Doomed

One simple question that someone more expert than I might be able to answer (well most are more expert than I): Why is it that I can never recall an Aussie meeting being being abandoned because a track becomes slippery and yet it happens in NZ all the time? And one extra question. Why is it that I attended most Central Districts meeting for a dozen or so years from the early 80s and can't remember a meeting ever being abandoned and yet now it happens regularly? There is obviously a problem that they have tried to address cheaply by watering tracks heavily, but that clearly hasn't worked. The AWTs were supposed to end abandonments, that was the major justification for their introduction at great cost, but I can't see that they would have prevented either of this weeks abandonments.

Don't worry Huey, the AWTs are going to solve this problem with abandoned meetings.

The track will still be f-ck-d tomorrow. Might be time to close down Trentham. Sell Trentham and invest in a state of the art track at Timaru. That's the way rationalisation should work.

Unbelievable. I notice Taranaki was abandoned midweek and not a single comment anywhere. Everyone one expects it these days. What a bloody fiasco. And the features have been moved to TeRapa. Bloody hell. I can't imagine an abandoned Sydney meeting would ever be moved to Brisbane. Why not move it to Cromwell, that raced really well last week? Why not move the features to Awapuni? What a shambles.

November will be interesting, what impact a locked down Melb Cup and NZ Cup weeks will have. Interesting that turnover can purely be related to the timing of the race rather than the quality of the field, with a low grade race from HB coming in at 9 just because in slots in at a good time of the day and had a good sized field.

They certainly do their level best to boost numbers at Cambridge. They split races at the drop of a hat, whereas they hate doing that in the South at the best of times. Lots of ballots at Cromwell this weekend, and interesting to see only one horse at Otaki and Wanganui is higher rated than the Cromwell Cup top weight. If the South could just come up with a couple of decent jockeys and get their programming right things could tick away quite well down there.

The Greyhounds may be in disarray in many respects, but Liz certainly knows the industry, as does Michael Dore. Probably more industry knowledge than some of those running the other codes. Is the shot putter still involved?

What is the northern cartel? Surely it has been embraced even more enthusiastically in the South? It is talked of as the saviour of Southern racing and the best $15m ever spent.

Surprisingly well written. They must have out sourced it.

Interesting, it might of been a case of the gap going faster than the horse was.

What happens to someone like Wynne who is put out for over 6 weeks? Do they qualify for the dole or what? You do wonder whether this model works in the current day and age. How can a poorly paid jockey justify the existence if they might get suspended without pay at any time or get injured and be off work for months. All that risk and the only upside is possibly winning a $40,000 race and getting about $1,000 in percentages. And every second week they have to travel for about 8 hours each way to go to work for a few hundred dollars potential return. Its a strange model in the NZ environment.

What a load of rubbish. I suppose all you can do is laugh. On the positive side, I don't think I have seem them requiring "a depth of industry knowledge" in such a role in the past. So I suppose that is one positive. Can anyone remember the days of Haf Poland when the CEOs used to hang around for a while? These days they only seem to last a few years each. Get in, fuck it up, and get out quick before your inadequacies get found out.

She only did just over half of what Grey Way did as well. About 30 wins against his 51.

Ah yes, but Winx never won a Timaru Cup.

Could it be the first time a jockey has been fined for excessive whip use and not riding a horse out in the same race?

I have no idea who might have won a race between Showgate, Sunline, Winx and Verry Ellegant at their respective peaks, but it would certainly have been some race. Every era has their champions, we are just lucky to have seen them, some more than others. It is perhaps worth remembering that there wasn't nearly the gulf between Australian and NZ racing back in the day, in both stakes and quality of horses, so NZ performances were more significant than they are now.

One never knows where these things might end up Ludwig, just enjoy the ride.

The thing is of course, that in the hands of any other trainer she would never have been asked to attempt some of those incredible achievements.

