Doomed

Timaru will be nervous after that meeting today. Superb racing on a perfect track. 10 mostly full fields and about 20 horses balloted and eliminated. If the Riccarton AWT meeting next week doesn't get 10 races with full fields Timaru will probably lose this meeting next year. The other SI golden child Wingatui already has pretty shaky fields this weekend. The big city clubs won't like the despised country track upstaging them. I notice the AWT has a feature meeting a couple of weeks after that, and then a couple of week's later NZ's only feature meeting with a rating 75 as the highest rating race. They are certainly throwing the money at the AWTs to force trainers to use them. It is a pity there isn't a level playing field where trainers are allowed to choose which option is best for their horses.

I don't think anyone blames the trainers for not doing more. I have the greatest admiration for the Tylers and Parsons especially. The SI would be lost without them. I enjoy every success they have. The Tylers hardly got any mention anywhere for their success last weekend. I hope the CJC at least bought them a beer and a sausage roll.

Has there been any comment yet about whether they intend to give it a go again this season? Do people think there are likely to be any jumps races at Riccarton in August? It does seem a bit bizarre when you think about it if it does go ahead. No other jumps races in the South and yet they will probably put up big stakes for what are basically exhibition races. Bring in all the contestants, horses, jockeys and trainers, at incredible expense. It seems to run against the policies that apply to most other aspects of racing: eliminating everything that appears to be inefficient. Waimate and Wairoa must look on in bemusement.

He does need something to go back to when this current job ends. And he does get weekends off in his racing job, so plenty of time for rugger.

He's the best jockey I've ever seen, and I think largely under appreciated over the years. My favourite ride has always been Domino in the Oaks; I backed it of course, so very exciting. I did speak to him in the carpark at Trentham after one of the big days, can't remember if it was that Oaks day of not. The members carpark was always the place to be after a big day at Trentham. I assume that doesn't happen anymore. I'm sure CWJ would be an amazing person to sit down and have a beer with. I can't think of anyone in Racing who would be more interesting. Even some of his post race interviews have always been entertaining. I think if he didn't go straight into the hall of fame as soon as he retires there would be a lot of people asking why not.

Good for trotters

I think its about 1500m

I know absolutely nothing about rainfall or racetracks so I am seriously asking for expert opinion. That Riccarton track looked pretty bad today. I notice it was already a heavy 9 on Thursday after 12mm of rain in the last 7 days. Obviously it had deteriorated even further since then. At the end of summer should a track be a heavy 9 after 12mm of rain in 7 days?

Apparently synthetic tracks aren't all bad. https://loveracing.nz/OnHorseFiles/NRB Meeting News/Polytrack Racing Resumes.pdf

How embarrassingly written is that? It's like they got some intern straight out of school to cobble it together. What does 'sewed fertile ground" mean? If that Mike Roberts wrote it himself, he sounds like a total nutter. Is he really that bad?

Yes, they were quite separate licences to those held by the club who owned the track they were raced at.

The other on-course only clubs included Alexandra who raced at Te Rapa, Cromwell TC, Eastern Bay of Plenty at Te Teko, Helensville at Avondale, South Waikato at Rotorua and Waiuku at Ellerslie. Waiuku incidentally did on course turnover of $373,333 at Ellerslie on 18 Feb 1982.

Just found an old Turf Register. The Riccarton Turf Club raced at Riccarton on Thursday 18 February 1982. Nine races, all worth $1,000. On course turnover of $115,922.

That may have been the original intention, but the equalisator meetings morphed into an oncourse only meeting. I think it was the only one in the SI, but there were several around the Waikato. It came about believe it or not because there were so many horses about and the TAB didn't open Thursdays and Sundays so there needed to be some extra opportunities in certain areas at certain times. A totalisator club couldn't hold both types of licences so the oncourse only meetings were given to clubs like Riccarton TC. In the Waikato it would have been clubs like South Waikato. They would have also been good earners for the organisations whose day job was running many of the trial meetings. I don't have any records of any of this so I'm relying on memory. Others more intimately involved than I will know much more about it. Sad that the Racing industry doesn't seem to have recorded history like this very well, at least nothing you can google.

