Nowornever

What is the total spend by breeders on Stallions and how has this been tracking. Only so much money to go around and I guess you can breed two One Over the Moons instead of one Volstead.

First up this week we have James Stormont on Lovable Rogue. Sitting pretty three deep the fence and comes off the fence at the 400m straight onto the back of the parked horse going backward. Runner behind him said thanks I will take the place instead. Terrible decision.

Have an energy drink to go with it. Hard to beat it really hits the spot.

Must be something bigger at play here. The programming side is not the issue.

Gemma Thornley on Franco Tim only has to stay fence and she runs a place but comes off the fence right onto the back of the parked horse who was going backward. You guessed it the horse behind her said thanks I will have second instead and Gemma is still looking for a run.

It is turning into a shit fight. But this is the problem if there is a completely dominant horse who is likely to draw to dominate the race who wants to put up 10s of thousands to try to beat them on that leaders bias track.

Because Keayang Zahara and Jiliby Balarini are coming and are likely to draw one and two in the race everyone else has virtually no chance of beating them so no one wants to turn up. In fact there is one slot holder who is trying to back out and is going to court to try to get his money back.

After they sell the nest egg what do they do next time they run into trouble which is almost a certainty with the reduction in horses and trainers? How to stop the downward spiral to the bottom? They need punters but if the product is no good it is a vicious circle of death. My weekly spend on the North is 5% of what it used to be. You can tell by the exotic pools that many punters have abandoned the North island in droves. They used to get 20K quite regularly in the Alex Park trifecta pools on a Friday night and now they are generally well below 10K and sometimes below 2K in those 6 and seven horse fields and they are also comingled. At least the grass tracks are still worth playing into.

I think we need to separate excitement from reality here. Celebrating the headline nights while ignoring grassroots pressure, shrinking depth in some regions, and long term participation challenges is short sighted. The conversation shouldn’t be “isn’t this amazing?” It should be “is this sustainable?” Enjoy the good racing, absolutely. But let’s not pretend everything is bulletproof just because the top end looks shiny. When an industry becomes heavily reliant on one commercial partner, that’s not dominance, that’s dependency. If priorities shift, what then?

Would have to be a trainer supported by some big owners to be saying that. Someone winning the bigger money races would be loving it. Anyone at grass roots level or hobby trainers with no money behind them would not be saying that.

Went a good race for 5th in the Rowe Cup last year beating home Oscar Bonavena, Mighty Logan, Not As Promised and Midnight Dash. It has also trotted a half in 55 at Addington so based on that it was a shoe in last night.

Here is one "Stop throwing good money after bad" The outlook is not great with ever decreasing fields and dropping turnovers and you can only reshuffle debt for so long before the bank steps in and makes the decisions for you. Even if they do dig themselves out it would only be temporary as the continuing decline of the product there will finish them off eventually. I can not understand why they have not sold up and rebuilt a facility somewhere south of the Bombays. If they did that at the start of the crisis they would have a new property now but that money has gone and continues to go to the bank in the form of debt. Gamma give me some good news in the form of fields getting bigger and better, new trainers coming and not relocating or retiring, Access to Alexandra park with less traffic instead of being more difficult to get there discouraging trainers and casual attendance. Any good news to share except must save it for compassionate reasons.

Ideal run tonight... Pace was on and he had plenty of room when the field spread out. Too good for them at nice money.

Thing is he would be racing the likes of Muscle Mountain if he won another couple so better off hunting the places in lower grades with Paul in the bike. He has had 14 seconds and 15 thirds so not a bad wee earner. Wouldn't be surprised if he went to Aussie as he would suit those mile races I reckon.

I could name a few horses who would benefit with a driver change. Sometimes these guys are quite happy to run around and just get place money. I don't blame them with the handicapping system. If I owned a maiden trotter in the North I wouldn't want to win either. Sometimes better to run a lot of placings than win one and never place again for the next however many starts in a higher grade against horses who have won ten races.