Doomed

As long as none of the racing fraternity in the Waikato mix with criminals they should be ok.

The obvious answer appears to be to use Riccarton purely as an AWT venue. Give up on the turf track, perhaps use it as a training track at certain times of the year. Sell off the 1,200m chute and some of the steeplechase track and put all of the money raised into creating one decent SI turf track at Timaru.

The problem seems to be scratchings. Some of the fields start out ok then half them scratch. There seem to be so many opportunities for the same class of horse in the north and they just accept all over then pick and choose. Draw outside 6 and they scratch. You hardly get scratchings in the South as they get so few opportunities.

Trainers have never really responded logically to stakes differences. The $15,000 maidens on Saturdays have generally been smaller and worse quality than $12,000 midweekers. And the 5 horse $30,000 races show what trainers think of them.

We are seeing a lot of theories (bloody expensive theories at that) not working out well at the moment. Numerous 5 and 6 horse fields at Te Rapa today prove that the problem wasn't stakes after all. 5 and 6 horses in $30,000 rating 74s, what a waste of money. And they ran 1.13 so they could hardly blame the track. I wonder if the brains trust get together on a Monday morning and say "well that didn't work out well, what did we do wrong?"

Firstly, I think it is very brave of you to come out and say you have lawyers as friends. Secondly, I think the Victorian idea is a good one. Perhaps they could designate one country track out in the bush somewhere where the unvaccinated lunatic fringe could hold their own little meetings.

What has happened to CWJ? I haven't noticed him recently and he doesn't seem to be suspended or injured. And he has hardly gone for a tropical Island break.

Now that I have seen the rationale behind it all, I am certain that Timaru, Oamaru and Ashburton, and all their resident trainers, will be quite happy that they have been shafted so Riccarton can have a great training and trials facility. It wouldn't surprise me at all if those three clubs don't have a whip around, or start up a give a little page, to kick off funding for a public grandstand at Riccarton. They could call one of the bars the Timaru/Oamaru/Ashburton bar. The other bar could be called the Winston - I used the Provincial Growth Fund to destroy racing in the provinces so a city club could have a new training track- Peters bar.

Talk about miscount the rounds. They would need a bell lap.

Surprised me. I had never seen him before. Big step up to G2, and at Monnee Valley. Big effort.

That is the intention. It is planned to only race at Riccarton, and no where else in the South, for about 5 months of the year. Maidens and one win horses will race for $12,000 on the $15m facility. "Better" class horses will race for $40,000 on the bottomless bog track. If someone on here had come up with that idea and said "Hey, I've got a bright idea, why don't we........", they would have been laughed off the place. To quote that TV add, "you're dreamin Jonesy". Still, it will be a good training track to get horses ready for Spring racing, but they will have to keep Ashburton ready just in case the Riccarton turf isn't up to it.

I thought I should mention something that a lot of people don't seem to realise, apart from Freda (not picking on you at all Chief, but you just encouraged me to post). Everyone goes on about how stakes need to increase. Stakes are not the problem in NZ racing, in fact they are unbelievably high at present all things considered. I thought I would look at this weekend's three meetings and compare them to 1987. Foxbridge Plate day 1987. On course t/o $366,950; off/c $2,622,793. And that's with Jumps races. In fact, all three of these meetings had jumps races. 10 races, total stakes $103,000. Foxbridge $35,000. This weekend, total stakes $385,000. Foxbridge $110,000. No on course t/o this year and turnovers not readily available anyhow, but I would guess in normal times this meeting would do about $60,000 on and $1.2m off. One of the things that struck me this winter whenever I watched Te Rapa races and they showed the grandstands, there was no one in them. You would have thought we were locked down then. Wanganui 1987. On course t/o $347,388; off/c $1,803,791. 10 races. Total stakes $75,300. This weekend $305,000 for only 8 races. Ashburton 1987. On course t/o $149,496; off/course $583,745. 10 races. Total stakes $53,000. This was only the warm up day of course to John Grigg day on the Tues. On Course t/o on Tues $227,557; off course $1,723,659. Total stakes $82,000. That included the new fangled $7,000 minimum stakes for certain meetings. This year's stakes $290,000. So in total, stakes of $231,000 in 1987; $980,000 in 2021. On course turnovers totalled $863,834 in 1987; off course $5,010,329. In normal times, this year on course would probably have been about $200,000 - $250,000 across all three meetings, and off course about $3.5m. And remember, in 1987 these were mostly August winter meetings and people were there to watch the races not for a piss up. I could go on and on about no RIU in 1987 with its exorbitant costs, and only a small staff at the Racing Board and NZTR running the whole show, but this would get very long and boring for most. What I am getting at is that the outgoings for the industry continue to increase while incomings continue to decline. Current stakes levels are extraordinary given the lack of interest in local racing. I am sure those who keep saying increased stakes will save the industry haven't thought through were this money is going to come from. Back in the 80s and 90s clubs that did an exceptionally low on course t/o for a meeting were asked to explain why it was so low. These days, I doubt anyone cares.

