Doomed

I have vague memories of a horse called Twilight Mist running second at Hororata one day and Reon missing it totally because it finished right down the outside fence. I may be totally wrong of course as I often struggle to remember what I did yesterday.

The significant thing about all those old Cup races is the amazing depth in the fields. I think that is what we all miss these days, and what frustrates us so much. And what a good commentator Reg was.

Interesting the top 2 both trained in the UAE. I'm a bit surprised Private Eye rated so high.

I suppose it was so blindingly obvious even NZTR couldn't miss it. Just imagine if they decided to run a 2yo race one day.

Very good points. Three quick comments. You mentioned 21.7% of turnover for Rangiora in betting revenue and 17.95% for Auckland. Why the difference? And surely not all of that percentage is available for stakes? Quite a bit of it goes to various taxes and other levies. I am very out of touch with all the numbers. You used Rangiora in your example. Because Rangiora has a few Sundays there must be a big worry that their turnovers will drop with the increased competition on Sundays. Sunday turnovers are always going to be be restricted naturally as people have lost so much money the day before. The last thing they need is more competition for the off course dollar. Also Sunday on course trot crowds are less likely to bet into the other meetings on the day. Finally, you asked is it too late to fix this, referring to the imbalance of new meetings. I presume some of the new meetings will be abandoned if they prove unsustainable because of low numbers. Unfortunately I can't see them saying 'This week's Manawatu meeting has been abandoned because of low numbers so we have replaced it with an extra meeting at Rangiora."

Really interesting. Moody came across well. The Pommy interviewer was incredulous at the suggestion that a horse could excel over different distances.

With a $45,000 6 horse field in Auck this week and a $40,000 6 horse go at Trentham they probably thought they would get a bit of flak deleting a $17,000 race at Wingatui.

I'm sure no one was bagging you Gamma. A lot of people don't understand how the game works. Turnover is king. It basically takes 20 decent sized maiden races showing a profit on turnover commissions of $5,000 each, after funding their own races, to fund one $100,000 2yo race with 6 starters that generates very little betting. Harness racing the way it is structured currently in NZ is unsustainable. Going back a few years, clubs used to make some money from people paying to get in the gate and from sponsors attaching their name to races. These days entry is usually free and hardly anyone attends anyhow, and there are very few sponsors. I don't follow harness much, but in the galloping game most big races are sponsored by Entain or the TAB, so no outside money coming in. I recall one very enthusiastic poster on one of these racing forums once stating that he never bets. He obviously enjoys the non sustainable races, but he is contributing nothing to the industry. As for your other comment that punters prefer 6 horse races. Turnovers certainly don't back up that view. $1.50 favourites don't allow much scope for most punters.

I'm not sure you understand exactly how the racing industry works Gamma. It is all about turnover. And the bigger the fields the bigger the turnover. Those two races you refer to would probably generate about $2,000 each to fund stakes, which leaves about $13,000 per race to come from somewhere else. Totally unsustainable, even in the short term let alone the long term.

Presumably so, but does the extra turnover cover the extra $60,000 in stakes? And would the fields be any different if the races were worth $18,500? Currently the fields are no better than normal despite an extra $6.500 per race.

And sat parked to win a NZ Cup if I remember correctly, which is not the normal way for NZ trained horses to win that race. In fact I can't recall another NZ trained horse that sat parked for a significant distance and won the race.

Not sure that listing all the horses that aren't there is the best way to talk up the quality of this year's field.

I thought he was very harshly criticised on Mr Brightside. Very hard to ride the perfect race against Pride of Jenni.

Paeroa?

For the TAB to restrict you that must mean you are taking fixed odds bets. I have always been a tote bettor. Old fashioned I know. In my experience the odds are usually better on the tote so why the obsession with fixed odds? I don't bet on the trots these days of course so I have no idea how it works really. Are you taking red hots where $1.25 is better than the risk of money back on the tote? Or are you trying to lock in $30 shots who might come down to $10 on the tote?

That must surely be the worst Auckland Cup field I have ever seen. What an embarrassment. But even more significant on the night. Surely the only thing worse than having to programme a maiden race on Cup night is to get only 7 acceptors for such race. 7 starters for $25,000. What on earth is the problem there? Imagine if Methven put up $25,000 for a maiden race. They would have to start three lines of 12.

$10 and $20 windows I think. On Cup day at Addington the only way to easily get a bet on was to go to the $10 window. In the members stand at Trentham the $10 window was always the way to go.

Must be hard for the poor buggers to keep motivated, especially in the South. With only one SI jockey riding a winner at Riccarton last week and about 10 of the top northern jockeys in attendance I often wonder why some of them bother at all.

Surely not. Next you will be suggesting that with only one horse trained south of ChCh in the rating 75 1,200m perhaps they need more grass track meetings in Canty at this time of year.

With Auckland, Wellington and ChCh all currently out of action for jumps racing of any scale, it is becoming pretty much a country based format.

We all know what will happen if the activists and the compliant media are successful in getting the greyhounds banned. Next up will be jumps racing, then all horse racing. I'm amazed they don't turn their attention to rugby, which has horrendous injury stats and deaths every year. People often seem more concerned about injuries to animals than to humans.

This from NZTR today about the upcoming Otago meeting. "NZTR in conjunction with the club MAY look to divide the R65 1600m provided there are sufficient entries at withdrawal time." 35 noms for the race. They must be expecting a high attrition rate if they don't think they will end up with enough horses to split it. They should really be splitting it into three races. And they should be asking themselves if perhaps they have a programming problem if they get 35 noms for a $17,000 race, especially since they have just had a meeting at Riccarton with much higher stakes a few days ago.

As I'm sure we all know, precedents are important. Sadly, "dumb" is now well established.

I thought that since the "flash" racing is virtually all done for the season it might be worth considering which of the stakes type innovations proved successful, and which ones weren't quite so successful. I must say, I thought the SI $350,000 gimmick race was probably the best of the lot. It attracted a really good field, turned into a very competitive race and provided a worthy reward for southern trained horses. If you were to offer me $350,000 to name one horse who raced in the other 3 gimmick races in the north I wouldn't be able to name a single horse, let alone the winners of any of the races. As to the biggest waste of money, and there were several contenders, I would suggest the $650,000 in bonuses for horses who placed in 3 or 4 nominated races. Legarto won the bulk of it running 2nd in the last event. I am really not sure what it achieved at all. Legarto proved uncompetitive in its two Aussie starts during the season so was probably always going to target those NZ races regardless of bonuses. Campionessa and Desert Lightning decided to head off to Aussie anyhow, despite earning enough points early on to be contenders. The last two races only attracted fields of 10 and 11, so hardly capacity considering the total stakes on offer. It will be interesting to see if NZTR analyse the success or otherwise of all the initiatives, and decide to abandon or revamp any that didn't work so well. Although I think they are just rolling them all over to next season as is. Obviously they consider everything they did was 100% successful. Certainly an impressive result for any business.

Very interesting. I can remember living in ChCh in the late 70s and having to move to the car during the night to listen to the Auckland trots. Who would bother going to that trouble these days. Listening to the Auckland trots, let alone having to sit in the car in the middle of the night to do so.