Doomed

NZ meetings never used to get abandoned either, other than for terrible weather, and often not even then. The only NZ abandonment part way through a meeting I can remember from many years ago was Motukarara sometime in the late 70s or early 80s. I'm sure there were others but I don't remember them.

Yes, all of this shows up the foolishness of closing down so many tracks. The theory behind it was not that the likes of Hastings, Awapuni, Te Aroha would suddenly be closed down for long periods. Perhaps the despised tracks were not the real problem after all.

$675,000 of industry funding into that sweepstake by name but not by funding race. You do wonder whether the money could have been spent better elsewhere. It would be interesting to know who's idea it was to boost the stake by half a million this year? I wonder how many of the current field wouldn't have turned up if it had been "only" $1m. Not as if many of them had much more appealing opportunities elsewhere. I suppose next year they will increase it to $2m to get a better field, and the holy grail, to try and get a third tier Aussie.

Grey Way probably won it the year before with Show Gate a year or two earlier and possibly the good 3yo Greek magic sandwiched in between. Led all the way I think. I don't have all those records so this is purely fading memory. TAB4E will know. It is sad how some of the great traditional races are allowed to fade away, often through no fault of their own. There are a lot of listed and group races with much poorer fields than the last couple of editions of the Timaru Cup. To give Riccarton credit they haven't really let any of their big races disappear. Trentham is probably the worst club for having no sense of history.

A couple of years ago they used to offer to match my deposit up to $100 or $150 every time my account got low. Almost made it worthwhile having a bad day. Then I went for about 8 months last year without having to top up my account and since then they have lost interest in me.

I think The Fantasy left both The Phantom and The Phantom Chance. The Dimple left an Auck Cup winner, in the days when that was a decent enough race. The Twinkle of course ran second in the Auckland Cup. I can't remember if the Twinkle left much herself.

It gets worse. Newmarket 100%. Wingman 50%. Curious 25%. Still me nothing.

And the Phantom Chance

Bloody hell! Newmarket gets 100%, Curious gets 25%. I get nothing. That certainly tells you something.

I hadn't noticed that. What a great idea. Who do you think was best, The Fantasy, The Twinkle, The Dimple. The Fantasy the oldest of the three, but I am pretty sure they would all have raced against each other, although I'm not sure if all three of them were ever in the same race. All out of the Pixie I think, but possibly by different sires. Without looking at any stats I always had a feeling The Twinkle may have been the best. The Fantasy may have won the most races. I always thought it was a pity they didn't stand The Chosen One down in Southland. Might have been just the boost the region needed.

I think you are special Newmarket. The rest of us just mere mortals.

I certainly didn't get that offer. The only offer I ever get these days is some half arsed offer to double the fixed odds on some obscure Aussie horse I have never heard of and have no interest in. I think the last one I had was some horse on Saturday paying about $1.30 that ran down the track. I have never taken up any of those offers. Doesn't interest me. They have no interest in tote bettors, which does suit me in a sense as it helps me to wind down my betting. I'm getting very suspicious about some of the quinella odds on offer. I know they shouldn't be able to manipulate tote odds but some of the quinella payouts are incredibly low.

It would be interesting to know which clubs are sitting on the most valuable land. Some tracks rent their land or are on racecourse reserve type arrangements where the land can't be sold with the money going to outsiders if the clubs are closed down. Often the land reverts to the local community. As special agent says above, the worst performing clubs are often the ones with the most valuable land. I wonder how Fielding feels these days having sold off their track and handed most of the money over to Awapuni. The Franklin trots might be an example of what could happen to anyone taken in by bigger more favoured clubs.

Couple of interesting articles about Entain in The Times today. Their auditors are being investigated for a pretty suspect job. And Entain has just closed down the Greyhound track they own in London. London's second last Greyhound track. The track is worth more to Entain if sold to property developers than kept as a race track. Based on that, you imagine Entain would be totally in favour of the policy of selling off as many tracks as possible, taking the money and centralising everything. The last thing they would want would be an extra day on the Coast.

I think they pulled the pin on that after learning from the experience of the Auckland trots.

3.20.68 apparently

Looked slow but pretty much the fastest Wgtn Cup since it changed back to 3,200m.

It's an embarrassment of a day. The first two fields were shockers. The first basically a maiden for $65,000 with 9 starters, the second only 7 interested for the same stake. The whole carnival has been destroyed by the changes of dates. That doesn't explain the shocking Cup field though. Reducing the distance didn't work, and increasing the stake hasn't worked. I don't think it has helped having that Remutaka thing on the same card for almost the same stake. In years gone by some of those runners might have been trying to sneak into the Cup field. Obviously overall programming problems haven't helped. And the lack of SI interest certainly hurts Trentham. NZTR appears to have no answer. All they can think of is to increase a few stakes and hope that works. It obviously hasn't today. What's with the Desert Gold? $120,000 last year, suddenly $200,000 this year. Nothing from the club. Presumably it is a bribe after having their Cup day destroyed by Auck.

That's what Winston said it is there for. I'm sure they have it all ready to go just in case.

She was a good 3yo, you can't argue with that, but we are developing a terrible record of our top 3yos not coming back as 4yos, with one or two notable exceptions.

I am a bit confused though. I thought Thursday was the 16th?

At least they have the option of moving just down the road if things don't look perfect in the morning.

We have always had a history of very false favourites in NZ. The media have great power influencing the unsophisticated punters.

Bloody hell. For a six race card. I might consider it for 10 races, but $60 for six races is pushing it. But, as I freely acknowledge, I am not the target market.

8 or 9 slot races in Aussie TAB4E. I think this will be the 5th in NZ, so not all that new.