Justamugpunter

I think one of the previous consultants came up with it... how many of those would be minimum wage? how many would be Living wage?

I presume it will not be put up for sale?

Perhaps because 'punters' have been shit on for so long they have voted on that treatment by no longer going. They have given E the Big ? Compare the cost of going there and to the tracks in Hong Kong a place where punters still want to go to! Where they are value for the betting they do! Not because they want to pay to get into 'exclusive' parts of the course which are often 'protected' by zealous security! How much to get into the Casino? ? It's interesting to see which meetings 'punters' actually go to now! The ones where they are happy to be paying their 5 or 10 bucks entrance fee, down in the deep south it's now only the Xmas at the Races meetings! These punters couldn't give a shit about the quality of the horses racing! The crowds (or lack of them) at the few meetings left with Black Type races have long gone! Not to be seen. There is No Charge to walk into the Lotto shop! No charge to visit the Casino! It's interesting how now Invercargill don't charge now for their big day Cup Day! All their money is to be made at their XaR event! Talking Otago Racing Club, I see they have got a XaR this year, for them the marketing people claim the entrance fee$ for the likes of Champions Day etc are worth it! Not to the average Joe Punter anymore! Their big day now has this century been Melb Cup Day! The numbers for that meeting having been tracking down big time the last couple of years! Especially so since Mr Plod has said "far to many pissed punters staggering around on course, No to that sort of thing!" ?‍♂️ Racing has long forgotten that great retail saying 'the customer is always right', hence the chickens have stayed home in the roost!!! ?

just another nail in the coffin.... just another track not to bet on....

Sydney and decent tracks???? big fields.. heavy track.. big races till a few weeks away! you are a braver punter than me! ?

At a public meeting 'talking over him" ? (read I got sick of his corporate speak) and got this commitment out of him! https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/racing/83545873/John-Allen-confident-of-extra-profit-for-racing-industry ps. one thing I will say about him! he Always return comment to any emails I flicked his way! The only other one who I found had the balls to do that was Paul Buttar....

my mum and his dad are 1st cuzzies! ?

I'll share a copy of insights into Winnie with , which I gleaned from have a 30 minutes one on one chat with him, it came about when the Pol Dept at Otago Uni had a competition to have 'afternoon with the leader of all the main Parties!!!' (( lol! the general consensus is it might have been rigged!!!!)) I *won* the one to me Winnie!!!!!! ? We covered a wide range of topics! p1: The two very strong impression I got from this meeting is 1 he is a 60's National Party nationalist! He does have concerns for the common fella but more so for the Business Class! Hence his ideology/propaganda bounces around in dealing with the contradictions of trying to curry favor with both groups! But the really strong impression I came away with was how he is a Brilliant political chameleon! par excellence! He can sum up a crowd rather well and he instinctually knows what they want to hear! And that is how he has built NZF vote! 2% here.. 3% here... 1.5% here.. p2: I will not comment about whether he knew or not about the over paynment! but the big thing was that the Nat$ lost the govt benches because of their chosen tactics of 'leaking' on his benefit info!!! By leaking it they locked in Winnies choice of who he was going to choose to make the next Govt!!!! Which on the punting front was a great result for me and a couple of my academic mates! we took the $2.25 from a generous oz bookie! that 'ms teeth would be the next PM!

Lol I've tried a few times that walking away bit!!!! ? Some how I keep getting hooked back in usually via someone needing a helping hand for some bullshit that they have run into with a club or a trainer or officialdom! My deep dislike of bullies can be a weakness! especially when it's coming from those in Power! I think what make is so hard to walk is how if one has spent 10,000+ hours of thinking about, participating etc. in things horsing racing then there has been some serious hard wiring going on in the brain! deeply into our consciousness!!! Simple put we are doomed! "dammed if we do! dammed if we don't!" ?

This lot are playing 'procedural politics' if happens when yet again you find yourself in the crap!!! It involves Never having the where will all to actually answer direct criticism! What you do is construct a patsy email/press release explaining how you are working to solve the latest piece of crap the organization has delivered! Morally bankrupt! LOL some might even say it's racing rigging by another way!!!!!

humble apologies for taking the thread off topic....

