Doomed

It's good to see the Trainers Assoc have at long last made a half hearted contribution

I think most of us have now decided what needs to be done with Trentham, sadly.

They can't afford to help Woodville whilst having to fix Hastings and Awapuni and decide what to do with Trentham when it inevitably falls over.

Its going to be a horrible look again this weekend. Sires Stakes day used to be such a big day. I was there the year Vin d'amour defeated Kingdom Bay in the Sires, I think the last time it was raced under handicap conditions. If I was in Wgtn this weekend I think I would be too depressed to even bother going along.

NZTR tossed in an extra $510,000 on top of the Group 1 subsidy to boost the Oaks to $1m in an attempt to keep its Group 1 status. Thank god they at least attracted one high profile horse, who is now off to Aussie. Some might suggest they would have been better off spending the $510,000 to install some irrigation at Woodville.

Waverley and .....

The club of the year virtually has to be Central Otago doesn't it? What a yawn if Auckland wins it.

Just not at Moonee Valley

Can't have been the shot I saw, there are 30 or 40 patrons shown in that shot. Those umbrellas the club put out are a bit of an embarrassment. I suppose it makes it look like there might be people there from a distance. Seriously shocking really. The on course turnover would be fascinating. Did they charge people to get in? It would just about be Trentham's richest raceday of the year wouldn't it? One of only 2 or 3 million dollar races throughout the country that aren't restricted races. I wonder what the plans are for the old public stand area. You wouldn't really want to start building things based on the current layout as the track obviously won't be there in 2 or 3 years. All very sad. I'm sure no one wanted to see this happen, and I'm sure no one expected the demise to happen so quickly.

I was looking at a sweeping shot of the old public stand location yesterday with nobody about and thought its ok on a day like today, but where does everyone go on a big day. Then it suddenly occurred to me that was a big day with a $1m race. Didn't seem to be many there. Oaks Day used to be a really big day.

I always thought CWJ was one of the best judges of pace.

Good idea TAB. Keep up the good work.

Thanks for that Freda. I just thought that no maiden opportunities between 13 March and 3 April seemed like quite a long break. I suppose trainers work around it, and as you say they can travel to Dunedin.

Who was the winner of 19 you referred to? Presumably the great Prince Majestic, certainly a stunning racehorse. I can recall him winning the Wanganui Guineas as his first big win, it might have even been a group 1 or 2 back then.

W

We might as well make the most of some inside knowledge. Perhaps Freda can tell us if Canty trainers are reasonably relaxed about no maiden races in Canty for three weeks. Is the trainers attitude one of "that's cool, gives us a chance to have a nice summer break and we won't charge our owners any training fees for three weeks." If it turns out to be a really popular idea perhaps NZTR could introduce it into the CD and Northern region. Perhaps we could have maiden free March. Who knows, it might be an innovation that spreads further afield.

So basically, the only metropolitan club to not get a nom was Trentham, and the only provincial clubs to not get a mention were Awapuni and Hastings, neither of whom are actually racing at the moment. All a little underwhelming to be honest. Poor old Waverley, who are virtually singe handedly carrying CD racing at present, doesn't get a mention, whereas Masterton who don't even have their own racetrack and to the best of my knowledge do fuck all is a big contender. All a bit strange to be honest. I just hope Gore, Winton, Riverton and Kumara send representatives to the big prize giving event so they can learn where they are going wrong and learn how to do better in future.

Speak for yourself. You have no idea how excited I am to hear who prevails in each category.

We don't actually know that as turnover figures are hardly ever available. I would suggest that a decent sized $22,000 open race in the winter months would do just as much turnover as these five horse $50,000 races in the NI during the summer months. But who knows, we can only assume. Perhaps there are punters who love the 5 and 6 horse fields and punt big. We have no way of knowing.

I do treasure your input TAB. How long do you think it will last?

We haven't had minimum stakes of $50,000 for open races for ten years. People often complain about the state of racing in the CD, but it must be a great place to race a handy horse. I heard one of the presenters at Wanganui today commenting about several horses on a quick back up. Why wouldn't you? When you can race for $50,000 in a six horse field. There are a lot of benefits to be had by astute placement of a horse in the CD. As Curious mentioned, I have absolutely no idea how the stakes are funded. The turnovers surely aren't sufficient to fund the current stakes levels. It would be interesting to see some figures that break down where the funding comes from. It is probably only about 50% from turnover, virtually nothing from sponsorship, the rest from some mystery source. Basically just a donation from Entain for some benevolent reason.

Meanwhile three $50,000 races at Tauranga and Wanganui today with 5, 6 and 7 starters. You do wonder whether there might be a problem somewhere. And those bloody stupid twilight meetings with shit fields running for $25,000 each. The extra $6,500 per race has zero impact on the field size or quality. $52,000 or $58,500 extra in stakes per meeting to achieve nothing. If the twilight meetings ran with $18,500 stakes that would leave enough money to run $18,500 minimums all winter. I just can't see how we can continue to run those $50,000 open races with 5 or 6 starters. They surely are not self funding. I think we have a problem. Still we have a brand new slot race, so who am I to complain.

Obviously in the John Grigg as we know it Freda, although it has had a few names since.

When the harness raced at Ashburton it was the old track, much bigger. Similar size to Riccarton I think. I saw hands Down win there one day early in his career. Well, saw the last 100 metres anyhow. The track was covered in fog. I suspect it was remodelled to the smaller circuit some time mid 80s.

Have a look at the York racecourse. Massive land all around it and it is virtually in the middle of the city. York itself has a population about one tenth the size of Auckland and the racecourse has a capacity of 60,000, compared with 10,000 at Ellerslie. I can't imagine them ever selling off all that land. Once it's gone you can never get it back. It is terribly sad in NZ to see virtually all of the metropolitan tracks selling off large tracts of their land. And the only one who appears to have anything to show for the sell off is Ellerslie, for now. I don't know what the strategy is for the other clubs once they have nothing left to sell off.