Doomed

Any idea what the oncourse attendance was? It was probably the 2nd or 3rd biggest meeting of the year at Awapuni with a $100,000 race, so presumably the bars and restaurants did a roaring trade.

So the total income from that race to help fund the stake would have been at best $5,000? Leaving $95,000 to come from elsewhere. That is a long way from being sustainable.

Yes, a quite shocking attitude I thought. Doesn't come across as someone who has the interests of the racing industry at heart. Sounds like another two year appointment. He will be off as soon as he realises it is all a bit hard for him and people are starting to find him out.

I suppose a disappointing, but not surprising response. Despite their brevity, there was probably quite a bit of time and money went into formulating those desultory and arrogant responses. You don't come across that arrogant without trying reasonably hard at it. They could at least have come up with something along the lines of: "We treasure your valuable and well thought out input. Don't hesitate to get in touch in future if you have any more bright ideas."

Quite a strange one the whole Greyhound situation. I can only imagine that Winston figures that if they get rid of the greyhounds in NZ then all of the commission earned from NZ betting on Australian greyhounds will be distributed to the horse codes. I find it hard to believe Winston would give in to a tiny but vocal and fanatical cohort of anti dog racing people, especially since he knows their next target will be horse racing.

They can only take extra nominations if noms are left open.

Poor old Freda, walking past minding her own business and gets a blast.

I wasn't making a point. I was asking a question. I know nothing at all about the inner workings of Te Akau. It is of very little interest to me. I just had a feeling I had seen Walker and Co train horses that aren't owned by Te Akau.

Very good point. It is actually Walker and Bergeson who won the premiership, and they train for others as well as Te Akau don't they?. Isn't Fortuna a separate operation? And I'm sure I've seen them train other horses that Te Akau aren't involved in.

Some people shouldn't really be allowed out to have a bet. I think you should go and have a wee lie down.

Quite a few newish trainers coming through in the South. Now it just needs the rest of the industry to exhibit the professionalism they deserve. And make sure the structures are in place to make it a viable profession.

There is no real point debating the subject with you Gamma as you really just don't understand how the whole industry works. Your whole focus is on smaller fields meaning more money for the owners. You don't seem to understand where the money comes from. The money comes from the punters. Without them racing would come to a dead stop. Harness punters do tolerate red hot favs more so than galloping punters, but even harness punters can't get excited by 6 horse low grade fields. And incidentally 6 horse fields aren't "around 8 horse fields". Even the interdominion grand final on the weekend would have run at a massive loss. $1.20 winners don't do a lot for betting turnover.

It's a terrible look isn't it. The new way of doing things is totally beyond me. I'm used to a world where turnovers were supposed to generate enough income to cover stakes. These days, turnovers seem to be irrelevant and stakes money is just dished out regardless of performance. In the galloping code a meeting with that number of acceptors would have been abandoned. The gallops are hardly a model for how to run a successful racing industry, but at least in that instance they usually get things right. Do any people actually go along to these meetings? The atmosphere must be quite strange.

It must be very hard for clubs like Timaru to remain enthused with NZTR trying to get rid of them and giving them no support at all. With your memory of the 70s and 80s you will realise that Timaru probably provided better racing than Ashburton and Dunedin back then. The Timaru Cup was one of the great races every year with a string of high class winners. I remember the 3yo Greek Magic and all the Dennis Brothers winners, and Grey Way himself. Now, because of the ideological bent of NZTR, Timaru gets no feature days and they see all of the money being poured into Wingatui and Ashburton. If I was on the committee I would probably give up, so good on them for hanging in there in the face of incredible adversity. And the training ranks in Timaru have possibly never been stronger. There must be almost as many winners coming out of there as Wingatui.

That was quite an extraordinary heavy track meeting at Oamaru. Appeared to be no bias at all. Winners came from all over. Good to see the $6,000 Timaru trifecta in the fourth. Not very often the same trainer and owner combine for a $200 quinella either.