Doomed

I might be around that way on Saturday. Does the Sefton pub have a TAB?

I think any public interest in the race revolves totally around the three Aussies and the southerner. Without them it would have taken an incredible PR create effort to create any excitement around the race, other than by harping on about the stake. And everyone seems to conveniently forget that the owners of the slot winner will most likely go away with less money than the owners of the Derby winner. Unless the slot holder owns the horse outright, then they might do slightly better than the Derby winner, minus the Group status. An awful lot of the total stake is paid out to the also rans, back to $100,000 for last.

She flies up today, Monday.

Loose Sally did follow up a placing behind Pivotal Ten in the listed fillies race at Wingatui with a win in the listed Dunedin Guineas at its very next start. Won easily too. So that does stamp the form a bit. And there a couple of northern filles with a bit of a wrap on them in the Dunedin Guineas and they failed to feature.

As I understand it, there was never a lot of love lost between the two clubs in the Wairarapa so when Opaki got closed down the Masterton Club was never that keen to move to Tauherenikau. Opaki did have some meetings at marginal times of the year so Tauherenikau wouldn't have been an ideal venue for their dates. Opaki was a pretty miserable place for their Spring meeting, but I always quite liked going to the races there.

The other problem in Australia is that no established black type race has been downgraded for many years. Some established races have been attracting terrible fields because of the competition from all the novelty races. If they followed the NZ system lots of races would be on warnings.

I suppose you have to ask yourself if a trainer owned a horse themselves and someone came along and offered them $1m for it would they sell it or keep it? It's a brave person who turns down big money for a horse. Just ask the connections of Kinane. And Colin gets to keep a half share. Seems like a no brainer to me.

I'm pretty sure the Lowland started out at Opaki. Then Masterton tried a few venues for their meetings, including Tauherenikau, which did seem to be the obvious one, but seemed to favour Trentham.

It will be interesting to hear what the crowd and turnover was. You couldn't get better fields and better racing than that in the south. Even the 2yo race was probably the best I can remember in Otago/Southland for a long time, and won by a Te Akau horse. The crowd and turnover will give a very clear indication of just what the maximum possible is on a genuine raceday. It will be interesting to compare it with the more party orientated days like Melbourne Cup Day and Boxing Day. And interesting to compare it to the days of Rod Stewart and Bonecrusher. If a meeting like that had been held in the late 80s I would have expected an on course turnover of close to $400,000 and off course of close to $3m. Sadly, I expect those days are behind us. I do think a good exercise for the industry though, and a lot to be learnt from it.

It looked like a great day's racing at Wingatui. So many tight finishes and even a dead head. And as Pam said, most of the winners came from Otago and Southland. A successful day for Tina and Sam as well. I thought all of the trainers and jockeys spoke really well when interviewed on TV. Good PR for southern racing.

So that helps a couple of breeders I suppose. Do you think they will hang around and contest some more races while they are here, and people will pop out to Trentham to see them race?

Would people consider it good or bad for NZ racing if a couple of Aussies come over and quinella the race? That's quite a serious question, I do wonder what people think. It might be a lesson for the CJC to show a bit of patience before making their selection in future. Their pick is probably out to $100 to 1 by now. Have all the NZ clubs with slots had to front with $450,000 each? Surely some of them might have to question the wisdom of being involved if they get nothing back for that investment. I really can't see any value in the CJC's investment so far. They will argue that it was designed to boost their Guineas races in some fashion, but this time around none of the good horses that contested the Guineas had any interest in the slot, so surely that theory was proven wrong.

I see Ears Back went around ok at the Ashburton trials today, so presumably all good for Saturday.

I imagine the ODT advertising is in return for all those races being named after them. The races themselves are totally funded by NZTR so the ODTs contribution is the "free" advertising. I'm not knocking the ODT at all, it is probably the best paper in the country.

We should try not to be so nasty about people on here. I have always found Jamie and Mark totally decent people when I see them on TV.

That is certainly something I find very strange. Why have the TAB sponsoring lots of big races? Does it mean no one else is interested? Was Ray Coupland kicked out from the Riccarton mile or did no one else want it so Tab stepped in? I'm struggling to think of any big international companies that currently sponsor races in NZ. No airlines, breweries, banks etc. We used to have Air NZ, Nescafe, Bayer, Fosters. Most of the current big sponsorships look more like donations. It's not a good look if the marketing departments of major companies don't see any value in being associated with the racing industry.

I have mentioned this before, but that is the bit that has surprised me the most. For a supposedly intelligent and experienced betting agency nothing they have done appears to have been designed to maximise turnovers. Jamming heaps of meetings on Sundays and leaving Thursdays and Fridays vacant does not boost turnover. Did the Sunday idea come from NZTR, or Entain? Did they discuss it between them? Was it designed to achieve something? Did those two mentioned in the article get the boot because their initiatives haven't achieved anything, and in face may have impacted turnovers negatively?

Is that your polite way of saying you told him to fuck off Pam?

I actually found it a strange article. I thought they were working for a betting agency. It sounds like they thought they were working for NZTR. Either that or they thought NZTR were so ineffectual that the betting agency had to take over and run the whole show.

Thank you for that Pam. I often think it be a great idea if someone in authority was to keep an eye on comments on places like this and come on occasionally to clarify situations which might often have a simple explanation.

This is no mug horse. It is the Timaru Cup winner and a very handy horse. As the owner said, it is the first time it has played up at the barriers. It would be a tragedy if it didn't get to the Wingatui race. I notice they add on trials for certain horses at the drop of a hat in the North. Taupo this week has two trials on raceday for selected horses.

Until we see some other side to the story, surely we have to accept his version.

What you are really saying is that it is a very ordinary field and if PT can't keep up it means she isn't very flash. Personally, I think she has saved the race. Sure there are a couple of Aussies, but they don't seem to have created most interest. A lot of people will be watching the race now wondering how the Southerner might go. Even I might watch it now.

One of the major things that concerns me about the poor programming in the SI is the lack of opportunities it means for local jockeys. The Riccarton meeting on Wednesday had 9 or 10 NI jockeys. Some only came for 2 or 3 rides. And that's a low key, low staked, midweek meeting. That's thousands of dollars in airfares and shows very little respect for the local jockeys. I don't know how people who criticise the SI jockeys expect them to learn if they aren't given opportunities.

Or a maidens as at last tuesday