Nowornever

Anyone else having issues accessing race form from Harness Racing New Zealand. Has been down for me the last few days. Not good enough from our only source of data. No wonder the race by race turnover is in the toilet.

Opened way over the odds. If the horse was racing at Manawatu it would have been sub $5.00. Bookies simply got it wrong like they do a lot of the time these days. Take those opportunities while you can. A few of the Aussie bookmakers are using AI now for their Aussie harness opening prices, I got told by someone working at one of the main ones. Not long before it happens here. They open them at any old price but don't let anyone on for any big amounts until there is liquidity in the pools and by that time the market has sorted it self into something close to true odds. Yes there will be overs on many runners early but the catch is you cant get much on at those prices. I am picking 3-6 months before AI pricing is introduced here.

Kingman has sat outside Leap To Fame and beat him twice. I don't think Don Hugo could do that but time will tell.

Betcha is down for me also. Same message

Shit I couldn't even have a bet on the last couple. Someone pulled the pin.

They are saying the turnover as a total has not gone down. That is probably true as they have put on more meetings. We need to know the turnover per race data as an average which paints a true picture. I believe they have this information but are unlikely to be sharing it because I heard it is not good reading. In fact the North Island meetings race by race data will be giving them a heart attack. They probably are doing all they can to flush the North Island data down the toilet.

That is a complete copout and also a load of horse shit. A monitoring and review group can’t meaningfully assess the turnover performance without full access to race by race turnover data. They should be able to give a very accurate assessment of everything turnover related and if they can not then the report is a waste of time.

Imagine what Howard Bromac would have done if Mark Purdon had been driving it. The night it sat three wide outside the leaders in a strong inter dom heat to win was massive. Got murdered in many of its races. I was at Forbury when it sat outside London Legend and got beat a short margin at one of its last runs.

Well the industry will pay if Entain can’t get their bottom line up. Owners, trainers, breeders and clubs will cop it through reduced stakes in the long run if overheads do not come down. Entain guaranteed funding runs out 2027/2028? After that I presume funding becomes subject to Entains actual performance which based on the red flags over the last few months is not that great.

I do not rate Kirk Larsen as a good driver at all and never have. The drive on his two year old today was tactically atrocious. It had a good sit three deep the fence in a small field and he comes to out to attack the favourite with a full lap to go. Christ his horses must sleep well at night.

Word on the street is numbers might be up slightly this year which is a positive sign

I think the decision makers might very well be brain dead or close to it, unless their aim is to kill off the tote or racing altogether.

As usual a positve spin put on everything by Vouris. If everything is so rosy, why the sudden religious conversion to "core Business only"? Why are Elite rebates being axed and replaced with "bespoke generosity"? Why are Entain laying off staff in Australaisia and cutting non core stuff like "The Racing Club"? He talks like a growth CEO, but the actions look the opposite. He is slashing anything non core even if it hurts the most valued high spend customers. He openly says the growth lever is sport and wanting to capture or cross selling sports customers into racing. He is also starting to play the blame game saying racing needs to deliver the product and Entain only sells the bets. On paper that sounds fair. In practice, it’s a setup, Entain takes the credit if the numbers look good. If the numbers fall short, they can point at the codes and say field sizes too small, too many abandonments, not enough tier one tracks, in other words racing didn’t hold up its end. So yeah, the interview sounded slick and reassuring. But if you strip out the PR gloss there is a lot of doubt, mixed signals and unanswered questions about where this is all really heading.

Incorrect. Entain is a listed multinational whose priorities are and always will be margin, profit, and shareholder return. Racing is actually the least profitable product they operate. Because it isn’t delivering the returns they expected, they’re now doing what every global wagering giant does, cutting costs, trimming fat, and making the product cheaper to run. This is why you’ll see a major push in the next twelve months toward centralising tracks, reducing dates, reducing staff, and stripping racing back to the bare minimum. It’s not because they “love the sport” it’s because consolidation lowers overheads. Entains long term aim is simple. Shift their focus to high margin products sports betting and, soon enough, online casino games and let racing shrink into a small supporting act. It will be smaller, cheaper, and far less important to their bottom line. Whether racing thrives or dies isn’t a concern for them. Right now it’s an expensive, low margin pimple on a global balance sheet, and they’ll keep pruning until it stops hurting the numbers.

I heard they are ending the rebates for big punters next year. No surprise to me they are always biting the hand that feeds them.