Yes, they really haven't got the stakes distribution right. 6 horses going around in a $30,000 rating 74 at Ashburton, 8 and 9 horses in a couple of $40,000 open races. No better up north. 7 horses in an $80,000 race at Te Rapa. Mostly maidens in 3yo listed races at Wanganui. Some have said NZTR didn't even want to increase the $10,000 basic stakes and wanted to put it all into Group races. They really don't seem to have any idea to be honest.

You hardly had to sneak into those two $60,000 races when one has a 9 horse field with 6 maidens and the other 13 horses with 8 maidens.

Pretty sure he ran second in several European Groups 1s, including Italy and England I think.

Don't knock monastery life Nomates

You are still getting a bit confused. The proposal on the Coast was for several rundown galloping tracks, all quite close to each other, all to be closed down and a vastly superior track to be build for them all to use. There really seemed to be no downside to that. The current idea of centralisation is for clubs like Timaru and Marlborough to move miles away to Riccarton, a track that doesn't even have a public grandstand. In the case of Timaru the track is probably superior to the one they are being asked to move to. There are numerous examples of a country club moving to a no hoper city track that have been a disaster, notably Masterton to Trentham. The Coast situation is totally different to the current proposals.

I think he has got a bit confused. No other trotting clubs closed down and centralised at Greymouth. The galloping proposal was for several galloping clubs to all move to a new track, which in hindsight would have been a good idea. I doubt the offer, and funding, will be made again.

Is there a state of the art, brand new, modern trotting track somewhere on the Coast? I must have missed it.

I seem to recall that back in the 80s there was a proposal to build one brand new centralised racecourse on the Coast totally funded by the industry. But, surprise, surprise, the clubs weren't interested. Back then I think Kumara was going ok. So the new grandstand was built at Omoto instead. Things might have been different if the clubs had been more open minded. Ironically, the first galloping club to give up was Westport, probably in the 80s. I suspect their problem was that their dates just didn't work. Interestingly the Coast isn't that far away from Canterbury. Christchurch to Greymouth is closer than ChCh to Oamaru, and certainly closer than the Waikato to Ruakaka.

Goodness Huey, you are suggesting they can think on their feet?

I don't think we can blame them for that. This govt was never going to let Racing carry on as they have done in Aussie. They would have got too muck flak. Their continual polling would have told them there isn't sufficient interest in racing in NZ to exempt it. As someone else mentioned, the worry is that punters get into the habit of concentrating almost totally on Aussie racing. I know I loved the Aussie racing during the last lockdown and have never looked back. I am disappointed we didn't get to see the Cambridge meeting scheduled for tomorrow. It would have been good to see the AWT used for better class racing. Seems weird to me to have $50m of resources devoted to maidens and predominantly one win horses. The other worry is that if we resume next week it will be with $40,000 open races and $30,000 for everything else. No way will those meetings run at a profit. It will be the same horses running around, and potentially some poor fields.

And even that plan isn't original. They are just copying Awapuni and Trentham who have sold off everything that wasn't tied down and pissed that up against said wall. They are now working on another plan that NZTR will copy in due course as well.

Yee of little faith. Things could have been a lot worse. I suspect there are several trainers out there who were thinking of giving up, but have changed their minds and are now thinking "bugger it, we have $50m of AWTs, I'm going to hang in there." Game changer.

Theoretically of course, under tiered racing the horses who race for $27,500+ at a Riccarton feature meeting should be a totally different pool of horses to those who are waiting to race for $10,000 and $11,000 at Oamaru. Isn't that how tiered racing works? I can't imagine the Aussies saying Casterton can't race one week because Flemington has raced the week before.