Doomed

I see that is Avondale you refer to. You can hardly blame them. 25 trials at Avondale this week, 24 at Foxton, both tracks that aren't considered important. If I was running either track I would tell them to f... off and play on their flash AWTs. 15 trials at Ashburton as well. Surely they could have been run on the AWT?

Might be planning a big opening ceremony: stages, dancing girls etc.

Just lucky we have all those spare tracks to move to. Who would have thought you would see meetings moved to Trentham in the winter time

But the gallops know they just have to hold on until the three AWTs are up and going and everything will be ok. The trots already have their AWTs, in fact so many they have closed several down over the years and want to close even more.

Locarno was one of my favourites back in the day. He may have been one of the first to win the Miracle Mile from the outside barrier. Only a six horse field in those days of course.

Won by most of the greats, including Locarno. Many would probably rate Messenger/Rowe Cup night the best night of the year at Alex Park. Sad to see how far it has fallen.

Last I heard Riverton races at Riverton and the Tylers train at Riverton so probably a 2 minute stroll around to the start. Of course, it is hard to know where everyone races these days so perhaps the Riverton meeting has moved to Gore, it wouldn't surprise me. Stranger things have happened.

I just checked the programmes and they have been opened up to all comers. How sad, The Messenger used to be one of the great races, now it is just another everyday event. In the gallops you might struggle to retain your group status if you made such a dramatic change, but group status doesn't seem to mean too much in the trots.

I think you will find they would rather race at their local meeting over Easter. Probably more appreciated there.

I wasn't going to comment Curious as I feel I keep repeating myself, but the intention is basically for Riccarton to hold their usual saturday turf meetings and virtually all of the Ashburton, Timaru and Oamaru meetings get moved to the AWT. I'm not sure what the Timaru and Oamaru tracks are being "saved " for as they have hardly any summer meetings. And the horses that "prefer better footing" that you refer to are being moved from grass tracks that usually provide dead tracks (firmer than most NI summer tracks) to an AWT surface that they have never raced on before. I seem to recall the Tylers saying "Yeah close Oamaru we can't stand it, we can't wait to head up to Riccarton and the AWT, that will be a perfect lead up to bog track racing at Riccarton over the National carnival." Although they may have said that on 1 April.

Doesn't matter said Bernie. trainers come and go, total numbers remain generally the same apparently. He's the expert on the big money so I suppose he knows.

Seems a bit weird. The trots already pay back to last anyhow, so rather than getting $300 for running last you will now get $500. And rather than the winner getting $10,000 they will now get $10,200. Doesn't sound like the most innovative solution.

Trials there just over a week ago I think.

Any benefit of the doubt should favour the interferred with horse. I thought it was going to go straight past the tiring leader.

It will be interesting to see if they are brave enough. I thought the runner up was going to get there. She was interferred with badly enough to be over a length away at the line. If she had got within a head she might have been promoted.

Possibly he didn't stay.

I was more talking about the fillies really, but even the Derby placegetters have hardly kicked on. Its not even as if most of them have had hard 2yo seasons either.

Discussion of today's 3yo race got me thinking that recent 3yo crops have shown an appalling failure to kick on as 4yos. The fillies have been particularly bad with hardly any of the group 1 placegetters in recent years doing anything as 4yos, or even subsequently. The males have been almost as bad after sometimes showing early promise. Catalyst seems to have disappeared, Aegon didn't fire this year. Noverre won't be seen again. Any thoughts what might be causing this? Are they being raced too hard as youngsters, is the pattern wrong, are our 3yo races just so weak that the winners just aren't that flash. They don't really seem to get raced as hard as the Aussies race their 2yos and 3yos. I'm sure it wasn't this bad in years gone by. We used to look forward to the exciting 4yos turning up.

I think you only get just over $500,000 for that, they give a lot to the also rans. So even if you take that out he has won approximately $400,000, more than the rest of the field combined. I think he won the Manawatu Sires last year, probably his most prestigious win so far.

I don't follow NZ racing much these days so pretty out of touch, but he is thrown in at the weights. He has won numerous races and almost $1m. A couple of the others have won two races, but not much money, and the rest are one win horses and maidens. So surely he has to be favourite? Whether he will win is another question. Gives them a chance to test him out and hopefully get another group win. If he wasn't there we would all be saying what a shocking Group race that is.

Interesting article. I was surprised by the comment that "The next round of stakes increases will occur on April 3." I thought stakes were dropping on April 3. The $40,000 open races go back to $35,000. Of course they don't publicise these things very well, I couldn't find anything on the NZTR website, so perhaps there are increases coming. I thought Saundry sounded a bit arrogant when asked whether he was concerned about trainers cutting back. He basically said trainers come and go, but total numbers remain "relatively consistent". Basically saying "fuck off Kelvin, you won't be missed." Of course there is every chance Saundry has no idea where Riverton is. He probably thinks it is one of the back waters where they thought they had closed most of the tracks. He is probably looking at his atlas right now thinking, "bugger we missed one, how did that slip through?"

But what the hell would a trainer know? We have people on massive salaries to make the really big decisions.

I know I am pretty much the odd one out, but I have always thought one of NZ Racing's greatest assets was the variety and number of tracks scattered around the country. Others have always considered the number of tracks to be one of our greatest problems and consider we would be better off if most of them were closed and all racing was moved to a few favoured tracks. I think it is good to be able to take races to the people, others think it is better to centralise away from the traditional racegoer. I am waiting with interest to see all the figures relating to the closing of Motukarara and Wakouaiti and the moving of their meetings to Riccarton and Wingatui. Stakes for their two meetings increased by about $320,000 so I assume the cost savings were enormous to fund that. There must be a detailed list of costs, savings, turnovers and attendances from those two tracks due pretty soon.

At least you have a ballot to sit on Bid. What about the poor South Islanders: no maiden race in the entire SI for 13 days at this time of year. In the NI they programme extra maidens at the drop of a hat and are happy to split them.

The place is a bloody mess from top to bottom. Look at the disgraceful fields at Tauranga yesterday for big money and they all come out of the woodwork to race for $12,000 at Mamata midweek.