Doomed

Since you mention 2yos, interesting to see another 2yo race catering solely to maidens for $30,000 at Riccarton. Only one official maiden 2yo race in the SI all season, and that's the first race of the season when they are all maidens anyhow, but throughout the season they keep running $30,000 races that only attract maidens. I wonder if they have thought of doing what they do in the NI, you run endless maiden 2yo races and then they all come together in the better staked races. Its called a racing pattern in most other countries.

I just happened to be looking through some upcoming programmes. There hasn't been any real detail announced regarding the trumpetted stakes increases and I have been intrigued to see what they might do with the 3yo classics. I always thought the temptation must be overwhelming for them. I see the 2,000 Guineas is going up $50,000 to $550,000. What on earth is the point? $50,000 just pissed away into a race that doesn't need it. It won't keep a single extra horse in the country. It won't attract a single extra horse to the race. The 1,000 Guineas incidentally is going up $100,000 to $400,000. Will Te Akau sit back and think "Hmmm.. we were going to send all our 3yos to Oz for a change, but the 2,000 Guineas has just gone up $50,000 so big change of plans." NZ 3yos go to Riccarton because it's an easy go at Group 1 status for horses that could never win a Group 1 in Aussie. Will Pike come out next week and say " I was going to send this horse to Melbourne, but the 2,000 Guineas has just gone up $50,000 so we are staying here." I imagine the Oaks will probably go to $500,000, or more. God knows what they will do to the Derby. $1.2m, probably more. Where is it being run next season, Te Awamutu or something isn't it? The 3yo classics winners and placegetters have hardly excelled for many, many years. Hard to rememeber more than a very small handful that have gone on to win big races. NZTR's answer is to keep boosting the stakes. Do they not realise they would be better off fixing the programming and the pattern of racing to create more interesting and competitive racing. I see the Livamol at HB has gone to $330,000. Not the standard $300,000 for Group 1s, $330,000. What on earth impact will that extra $30,000 have on the field? We do waste money don't we. It is quite discouraging really. I wonder if they might be tempted to throw a few hundred thousand at the two big sweepstake races, it must be tempting Not sure where they are being held this coming season; probably Pirongia. In answer to my own original question, I go with incompetence, but it could easy be all of the other three options as well.

There is really very little difference between the horses that contest each grade of racing in the South, and even in the North most of the time. They are pretty much interchangeable. In this case the ones who wanted firm tracks went to Oamaru, as did the ones who wanted a local racemeeting. The most revealing thing about racing in the SI this week is the programming incompetence it exposes. At this time of year there are a lot of 3yos winning races. Would you not have thought a 3yo race at Riccarton might have been a good idea? Look at the Creswick Stakes at Flemington last Saturday, a top notch field with numerous winners getting a late season chance to test themselves against the best 3yo sprinters going around. A 3yo sprint at Riccarton would have thrown together a really competitive field. But its just all too hard really. Just stick to the safe basic programme.

They actually think it is great business practice to close down as many outlets and racetracks as possible. They think they are doing well. In a few years time when we are down to just Ellerslie racing a couple of times a week and one TAB outlet in each major city the great industry thinkers will consider they have saved the industry. They must look in total bewilderment at Countdown and Bunnings and McDonalds opening branches everywhere. I'm sure they think the people running those businesses have no idea.

Well done Diego today. Winning the last four races. I'm sure four wins on a day has been done before and possibly even four in a row, but how often would they all be at such good odds. Not a favourite between them.

Good 4 at Oamaru and heavy 10 at Riccarton, certainly shows why Riccarton needed an AWT but not why the SI needed one.

So you are arguing that the provincial growth fund was happy to fund a track in the middle of ChCh as that would enable NZTR to close down racing in Timaru, Banks Pen, Rangiora, Waimate and Marlborough? Those provincial areas would presumably be much better off not having to maintain a local racetrack and they would be delighted to be able to sell their tracks so the funds realised could be used to support Riccarton, Trentham and Ellerslie. That philanthropic gesture would do wonders for the mental wellbeing of all those provincial centres. The next logical step based on that precedent is to sell the main rugby grounds in Timaru, Ashburton, Rangiora, Blenheim and a few other assorted country towns and use those funds to fund Christchurch's new covered stadium. Once the PGF sees those smaller centres are totally in favour of that approach the PGF would almost certainly come to the party and throw money into the ChCh stadium as well.

Do you never read back over your posts and realise most don't make any sense at all? In an attempt to be helpful, you're means you are. If you are trying to say anything other than you are you should use your. If you want to interact with people you should make an effort to comply with normal grammatical conventions. I suggest you try posting in your main language and leave it up to people to translate it. I'm not even sure what your main language is. It doesn't sound like any European or even Asian language as you don't make the usual errors those speakers do when writing English.

Look, I have to be honest, Gospel's appalling grammar always makes me think he is a bit simple minded and I never take much notice at all of his postings. And yet in a recent post he claimed to have a university degree. I assume he has English as a second language, so full credit for that, most of us on here struggle with the one language. If he would only read over his posts before sending them to tidy up any errors he might find people take more notice of what he says.

