was a blur but I do recall heaps of additional entertainment including any number of bands. The course and stands were packed as was the infield. What would Trentham do to have Cup Day's like that again? I remember going out in subsequent years and over time the drop in attendance was noticeable but I still longed for another edition of that first Cup Day. Eventually I stopped going rather than be disappointed and only went when there were great horses or one of my own racing.

The crowds at the Melbourne Cup have been declining. I understand from a high of 100k down to 80k. Pre-sales were stagnant until they announced the Swift gig and they then shot up rapidly.

Rule Number(s): 638(1)(d)Following the running of Race 10, the Racecourse Hotel & Motor Lodge Rating 72, an Information was filed by Stipendiary Steward, Mr J McLaughlin, against Class A rider, Mr M McNab, in that he allowed his mount, MISS SCANDINAVIA to shift out forcing GRAND RIO outwards onto SAVAPAK which was crowded and ... (Feed generated with FetchRSS)View the full article

Rule Number(s): 638(1)(d)Following the running of Race 7, the Fleur Open Sprint, an Information was filed by Stipendiary Steward, Mr J McLaughlin, against Class A rider, Mr A Calder, in that he allowed his mount to shift in when not sufficiently clear of TURNCOAT who was taken in onto KILLARNEY who was crowded and checked passing ... (Feed generated with FetchRSS)View the full article

Rule Number(s): 638(1)(d)Following the running of Race 9, the Pryde’s Easifeed Rating 65, an Information was filed by Stipendiary Steward, Mr J McLaughlin, against Class A rider, Mr M McNab, in that he allowed his mount, SUMMER MONSOON, to shift in crowding and checking DREAMTESTA, SENTITO, SUPATWISTA and EXPRESS RIP passing ... (Feed generated with FetchRSS)View the full article

His comment about the Best Bets is true though. Fairfax sold it and the Turf Digest to the NZRB and laughed all the way to the bank. I know because I knew someone who was involved with the sale.

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Rule Number(s): Rule 330(3)(c)Following the running of Race 5 (Derryn @ Grangewilliam Stud 1200) Information A11624 was filed with the Judicial Committee. It alleged a breach of rule 330(3)(c) and stated that Mr D Turner “...failed to make the carded weight for EMPRESS TZU HSI being 1 kilo over”. Rule 330(3)(c) states: “A rider shall ... (Feed generated with FetchRSS)View the full article

Rule Number(s): Rule 638(1)(d)Following the running of Race 4 (WANGANUI GREYHOUND RACING CLUB MDN 1200m), Information A11625 was filed with the Judicial Committee. It alleged a breach of Rule 638(1)(d) by Licensed Rider Mrs L Allpress. The Information alleged that: ”...L Allpress (NUBIAN SMILE) allowed her mount to shift inwards ... (Feed generated with FetchRSS)View the full article

Do they wear blinkers?

Rule Number(s): 632 (1)Following the running of Race 4, TRANSPORT MECHANICAL WAHAROA LTD 1400, Stipendiary Steward, Mr B Jones, lodged an Information requesting a ruling in relation to Rule 632 to determine whether MARIOTA was denied a fair start. Rule 632 provides “If, in the opinion of the Judicial Committee, a horse which ... (Feed generated with FetchRSS)View the full article

Rule Number(s): 638(1)(d)Following the running of race 2, RBC Racing 1600, an Information was filed pursuant to Rule 638 (1)(d). The Informant, Mr Jones, alleged that Mr Goindasamy permitted his mount TAREE to shift out passing the 200 metres when insufficiently clear of GRAND ARIANA which was checked. Rule 638(1) (d) provides: ... (Feed generated with FetchRSS)View the full article

Rule Number(s): 638(1)(d)Following the running of race 5, WAHAROA TRANSPORT CO (1995) LTD 1200, an Information was filed pursuant to Rule 638 (1)(d). The Informant, Mr Jones, alleged that Mr Bosson permitted his mount SUPER SID to shift out near the 325 metres when insufficiently clear of HAPPINESS FOREVER and LUSTFUL LADY who ... (Feed generated with FetchRSS)View the full article