Doomed

I was just reading an article about the scrapping of two feature races at the Cambridge trots. Apparently the club couldn't object because the HRNZ Chairman and CEO are both on holiday. At least if we need to find the Chairmen and CEOs of TAB and NZTR we know they will be at the Otaki races today.

A good move for Forsman, but probably the one trainer NZ Racing couldn't afford to lose.

I don't think they are dim at all. Everything is going exactly to plan. It's just a hopeless plan. I think a total management clean out is the only thing that can help NZ Racing. It won't save it as too much damage has already been done, but it might enable the industry to identify some sort of viable level.

Sadly that does not surprise me, but it still disgusts me. The stakes money being poured into Wingatui is unbelievable. It has always been an under-performing venue turnover wise. There are hardly even any trainers left there, but it seems to have been identified as the great white hope of SI racing.

Following on from my last post I notice the Marton Cup has an 87 top weight and just four horses rated over 81. The Kumara Cup has a 90 top weight with five horses rated over 82. So don't be surprised if next year the Nuggets is a listed race and the Marton Cup will be worth about $30,000. Isn't that the way things work?

As someone mentioned above, the policy seems to be if there isn't a horse in the 90s accepted for an open race it becomes whatever rating in the 80s the top weight is assessed at. Been going on for a while now. So there was no point calling it a benchmark race as the highest rated accepter was an 81. It was originally an open race. The exception seems to be a race like the Marton Cup, which is a listed race with an 87 top weight. I presume because it is a listed race it has to stay as an open race even if it does attract a lowly rated field. If it wasn't a listed race and needed to maintain the prestigious international standing of NZ racing I presume it would have become a rating 87 race.

Good to see Camino Rocoso get his second Greymouth Cup. I do like to see him ridden properly like that

I'm not sure if today's Matamata meeting was the Thames JC racing at Matamata or whether Thames has given up and it is a Matamata meeting and they just called a race the Thames Cup for old times sake. Whatever the case, I was a bit saddened by the virtually total lack of sponsors. It does show what happens when you move a meeting away from its home town, everyone tends to lose interest. I tend to judge the strength of racing in a particular area by the club's ability to attract sponsors. It is a worry when you can't attract sponsors for a prime date Waikato meeting. By contrast I just noticed a trot meeting at Cromwell in a few days with numerous sponsors, and numerous races. Perhaps taking the races to the people might not be a bad idea afterall. Does anyone know if NZTR has a policy of ringing up Matamata and saying "we notice you couldn't get any sponsors. Is that a sign of declining interst in your area?" I do worry where all the sponsors will come from as racing gets more and more centralised.

That is absolutely sensible, but a lot of people seem to miss that connection.

Its really a no win situation. If they cancel races with a couple of decent horses entered because of small fields, those few remaining decent horses might disappear off to Oz as Gammalight suggests. Also, if the horses just below that class see their aspirational races being cancelled they may decide they might as well piss off as well. At the same time, the industry can't afford to keep running $50,000 races with no betting. A decent sized field with a $1.20 fav for $200.000 is probably just as bad. Our strength used to be in the open class races with even fields of well known consistent horses. These days the big money seems to go to age group races with hot favs, which don't seem to have a lot of upside. You wonder whether the allocation of stakes money might need to be reconsidered. You only have to look back on some of the open class fields from 30 years ago to see the same horses racing against each other consistently year after year. Punters need horses they are familiar with. We seem to be miles away from that these days.

I think that has been the biggest disappointment to me. Someone on a massive salary should have the confidence and decency to be able to come out and say "look , we got that one wrong". To act as if they have never made a single mistake is just arrogance and incompetence of the highest order. Even Cindy comes out occasionally and admits she got something wrong. NZTR and the TAB haven't acknowledged a single mistake in 20 odd years.

We do have to accept that times change and we have to change with them. There is a lot of competition to racing these days. Unfortunately, virtually none of the changes the industry has made seem to have worked. And at the same time as the industry is contracting, management and salaries are exploding. One problem is that we don't seem to have identified what are the industry's strengths and weaknesses. Something that some of us may consider a strength, others may consider a weakness.

I'm interested to know whether the ARC are still contributing the extra stakes money to all their races despite them being held at Te Rapa. Very generous of them if they do. Makes their playing away from home pretty expensive over 2 or 3 years.

Looked like a good crowd at Riverton. It would be interesting to be able to compare the crowds at Riverton and Te Rapa if they keep such stats.

I do struggle to see the problem.

I think you have largely missed Brodie's and Michael's point. The industry can't really afford $50,000 for 4 horse fields with a hot fav and virtually no betting. And Group II, really? That is just taking the piss. Surely it will be downgraded next season, although given that they dish group status out like something from a weetbix packet in Harness racing, who knows what will happen. I suspect that they have backed themselves into a corner by tossing another $100,000 in that Race thing, and inventing a $100,000 Invercargill Cup. To dump some existing races now might not be a good look, but who knows, I don't understand their decision making at all.

I think asking the house cow to wag its tail to indicate yes or no would work better than the current lot, so surely electing representatives who actually know something about racing would have to be better than the current system.

Interestingly, about 30 years ago if those in charge were incompetent the various clubs and industry bodies would have come together and done something about it. It appears to me, without really knowing any of the people concerned, that that level of industry management is now fairly impotent and not really engaged. So there are just no checks on incompetent and possibly corrupt upper management. It's a terrible and unfortunate combination.

An interesting piece of bias coming up tomorrow as well. 22 noms for a matamata race, but they are happy to split it into 2 races. Timaru by contrast had a race with 25 noms, but no chance of splitting that. I'm amazed the trainers assn never comments on such things. They split a northern race a few days before Xmas and ended up with 5 starters in one of them. You can see why people have largely given up.

None of us know the answer to that one. Even Waikouaiti was favoured over Timaru originally, but they changed their mind on that one: the only time they have changed their mind on anything.

4 Timaru trained winners at Kurow today I see. That's not part of the grand plan; makes Riccarton look bad. Better close them down as quick as possible before they cause anymore embarrassment.

Quality not quantity. For that type of racing people want to see competitive racing with good divis, not $1.10 favs.

It has always been on an industry day. They hate Timaru for some reason. But if they offered to go to Riccarton they would suddenly have a feature day just like Banks Pen and Waikouaiti, but fewer people on course just like those other two. All too silly for words really. I bet they are praying Ashburton doesn't have any problems. There is no plan B if Riccarton and Ashburton are both out of action.

I really couldn't have put that better myself. I do find you lose interest very quickly when you realise how quickly things are deteriorating.

Yes, I think they have pretty much ridden out any opposition, and pretty pleased with themselves that they have got their way. The arrogance is astounding. Ironically, most of the current management will hardly be needed in a couple of years when all we have left is Ellerslie and three AWTs, none of which will attract anyone on course. And they will probably wonder why nobody seems to bet off course either, and then suddenly owners dry up as well. I suppose they can then concentrate on sports betting; so much easier.