Come on curious. It takes literally 10 seconds of googling to find numerous articles where abandoned meetings were used as the major justification for the spend on AWTs. https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/101002951/allweather-racing-track-promised-by-winston-peters Meetings that were cancelled due to wet weather in and near those regions could be transferred to an all-weather track,

I watched some races at Te Rapa and Trentham yesterday. When the camera panned over the grandstands you would have thought we were racing in covid times, hardly a soul to be seen. It made me think Riccarton is propably right not wanting a public grandstand. Compare that to the massive crowds at Ipswich yesterday, a city with a similar population to Hamilton and Wgtn. We really have lost our way, and it is the big city tracks that have lost their way the most. As Reefton says, the very tracks that are getting all the money poured into them. Any other industry would consolidate outside of the loss leading white elephants.

I initially thought you were saying my argument was illogical, but I see you mean their usefulness for preventing abandoned meetings is illogical, and I agree totally. Sadly, we all know that was one of the big justifications when they were first promoted. Still, at least it won't be the first, or last, time NZTR get things wrong.

I'm sure it is a great surface, as it should be for $15m, and no one would argue it's not a nice thing to have. The trouble comes when it is promoted as the answer to all of racing's problems and funded at the expense of other tracks and facilities that many consider just as important. I'm still waiting for the AWTs to prevent the first abandoned meeting: that was their big selling point by Winston.

I was there for Lord Module's Allan Matson. World record at the time wasn't it? Just look at the depth in that field. When would be the last time we saw a field with that much depth. Superior Chance was a free legged pacer wasn't he? Something else I don't think we see any more. A pity we no longer use the historical names for some of the long established races. My own favourite horse of that era was Locarno; a very flashy animal. We were lucky to be at Addington in the late 70s and 80s. No Response's Interdominion, Scotch Tar racing against the pacers. Matai Dreamer a briliant horse we probably never saw the best of. You do wonder where it all went wrong.

Surely any well run industry body is going to be big enough to stand up and say "look, we got that one wrong." Especially in the face of overwheming evidence. Even Cindy eventually said 'look, we got that one wrong" when it came to Potu.

I'm struggling to think of an NZTR decision over recent years that has been reversed after widespread opposition from industry participants. I'm sure there must have been something, but nothing springs to mind. I'm sure even NZTR wouldn't be so blinkered and bloody minded in their decison making that they won't see the contrasting support for Timaru and Riccarton this week and be big enough to come out and say perhaps we got that one wrong. Even Mills surely will admit that they need to readdress the allocation of dates given experiences to date.

I just had a quick check of upcoming programmes and I see there is no grass track "industry" meeting in Canterbury right through August and September. It's a funny old world isn't it? So "Saturday" horses have to perform on the grass whereas lower tier horses have to use the AWT. If you are a trainer with a really promising maiden who hates the AWT what do you do? You do have to feel sorry for trainers in Canterbury trying to place a horse. I suppose since none of them seem to complain they must be reasonably happy.

I see they have just appointed a new COO so I imagine he will be all over this sort of thing and they will respond accordingly.

Interesting to note only 7 smallish fields with no ballots at Riccarton this week, compared to 9 good fields with 8 ballots who couldn't get a start on a heavy track at Timaru last Sunday. Timaru really should have had 10 races with more intelligent programming. I would suggest there are quite a few lessons to be learnt from this, which are probably relevant to the northern AWTs as well. Not all horses are suitable for the AWT, but of course we always knew that. Many winter horses are actually waiting for wet tracks. Timaru is much more centrally located to attract horses from Otago and Southland as well as Canterbury. It will be essential going forward that winter horses have a grass track low key option at least every couple of weeks, ideally centrally located. Hopefully NZTR do respond to the lessons they have learnt so far when allocating dates and venues for next season. There may even need to be some changes made to allocated dates.

I imagine that the Auckland clubs will probably move their's to $17,000 now anyhow as the first $14,000 is being fully funded.

I was pleased to see Polly Grey scratched yesterday, she had no chance on that track. She has been a bit unlucky on her trips to Brisbane to strike good tracks at just the wrong time, still she has benefited from those wet Sydney tracks for the last 16 or 17 weeks.

There will be when the new Group 1 stakes start.

Lots of interesting stuff there. I wonder how many of the bright sparks that came up with the plan are still involved in the industry. I see the Cambridge synthetic will no longer be used for racing in 6 or 7 years and Cambridge will have moved to a new venue. Banks Pen I see will have moved to Ashburton and Marlborough will probably be the club that races furtherest away from its home town. I wonder if they assess progress each year and give themselves a rating as to how successful they have been so far, I imagine they do. I wonder what the last rating they gave themselves regarding success and progress was?

Not sure where you got those figures from. Open races dropped from $40,000 to $35,000 for the winter months. Most the other grades have been at $30,000 for most of the season.

You only have to look at the winners of the multi million dollar Derbies and Oaks during the three years of Winston's earlier beneficence to see that massive stakes boosts achieve nothing long term. Purely from memory, I don't think any of the Derby or Oaks winners went on to achieve anything. I think several of the Oaks winners were sold overseas straight afterwards.