How exactly did Labour and the Greens kill southern jumps racing? The Couplands Mile isn't a new race. It is the old Churchill Stakes. It has always been there. It was boosted in stake and status to fill the gap when the 2,000 Guineas became a $1m race and was moved to the first day, as they didn't want a $1m race on mid week. Sadly it never managed to boost the crowd on the first day. The only new race that has been added to Cup Week over the last 50 years or so is the fillies and mares race on the middle day, but that wasn't invented by the CJC. It is the old SI Breeders Stakes that was developed by the Geraldine Racing Club that the CJC inherited. Cup Week is actually short one feature race these days as the Canterbury Gold Cup was moved elsewhere. "There is always innovation and new ideas, the Riccarton team are a passionate and committed bunch". I don't think I have ever seen a sentence like that on here before.

You are right Ludwig; silly question.

Was he a big owner himself?

No incentive for the club to do that these days. The powers that be love it when a southern race only has 4 noms. They can just drop it and save $12,000. On the Cambridge AWT they leave the noms open and split them into two fields of 5. As people are saying above, this isn't rocket science. Programming 7 and 8 races doesn't help as it means they basically just programme the same races all the time and the same maidens and 65s get eliminated and balloted all the time. If you have a 65 horse with no form in Canty it is virtually impossible to get a start, even in a $12,000 race, but if you wanted to race in an 8 horse $40,000 rating 74 at Riccarton you could start as often as you like. And after Cup Week there is no race-meeting anywhere near Canty for three weeks until the next Riccarton meeting on 3 Dec, no wonder they have to run maidens during Cup Week. The bizarre thing is that this problem doesn't cost anything to solve, but it seems to be a combination of it not being a glamorous enough subject and no one having the actual skills to sort it out.

The Cup is only Group 3. I doubt very much that it will be the worst Group 3 field we see go around this season. The Waikato Cup prelude this weekend has a rating 82 top weight and only one other horse higher than 78. I am actually in favour of the NZ Cup retaining its stake and group status. We need to give some weight to tradition. We don't have much else. It is the whole structure and pattern that is wrong, although the CJC must take a lot of responsibility for that as they dictate a lot of the pattern in the SI. I really do despair for the SI when the AWT is fully operational. The CJC will then run most the industry days and most of the feature days in the South. None of the other clubs will then have any incentive or encouragement to try anything new, and the CJC last showed any initiative about 40 years ago in the days of Dave Lloyd.

I must admit, I was just thinking back to the late 80s, early 90s when Empire Rose, Mercator and Double Take came back from running well in the Melbourne Cup to win the NZ Cup. It is probably unlikely, but I have been keeping an eye out in case Verry Elleegant or The Chosen One throw in a late entry for the Cup this year.

I remember the McLean Stakes well. Some good horses won and were placed in it. Otago also had a decent 2yo race on Boxing day. Now Otago and Southland can't even be bothered having a 2yo race on their cup days. They would rather run a maiden race. I don't really blame them. They have had the stuffing knocked out of them, no real leadership and no encouragement to try anything new, or even go back to something that has worked previously. There used to be a 2yo fillies race at Riccarton. Riccarton even used to have the SI Champion Stakes over 2,000m for 3yos, or a name like that. Somebody should tell the powers that be that syndicates are big these days and they quite like to see their horses race as 2yos and 3yos. If they showed some initiative they could have hundreds of excited owners sitting up in the public grandstand at Riccarton watching their youngsters race around on the AWT. I vaguely recall some pretty stupid sounding concept of bonus races, triple crowns or something like that being announced for the SI. They would be better off putting the money into 3 or 4 new races that people understand rather than some esoteric concept that no one will understand and will gain no traction. And don't get me started on four maiden races over the first two days of cup week. Have they given up on tiered racing? Riccarton is bloody lucky to have retained their two Guineas races, Cup Week would be stuffed without them. There is no logical reason to have them in the SI. Although to be honest there isn't really a decent track in the NI that could hold them at this time of year.