Doomed

I'm pleased to hear that. It was becoming rather tiresome and distracting. I would like to think these places can become constructive forums, or at least fun places. A lot of the humour and fun seems to have gone out of it these days.

Quite a few in NZ given the reliability of most.

One of the despised ones isn't it? It does invariably seem to be in better condition than NP.

One of my favourite races. Track seemed to play ok to me. 5 starters but all reasonable types. Easter Cup only had 4 on Saturday. It's pointless trying to debate track maintenance with me. I know absolutely nothing about that sort of thing. I hop on my ride on mower and turn the key and go around in circles. That is the extent of my grass knowledge.

https://nz.video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?p=grey+way+awapuni+gold+cup&type=E210US739G0#id=1&vid=83ea53f635f734caee0ca048a582da85&action=click

No reason why not. Morphettville races on the inside and outside track on the same day without problems.

Yes. I don't imagine they were out on the tractor themselves, but they would have employed the people to do it, and if those people cocked it up they wouldn't have lasted long. I don't recall any problems with the Awapuni track from the late 70s through the early 90s. I don't recall an abandonment. And I think Noel Eales would have given them the message if there was any over watering. It was a magnificent track that used to host a lot of top racing. It would be a fairly contrary person who tried to claim racing is better run now than it was back then. Most people can still remember Grey Way's Awapuni Gold Cup. I couldn't tell you who won this years, nor what track it was raced on. And do remember, stakes could have been doubled back in that period if they had decided not to spend anything on grandstands and race tracks.

I see a couple of extra races have been added to the next riccarton AWT meeting to replace the 3 races lost last week. Two weeks later. I suppose the owners just keep paying to keep those horses up to the mark, and hope they don't get balloted. Not a single comment about all the Southland horses who came to Riccarton to race on a heavy grass track, then went home when the meeting was transferred. I presume they were offered no compensation at all? I still can't get my head around the consistency, or lack thereof, of tossing $20,000 into a Waikato race because of the ANZAC day transferred meeting, but not a cent offered to the Southland horses affected by the Riccarton transfer. Is it of concern to any trainers?

NZTR didn't used to have nearly the responsibilities back then that they do now, due to the whole structure of the industry being totally changed. And back then there were several highly competent racing club secretaries with deep racing knowledge who used to keep the various regions ticking away quite happily, despite a few rogue clubs and personalities. Now there is very little knowledge or competent leadership at club and regional level, and fly by night leadership at national level. The worst possible combination really. I doubt very much that Awapuni would be the mess it is now if Bill Freeman and Jack Bennet were still running things in PN.

Yes, and if you combine off season and SI we might as well be talking about outer Mongolia as far as NZTR are concerned.

I don't know if anyone has noticed, or even cares, but with that Riccarton transfer to the AWT that means there is over six weeks with no grass track race-meeting anywhere in Canterbury. It was going to be over five weeks anyhow, which was bad enough, but now more than six weeks. I imagine no Canterbury trainers will have any grass track horses in training at the moment. If they do I hope they have told their owners. It would certainly solve all of the track problems in the CD if NZTR decided that all winter racing would take place on the Awapuni AWT. In the north they could restrict all racing to Cambridge apart from a little jumps circuit somewhere. I can't recall when the AWTs were being promoted whether NZTR told everybody that all SI winter racing would be restricted to the AWT apart from a few random low grade meetings in Otago.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion on these things and TAB's is certainly a valid one. Personally, I find myself disagreeing with virtually everything he has said. The slot wasn't "placed on the same day as some iconic NZ races". The iconic NZ races were all moved onto a single day to boost slot day. We used to have Derby Day, Auckland Cup Day, NZ Stakes day, Breeders Stakes Day at Te Aroha, probably even Sires Produce day. These were all feature race days in their own right. Now they have all been bundled together as support acts for a slot race and lost their individual identities. Where we used to have five separate feature race days we now have one. Did the turnover on that day, plus the four or five other days that it bastardised top the turnovers that those four or five other days used to do as stand alone feature race days? And did the turnover justify the extra $1.7m that was poured into the supporting races, plus the money poured into the slot itself, the $1m of bonuses, and probably $500,000 in promotional costs. All that for a race that only one of this season's top half dozen 3yos was eligible to race in, and that one eligible horse chose not to bother.

