Huey

Could NZ racing get big enough noms for an 8 race card on the AWT of this?

Isn't Bernard now well on his way home? We have a new CEO now & he is gonna try and finish what Bernard started!

Surely it falls firmly into the hands of the stipes on the day to make sure it all works, lack of staff obviously an issue but that's where some adjustments may need to be made. Lack of experienced gate staff going to become an issue like the riders are in the industry, these sorts of things always going to become an issue with or without the influence of covid , this happens when you have an industry fixated on the trivial and incapable of delivering anything of substance in the actual operational side of things.

Appears to me and many others I've spoken with the only thing he is going to bring to the job is the theft of community assets.

You gotta love how they are always saying its an alternative option for trainers if the weather and track surfaces get too bad, I bet no trainers will start there horses on it if they don't like it no matter what. I didn't think it possible but the new CEO speaks more Corporate style BS than all his predessors put together.

Just in case anyone missed out on the Cambridge style hoopla(PR) for Riccarton AWT well here it is ... and remember its just a "Tool"

One thing for certain you can bet on in the NZ racing industry, the calendar will be worse than the year before .

One gets the feeling they'll run out of tracks at some point, using Otaki will put more pressure on that track which will lead to the ineviatable.

I realise how lucky we were to have what we had prior to covid destroying Radio Sport which was great & trackside.

Not only that the spread of horse from the turn to the finish line is an awful look. Don't know about anyone else but the racing just looks wrong and a tad cruel on the AWT (witness several horses under a ride a long way out). It just looks homogenised and it has that greyhouds look to it.

61 starters at the point whereby enthusiasm should be at its highest, as I've said before simply cannot see it doing anything positive for the industry & in effect it'll largely drive people out of the industry at an accelerated rate. I'm gonna say it now , I find it an awful watch.

Perhaps not, but such is the depth of racing in NZ that every race meeting should be. Particularly when they are taking away meetings from better locations. We will get to stage and I think it won't take long in the SI , where meetings are scheduled at the AWT and noms are very low with trainers holding off for the more established venues particularly on the grass and then owners/trainers will just give up having horses in work sitting around doing nothing. What the powers that be don't seem to realise is that opinions on the AWTs are polarizing , if a horse has a poor run on the surface they are unlikely to support them running on that surface again or reduce participation all together ( as you say goal achieved).

It actually makes my tiny brain hurt just to think how stupid an idea it is to have an AWT in the SI.

All one can do now is sit back and enjoy the watching the trainwreck or pretend everything is great like plenty do.

Wise move... yeah right! A wise move would be to find another venue.

exactly, wait till some of the bigger CD trainers start moaning about the AWT , it'll happen sure as day.

What a surprise , noms look a bit underwhelming in a number of races, which doesn't bode well for its future useage. These AWT will have the opposite effect of what they are proclaiming in the short to medium term (they won't last the long term) i.e. reduce participation in the industry not enhance it.

They may well have done, but once the meeting has been carded it should be run somewhere in the vicinity. I have absolutely no faith in their programming , but think this is more likely to do with the noms for Woodville out doing other more preferred venues which doesn't fit with their rationalization narrative.

We can't even reschedule or find another venue for a meeting in this country (Woodville latest), how we expect to get good fields I'll never know.

Whilst I can sympathize with your reasoning , I'm still not sure that will be the case in the not too distant future.

Hmmm seems odd given "Chief Executive Green Shoots" said rationalization (asset theft) was the way forward.

The chair is certainly an astute judge .

This sort of thing never works, it's always racing that ends up the 3rd or 4th activity and is over run by the others.

What a marvelous athlete, if only people understood how good he was.

Surely after the superlatives delievered to Woodville for yesterdays race meeting its time that club was rationalize and moved on , volunteers putting together a family fun race day with kids everywhere should be something of the past. Here's hoping our new CEO can rid the industry of places like Woodville as quickly as possible to save the industry!