If you look at the CJC annual reports you will see they have ward committees for Amberley, Hororata, North Canterbury and Riccarton Turf. I often struggle to remember what I did yesterday but I am quite certain that NZ used to have on course betting only race-meetings and Riccarton Turf was one of them. They possibly ended late 70s, early 80s. I can specifically remember a very big divi one day when there was only one live ticket on a quinella or double. Equalisator betting was quite a different thing.

It would only take about 5 years to stuff NZ racing, so probably not much difference between a 5 year or 25 year deal. We won't last 25 if they cock it up.

An on course tote just wouldn't work given the small number of attendees and the tiny pools. Back in the days of on course only meetings the Riccarton Turf Club would do about $250,000 on course. These days the CJC would think they were doing well to turn over $50,000 on course.

I think Nelson would have closed late 80s. As you say, there used to be a lot of owners and enthusiasts around the top of the South, but largely all gone now. And sadly not being replaced by an upsurge of new involvement in the big cities excited by the prospect of AWT racing rather than country track racing.

The industry has lost more than 25 galloping tracks, plus several trotting tracks, over the last 30 years, largely through natural attrition. Suddenly that isn't good enough and NZTR wants to pick and choose which other clubs to eliminate. Ironically, some of the clubs the industry has tried to eliminate in the past are still ticking away quite well, Kumara being a classic example. We now have the most perfect case studies to show how closing tracks can benefit the industry in Banks Peninsula, Waikouaiti, Blenheim, Wairoa etc. There must be so much information, financial, attendance figures etc, gained from those clubs that could be used to justify further closures. I do not understand why NZTR doesn't come out with a detailed analysis of all the benefits and the financial goldmine from shutting down the tracks listed above. I'm sure it would be enough to sway some of us who are still a bit dubious about the current approach. I can even imagine Reefton saying "wow, you're convinced me, I'm a convert." Why do they not do this?

Pointless having an income stream for the future if the industry can't survive the next few years. The Auckland trots are a good example of making one cock up and seeing everything implode pretty quickly. The rest of the industry needs to learn from that.

Jumping out of a plane is an exciting prospect, until you realise you have forgotten your parachute.

The trouble is that the "favoured few" clubs like Auckland and Riccarton are totally in the pockets of NZTR as they benefit from a lot of the decisions. Even big players like Te Akau do well out of it as there are plenty of group and listed races to target and still enough open class races for decent enough stakes scattered around the country to make their model work. Even the top Waikato based trainers do well enough out of it. Any innovative clubs and individuals have had the stuffing knocked out of them. Riverton would be one of the few clubs that put some extra money into their stakes, and they are a club the "brains trust" are trying to close down. Look how boring the Riccarton programmes are over the next three meetings, and all for minimum stakes. Unfortunately we have decided to settle for mediocrity.

Very few people understand how the whole industry works, all the intricacies of funding etc. I'm totally out of touch myself. I don't really know any of the major players anymore. I just assume most of them are useless. Who knows, one or two of them could be quite competent. Surely we must fluke someone decent occasionally. The plan is basically to divide and conquer, confuse people, bore them and hope anyone who might be a nuisance eventually gives up and goes away. I think most of those who do have an idea what is going on have basically given up as they realise there is nothing they can say or do that will make any difference. Off the top of my head I can't think of a single innovative club out there, or an enlightened administrator, so there is really no one in authority who can stand up and say this not right.

Hard to argue with any of that. Incredible that the people who make those decisions just can't see it. Although to be fair, the people who who make those decisions have never actually been to Geraldine or Waimate so you can't expect them to know. Interestingly, the only racetrack on state highway 1 that they are desperate to close down is Timaru. Some other centres off the beaten track might need to be wary.

It's a strange old leader-board isn't it? The leader has more than twice as many winners as the 2nd place-getter and that 2nd trainer has twice as many winners as the third person. Short odds on the exactor, hint of value in the first four.