As one of only two people, that I know of, who openly posts on both of the racing forums (the other being Pam/Freda) I feel I must say that the continual antagonism and sniping between the two sites in recent times is getting quite boring. The industry has probably never needed more constructive input than it does currently, but the likes of Entain and NZTR must look on and laugh at the childish behaviour on the two public forums that should be holding them to task. I don't know any of the personalities involved, nor do I know any of the history behind it all. Racing attracts people from all walks of life and from all social strata. There are some people on the two forums who are obviously quite bright, and have broad industry knowledge, others who have a more simple view of things. They all have their role to play and all make worthwhile contributions at times. There are one or two on here who can be quite contrary and aggressive on occasion. I find the best response to that is to just ignore them. I cannot understand the antagonism towards Curious. He comes across as highly intelligent and very knowledgeable about the industry. His contributions usually seem very civil and well thought-out. As I said above, I have no knowledge of any history that has seen him get off side with some people. Myself, I just respond to topics on either forum that I find of interest, and where I feel I can make some sort of contribution. Some may find that contribution useful, others may not. I try to be even handed starting new topics, spreading my wisdom around. I'm sure there are probably some trainers and jockeys who would like to get involved on here, but are probably scared off by the aggression and personal abuse to fellow posters on display at times. The hosts of both forums put an awful lot of time and money into hosting the two sites and we should be very grateful to both of them.

I am not totally opposed to the meeting being transferred to the AWT. It may have been a sensible decision. The question really is how much consultation was done with the trainers and how many options were considered? There were probably 4 or 5 options: -Abandon the meeting altogether. -Transfer it to Monday at Riccarton. -Transfer it to Timaru. -Transfer it to the AWT. Possibly even consider reopening noms for an AWT meeting on Saturday to fill the gap. Afterall there were three full fields of horses from Thurs totally neglected in all these discussions. And transfer the grass meeting to Monday or Tues. Remember we recently saw a massive Sydney Saturday meeting transferred to the Tues, quite successfully to.

That is an amazing article. I'm growing to like Tyler. He sounds like an intelligent trainer. He suggested the meeting could have been transferred to Timaru. Balcombe basically just said "fuck of, what would a trainer know."

I don't necessarily agree with that. I haven't seen a breakdown about how much came from the slot holders. It would be easy enough to figure out if someone could be bothered. Certainly not $3.5m though. $90,000 came as a listed race subsidy. I doubt the rest of the stake all came from slot holders. Plus there were $1m in bonuses, hence the often quoted stake of $4.5m. And four slots funded by other racing clubs. I don't know how they could afford that. I guess it will come out in their annual reports. And it made a laughing stock of the CJC. That $1m of bonuses would have gone a long way during Cup Week. And god knows how many hundreds of thousands were spent on promotion by Entain and NZTR.

I don't notice much relating to the decisions to cease racing at some tracks and to concentrate industry resources on selected tracks. Given that the despised tracks like Te Teko, Foxton, Timaru and Oamaru, just to name a few, are all good winter tracks, do the trainers think the right decisions were made regarding relegating these tracks to also rans? I can't help thinking that the CD has been incredibly lucky that Trentham has held up ok and been blessed with good weather around all of it's meetings. Likewise, I hate to think what racing in Canterbury would have been like if there were any problems with Ashburton. The number of abandonments look bad, but it could easily have been much worse.

No one scratches in the SI unless the horse has broken down. Many horses only get about one opportunity a month.

Probably worth remembering that NZTR have only had to run things for the last 20 years or so. Previously they had very little to do with closing down tracks, funding stakes, deciding on dates, building grandstands, renovating tracks. etc. So this is all relatively new to them and they aren't really up to it. Ironically at a time when most clubs have lost all of their enthusiasm and can't put up much of a fight. They would have struggled to push through many of these "innovations" 30 years ago.

Who actually won the awards this year? I have never seen NZTR mention it anywhere. All I have read was TAB suggesting Auckland had won something, don't know whether that was just their category of the whole thing. If the ARC is so clever perhaps they should second someone to pop down the road and offer some friendly advice to their trotting cousins.

Yes, it was so badly thought out it couldn't possibly have been written by someone with more than half a brain. And Messara through his achievements has shown himself to be an intelligent person. He must be highly embarrassed now when he looks backs and sees the inanity of some of the recommendations attributed to him that were included at the instigation of others. I must admit, I tended to dismiss his whole report because the bits I had reasonable understanding of were so badly thought out. Ironically they were probably the easiest bits to get right. He probably didn't dwell over the bits he thought were quite straightforward. Still, as a presumably intelligent person, he must take his share of responsibility for trusting the advice of halfwits.

That was always the plan. The big increases were only for about 7 months mid summer. No one has been able to explain the logic to me. Often the biggest fields are during April.

I was there for Naval Officer's Derby. Easter Cup used to be a great race. Doesn't exist anymore. Day has certainly gone down hill. Riccarton used to race on the Monday.

Are you suggesting I leave Shab?

It's quite sad to see the way the trots have lost their way in the south. They appear to be just floundering around at present and gradually fading away. Who would have thought back in the 70s and 80s that Riccarton would eventually take over from Addington as the big show in town. Does anyone have any thoughts about when and why it all went wrong?