I think it really depends on your punting style, approach! Back in a day when punting was my job, then 50% of my betting would have been done in g1 races, mainly large place bets. I chose that approach as I thought those races had the most exposed form and you could attempt to apply some sort of logic via the lead in races. I should perhaps declare that I would be on course perhaps for a 100 meetings a season and car pooled with some successful jockeys! A couple who were very conservative in sharing info, but when they did it could prove very helpful, that info could actually be about a horse with 'form' but not up to the class of the race in was in! Being able to confidently negate a publicly perceived strong chance can be very helpful I have found! Quite a revers now a days to my betting style! now it's more of a serious hobby. Nowadays there is a real randomness to my betting, it is now based 90% on how my eye sees the horse! At a guess? 50% of my bets would be in lower class races at small meetings! I don't attempt to 'work out form' at all. Perhaps 50% of the bets would be on horse having their fresh up run! I would perhaps have 1 bet for every 50 races watched! When it comes to field size numbers I would much rather bet in small fields! Having been won over to that old saying of "Small fish are sweet" Reflecting on the ongoing discussion about 'betting approaches' on this site (and the old Racechat rip) it does at time become a tad 'old school yard name calling' and at times rather Groundhog Day! sigh... My take is that wagering/betting is vey much a heterogenous domain - a whole lot of punters competing against each other- and hence "Each to their own!!!". I presume it would it be true to say that perhaps 90%= of all punters show a loss??

Hench anyone that doesn't have a proper insight into the actual costs! and can't rite off the adventure quickly gets a brutal kick in the back pocket! be they lucky enough to actual get a horse to the races or god forbid that it can win a couple of races each preparation! As I have said in another post! Propaganda Rule$ which is great until it's trumped by Reality! Life has thought me better to be struggling away with what is real! not what is made up! As the great philosopher Kenny Rogers told us "You've got know when to hold them,! Know when to fold them! and to know when to walk away!"

LOl what about this?? ?

Back in '95, I had total access to the NZR Conference Library (is that what it was then?) I read every report that had been. Regarding the 70's report, it has to be set in the 'economic reality of that time', the 50's had been a massive growth period for NZ, after the 2nd WW NZ had 100% access to GB regarding the selling of Sheep, the 50's had been great time for the working class in NZ because of the Pounds flowing in from GB! "we" had the 3rd highest living standard in the world at that time! To give you a good example of how well off the working class in NZ was! in 1956 (lol I studied that year as it was the year I came to be!!!) there were 80,000 job vacancies!!! Every year the Govt balanced the books! Feb/March was a massive times in the economy even more so that Dec as all the Govt Depts had to spend what money they had left! or their budgets would be cut for the next year! Now during the early 60's GB decided their future was to be found in the EU, and their economic trade outlook switched to being able to get access to the EU market! This slowly but surely started to have a effect on the trade and access for NZ to GB. All this meant that the profit from the sheep trade became less and less, which of course resulted in less disposable real wages for the working class, which flowed on to less being spend on betting etc, which lead into the 70's report! If you now look at the economic history of racing say from 50's to now then the % of disposable income for the working class (wc = around 70% of workers) it mirrors the decline in racing. You can move the chairs on the titanic as much as you want! but it's still going down! One thing that is amusing about the economic reality of things racing is very few actual owners ever make money!!! anyone that does proper due diligence wouldn't touch ownership with a barge poll! It has Always been about the Status of getting the Winning Top horse! If you manage to get one then you get written into the history books!!! The class of modern owners are crying crocodile tears! They just want others to be paying for their hobby!

