Doomed

It is worth remembering that British racing has always struggled because bookmakers have dominated and they return very little to the industry. NZ racing always did well because we were the first in the world to have the totalisator, and the tote returns much more to the industry. You do wonder whether this emphasis on fixed odds betting, with expensive gimmicks like no deductions for scratchings, no deductions for dead-heats and paying out on horses that get relegated, seems to have coincided with much poorer returns to the industry. Perhaps we should return to the days when the tote dominated, when there was no problem with how much someone wanted to bet, or how much they won, and the industry did well. There have always been people who have claimed that NZ racing would do well if we had bookmakers. Doesn't really seem to have worked from what I have seen.

It's not a subject I know much about, but I do know that matiriki can float all over the place throughout the winter, its worse than Easter. I have no idea how far in advance they know where it will fall in a given year.

It's all to do with having a Maori racing club racing on matiriki. And we only have one such club and its not the CJC.

On the subject of Aussie racing, it did appear to me that handy to the lead and on the rails seemed to be the place to be in Sydney and Melbourne last Saturday. We saw a few lead all the way, even at Flemington, and others stuck to the rails to make their winning runs. Different to many NZ meetings where heading out wide seemed to be the favoured option.

Based on precedents here, I doubt very much whether Gentleman Roy would have been relegated in NZ. I have no idea what the thoughts were in Australia after than one, whether pundits thought it was the correct decision or not.

I've got no idea if that is what they are talking about. They are obviously promoting female racing people somehow but I know nothing about it. Perhaps someone could explain what is going on that has upset people.

Perhaps someone could explain to me what this is all about? I'm always very impressed when I see some of the very well spoken female trainers and jockeys on trackside and I often think we should make much more use of them to promote the industry.

I actually think it was a pretty calm ride. A lesser jockey could easily have been tempted to drag the horse sideways for a clear run at them and lost a lot of ground. As it was, he just waited for a gap and luckily it came.

I wish someone would tell George to describe what is actually happening, rather than anticipating what he thinks might happen. In the first he had the fav out wide leading virtually all the way down the straight only to suddenly realise it had never actually headed the three horses inside it when they hit the line. Same in the second to last race. Had the fav out wide leading down the straight when it had never actually headed the two inside it. I don't know if there is racing on the radio anymore, but if so they get a very misleading picture. Even people watching live or on TV must get very confused if they don't know the colours.

That was impressive. Best NZ win in Aussie for a while. Very cool ride. No way was it going to win, or even place, 150m out.

I have been thinking, are we past the era now where clubs look for sponsors for races? Is it just too hard to get sponsors, do club's no longer employ anyone to do the job, are sponsors no longer interested? I notice the Derby today doesn't have a sponsor and the Avondale Cup and Guineas a couple of weeks ago didn't have sponsors. I can understand it in NZ as racing no longer has any commercial appeal or value, but even in Australia today the Australian Guineas doesn't have a sponsor. I suspect in Australia the stakes are just getting so high that to ask a sponsor for say 10% of the stake for naming rights is beyond the means of many. And the old model used to be that the sponsor of a really big race would spend about double the sponsorship amount entertaining guests on the day, which is not viable for many. Also Australia has so many new feature races all the time and there just aren't enough sponsorships to go around. I do find it a bit sad, I am sure many of us can remember some of the great sponsorships from years past, The Bayer Classic, usually rated the king of them all, but also the Air NZ Stakes, the Nescafe Northern, the Lion Brown Sprint, the George Adams, the Benson and Hedges. Several of those races were only known by the sponsors name and usually didn't have any other name. I struggle to think of too many races today that are only known by the sponsors name, the White Robe Lodge and Couplands mile certainly two of the obvious ones.

And you are going to feel even sillier when they offer you an exceedingly generous consultancy fee for your input, because that's the way it's done in the big city.

You are going to feel so silly one day Reefton when you get an email from the WRC saying they would like to come on a fact finding visit to the Coast to learn how better to connect to the public, how to attract people to their meetings, how to attract sponsors, how to prepare a track properly and how to run a race meeting at a profit. One word of advice though, don't be so overcome with excitement that you automatically say yes when they ask if you would like to run a charity race-meeting on the Coast to help raise funds for the Trentham refurbisment. That largesse didn't work out too good for Nelson and Avondale.

You don't seem to understand that some clubs are "Special". To be fair, I don't know whether the WRC have spent hand over fist for years, if so they don't have much to show for it. I think the WRC's problem for many years has been that they are just a bit boring with no enthusiasm or excitement about them. They have lost generations of support locally. Most of their feature races have been abandoned or left to run down, and they haven't added anything new except for the Levin Classic, which they stole off Levin in a bizarre swap arrangement. You just know they will cock up this property development idea. You just hope they don't take down too much industry money or assets with them.

Which viable racing club do you refer to?

It's probably a matter of which 300 jobs go. If its the inflated management structure that does stuff all there's a massive saving right there, but if it's the people who actually do the work it's a worry. Presumably the $1m man who runs the show will no longer be needed.

An article in stuff saying the outsourcing is close. https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/131347592/tab-believed-to-be-close-to-outsourcing-deal-that-could-cost-hundreds-of-jobs

I notice Art De Triomphe is in. I always thought they stuffed her by sending her to the Cambridge Breeders Stakes when she was totally out of her depth. I always find it so sad that there is no proper pattern of racing in the South. Nothing for 3yo sprinters or stayers. So many Southerners with a bit of ambition end up going north at great expense to contest decent races without suitable lead up racing, and usually return shattered after the experience.

Generally no idea about racing is considered an ideal qualification for most racing roles.

I don't think bickering over semantics is doing anyone any good. This industry is in a death dive and there is little point those few with some interest in trying to halt the dive arguing about minor details. It is becoming pretty obvious that there are only a few people out there who seem to realise the seriousness of the situation and who have any ideas about how to possibly mitigate the crash when it happens. There was a perfect case study into the industry's biggest problem with the Auckland trots. A CEO with no industry knowledge comes in, loses about $100m and pisses off without a care in the world. This example is replicated many times over throughout the rest of the industry at all levels. We are probably wasting over $10m a year just in salaries to useless administrators. And that is just their salaries, who knows how many hundreds of millions of damage they are doing. They will all just piss off without a care in the world when they are finished having their bit of fun. Probably never to earn such salaries again if previous experience is any indication, but they all managed to build up their own personal nest eggs for a few years.

A similar sized team to Pam and buying at similar prices so it will make for an interesting comparison.

I notice yesterday's Riccarton trials were cancelled. Is that because of just a general lack of horses or an unwillingness to use the AWT. Either way, it is a bit of a worry.

Most international punters can't access the NZ TAB from their own countries. Increasing profits by lower take out rates assumes we have a large punter base ready to increase their betting. Sadly we are not a big gambling country like Australia. A lot of people are still betting the same amounts they were 30 years ago.

Hard to argue with any of that.

Quite amazing if you find your way through their website and have a look at some of the jobs on offer at the TAB, mostly totally unnecessary, and I hate to think how much they get paid.