Doomed

A certain irony the sole ballot being trained by one of the AWTs greatest advocates.

The people on the big money know better than us mere mortals. I'm sure they have a spreadsheet that justifies it all.

Perhaps they realised they had programmed 4 CD meetings in 9 days, the first 3 all low key meetings, and no way would there be enough horses to go around. Having read about the judge at Timaru being fined for his mistake I wonder if others who make programming mistakes etc could be fined as well for bringing the industry into disrepute.

I suspect at Trentham they have no other option. This is probably the last desperate hope.

Didn't RACE spend heaps on developments at Awapuni and cock it up?

I can remember the days when Ellerslie, Trentham and Riccarton all used to race at Easter time. Not sure what will happen when they get rid of all the small clubs that don't mind racing on those days.

Yes, not a good look.

A good start would have been to show he was actually prepared to talk to people and listen to them rather than just preach a load of meaningless rubbish. I presume it was written for him and not all his own words, but even then he could have said he wasn't going to keep churning out that rubbish. How hard is it for them to come out and explain things like why it wasn't possible to race Riverton Monday and either Wednesday or Thursday; instead denying the South 6 racing opportunities. You get impression the minute details are all below them and they are big picture people not interested in the basics. At the moment it is the basics that is letting the show down. How long can they keep running 3 horse fields for $30,000. I suppose the savings from shutting down Wairoa more than fund those tiny fileds.

That was the bit that intrigued me as well.

From memory, it is the first time I can ever recall one meeting being abandoned so that another abandoned meeting can take its place. Sets an interesting precedent. Six fields of horses basically just told to stuff off. Fields that already had jockeys declared, horses primed, probably even bets taken. Really weird.

Doesn't matter, its only Southland. Totally different approach to recent abandonments in the NI. It was a chance for some jockeys to get 20 rides over the two days and for the local trainers to get opportunities over the two days. Now they are 6 races down. And, as I said, on the same day there was no worry about 3 horses going around for $30,000 in the North, and scratchings all over the place on a good track at Te Rapa. Lets just hope they follow this precedent for the next northern abandonment, rather than the approach after the last two Tauherenikau abandonments where they fell over themselves to slot in extra low key meetings.

The proposed solution seems bizzare. Run the 8 remaining races on Monday and scape most of Monday's card. Why not run monday's card on Wednesday or thurs? In the North they always programme another meeting. Tauherenikau to Waverley most recently. They are probably concerned they will have smallish fields running for $12,000, but no trouble having 3 horses running for $30,000 today at HB. The scaped races are quite important for southern jockeys and trainers who don't get many chances. Today's balloted horses who were hoping to get their chance on Monday will be pissed off.

Looks to be abandoned according to the TAB. Most unfortunate.

Perfect track too. And the worst scratchings are in the rating 65s. $30,000 and they don't give a stuff. Compare that to Riverton. Heavy track and they still front up. Ballots hardly ever get a start in the South, and they hardly ever have 2yo and 3yo races programmed down there. Look at HB. 3 starters in a 2yo race for $30,000. Bloody disgraceful. And they are continually splitting fields and programming extra races in the North. Just about every week they add in an extra 2yo or 3yo race somewhere in the North. I would doubt that an extra 2yo or 3yo race has ever been added in the SI. The trainers certainly don't have the same attitude towards the "flash" tracks as NZTR. I suppose if they keep closing as many provincial tracks as possible trainers will eventually be forced to race at the chosen few. As I have said many times, I didn't really believe this industry's biggest problems are Waimate, Oamaru and Hokitika.

Good write up about the Riverton races. It probably gets more publicity than the Wgtn or Auckland Cups these days. Must really piss off NZTR when meetings like that attract more publicity than the big city flash events. It will be interesting to compare turnovers with the $900,000 harness race meeting last night. No story that I could see in the Waikato Times about their group 1 tomorrow. https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/racing/128351345/rivertons-easter-races-a-meeting-place-for-many-in-the-south

Being the natural optimist that I am, I like to think that purely on the basis of percentages they should get at least one decision correct sooner rather than later.

You might have to elaborate on that one for me Mikey. Can you mention for me some of the other big races where everyone but the winner is going to loss money? I have no idea what nomination and accpetance fees are like in the trots, I looked on the HRNZ website but couldn't find fees listed anywhere for any race. But I don't know of any other race where the stake is put up by participants who all know they will lose money if they don't win. Race stakes are usually funded by turnover, in one way or the other. That's why some of us were interested in the turnover.

Very true. And I didn't have a bet on the race myself, just watched it out of interest. However, the hard cold facts are that it is the punters who provide the races for other enthusiasts just to sit back and watch without any financial involvement. Without punters there would be no racing, we should never lose sight of that fact. I'm much happier getting a $10 winner in a maiden race than a $2 winner in a $1m race.

I saw those figures as well just before the close and thought it was pretty poor. I checked again during the running and it had ended up with about $51,000. Not much really. I imagine Riverton would be disappointed tomorrow if they didn't get that for their Cup race.

Right then, now that it is all over can someone explain something to me. This is a serious question. I 'm not knocking the race, there are just aspects of it I can't get my head around. The winner got $340,000, after deductions for trainer and driver. So roughly $170,000 each for the slot holder and connections, assuming it was a 50/50 split, although since it was the hot fav if I was the connections I would probably have asked for a 70/30 split. But assuming it was 50/50 the slot holder made a $95,000 profit for their investment. About a 120% return on their investment, so good work if you can get it. After deductions the second placegetter ended up with $106,250; $53,125 each for slot holder and connections. Slotholder only lost $21,875. Better luck next year. Third placegetter $36,125 for each of slotholder and connections. So slot holder lost $38,875. And so it goes as we go down to the also rans where the slot holders lost about $50,000 each. In what way does this make any sort of business sense for the slot holders? Only one of the 10 of them had any chance of showing a profit, and if this year's winning slot holder doesn't have a horse run in the first two for either of the next two years they will end up losing money overall. It was also interesting that the All Stars didn't purchase a slot. You would have thought they had every chance of winning the race and ending up with all the winning stake. Perhaps they thought it was a bad business proposition. For the connections of the winner and placegetters it was basically the same as racing in a $300,000 race. As I say, I'm not a big trotting follower these days, and I wouldn't have known the race even existed if I hadn't looked on here, and I may be missing something totally, but I just don't get the business sense in all this. Why would 10 groups of people invest in a something that they were 90% guaranteed to lose money.

I had the combined win and place tote pool at $51,000. Perhaps a similar amount fixed odds and some exotics, so possibly $150,000 on the race all up. Perhaps a $15,000 contribution towards the stake from betting turnover.

Now that you have given up following harness racing perhaps spend some of your spare time taking a proper writing course and learn about punctuation, paragraphs, full stops etc.

The article I read somewhere, probably on the hrnz website said the $37,500 would be split between the slot holder and horse connections.

That of course is how the Kosciuszko works. As they have now copied the Everest concept, I'm sure someone will think of copying the Kosciuszko next.

No, apparently the slot holder and the connections of the horse that they originally had/were allocated, however it works, split the $37,500 between them. So the slot holder gets about $18,000 for their $75,000 investment. Great business model.