a 100% certain on that... the real challenge for the last 25 years is imo has been around 'how to manage a declining industry', normally any industry is dominated by Large Capital ( which of course most are, if not then the State rules) then they will just liquidate and move the remaining capital to a more modern profitable industry, if they don't then the capital is destroyed... Lots of examples could be stated here! Racing is one Industry that has always had a large State footprint all over it!!! And as in all politics those that hold the purse strings holds Hegemony! they control whom the Key Bureaucrats to be put in place! they will allow a bit of pretend democracies regarding key placements! But Always those put in place will 'do as they are told' by the ruling class... So, re 'managing a declining industry' and of course modern capitalism can only abide Bigger, More etc... Sadly most of the growth has been of 'the dead cat sort, if you throw the cat on the ground it will bounce up! but its still actually dead!' Hence as the industry has continued to decline the use of propaganda has grown! Going down this road of course is very much a double edged sword! Propaganda is great while you believe it! but as so many have brutally found out economically!!! If you have been a coalface worker with any decent skills then the likes of AU, Hk, Sing. have called! If you were are trainer and urban sprawl has come out to meet you then you have been able to cash up with most probably a nice capital gains! Otherwise you have to relocate 'to the core' and battle it out with the best of the trade! I'm talking about the trainers here now! What I have always been fascinated about is the massive amount of good will that the industry has had to call on! As more and more decisions within the industry have supported 'the core' slowly but surely the good will that has come from the rural parts of the industry (in the periphery) continues to be negated! The M report I'm sure will deliver a massive fall off of this historically important free labour! Regarding the needed fight back for anyone contemplating Track closes, Rural NZ and most players in the racing industry are very much of the conservative type, I don't think they have the political nous to attempt to run any sort of 'mass action' fight. Fair Tax was a mass action approach, which had support from most across the industry, this needed fight is very different! The real Leaders of the industry are very much made up of key economic players in the core and the big metro tracks! For anyone that attempts to fight they will quickly become a 'untouchable', I so know this from personal experience! To finish, I think the only success for saving any track will be fought out in the courts and in the legislator! It will most probably get nasty! It will just speed up the sunsetting... Ps. the one area that I find interesting is very much around 'tax right downs', are they included in the 22% return to owners figures?

I did attempt to read the article! but ended up with me eyes spinning around and around! I either need more RAM or someone to be able to explain it all in plain engrish!!! ???

It's been interesting to see the fall out from the report so far! The strongest support is mainly coming from people who are all based in (the core) Waikato, while there is lots of distress being cried from the periphery. The further from the core the louder the concern! ((' Core periphery model' is very helpful in gaining insight into where racing has come and been going for the last 40 years!)) Totally missing from discussions, seems to be around the 22% return to owners! NOTHING about the reality of the unrealistic cost of producing the horse! Nothing about AI etc... It would be interesting to see how much the owning class has got back with tax right offs? I presume those numbers are missing from this 22% stat?? Re Striking as a option. Lots of problems to be found there! Currently one can only 'strike, with hold ones labour' if it's a H&S issue or if your agreement has run out. Wages would have to still be paid or any employer would be open to charges of locking out any worker! The current historical reality - which can not be propagandized away, and this is what this report is really about, propaganda - It's been a simple fact that anyone that has done any diligence around the costs involved with racing in NZ say this century! is you have to be based in Waik/Camb area! OR you move to a bigger Core as in Au or HK or Sing, this is what the smarter ambitious players have done! If you are in the periphery it will just be getting harder and harder to make a economic go of it! Sad but true! Enough prattle! I need to go and find my best pink attire! a day planned at the local trotting meeting! I'm looking forward to hear what they think of the report!

Just because 'great breeding' is in place doesn't mean in will out! that is very much backed up every year at the Sales! ps. others would say he can be a right Pratt with a born to rule attitude!

And like the last time Winnie/Lab came to the party when the Stakes "are going up' The Breeders will be championing Sunrise while the reality of course is the sun is still going to be going down! Tiz rather important to be on the right side of history! which racing is very much Not!

Factually wrong about the decline being only last ten years! it really goes back to the share market crash of around '87, that be 30+ years ago! the reality of a missing generation or two has kicked in more and more in the last ten years. As the baby boomers seriously start to pass then that will speed up the decline!

Winnies always been a Communist? hasn't he! well he has be seen drinking with a few!! ?

He looked like he will improve with that run. ?

par for the course! gutless!

lol! bet his blood pressure be going up and down a lot while visiting here!!! ?