curious

Hell. I might even rock up for the boil up. Probably crash in the tack room though rather than dislodge the dogs. Should be all good if I can keep the chooks out. I could do the 3am feed and you could have a sleep in.

The latest report suggests they are considering that despite some weather related hold ups. Not scheduled to open for racing till May next year though. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=735207804186138

Exactly. Why has the meeting not been transferred to another track?

Dunno but if they cancel on the day I'll be asking Majestic to send the bill to NZTR.

Meeting News Woodville Abandoned 14 July The Woodville Meeting scheduled for Thursday 14 July has been abandoned. This decision was made after club reps, a jockey rep and the RIB inspected the track this morning. A large amount of rain has been received both overnight and today on an already particularly wet track. There is surface water both on the track and in surrounding areas. The Trentham nominations remain open until 9am tomorrow morning (Wednesday).

I've looked at the Awapuni AWT recently and it is very tight. I'll try to have another look when passing this week. Probably fine for slower track work and may be jump outs or trials but I doubt I'd want to race one on it. Not really designed for that, especially given the above soft tissue injury issues connected with polytracks.

Yes. Wise comment. And noted that installation and materials may have improved. A couple of years later the mandated polytracks in California were taken out at Del Mar and Santa Anita. Keeneland another significant North American track that removed the poly a couple of years later. That said, I don't agree with Bart lumping dirt tracks in with synthetics. They are the staple of North American racing and what the removed polytracks reverted to. The likes of Golden Gate, Woodbine and Turfway switched to Tapeta which didn't seem to even be considered here. Arlington Park in the major city of Chicago switched to polytrack in 2007 and has since had to close completely. It has been noted here that the Toowoomba experience should have been considered. Fields have dropped 30 percent, and wagering at Clifford has fallen 25 percent in the last two years due to the surface. “Synthetic tracks don't work overseas and in Toowoomba, where the temperature can go from the low digits to 40C, it couldn't work because it would be gluey in the summer and hard as bitumen in the winter,” said trainer Darryl Gollan. Pakenham also has had issues. Generally, the AWTs here seem to be performing well. Hard to get a handle on whether an increase in soft tissue/shear injuries has occurred as was experienced in California. Not reported here but racehorse vets in the vicinity of the two now operating may be getting some idea. There also seems to be little indication of the maintenance cost planning. It seems likely from reports that it will only stand up for 2 or 3 years without complete replacement and probably also require irrigation.

It's hard to think of a situation where any consortium of clubs has worked. NZTR itself probably the biggest disaster. Be interesting to see how the Auckland one pulls up once the initial lust wears off.

Foxton and Levin both.

I don't think they are puppets. If so, they have lost their strings. Muppets maybe?

Probably near to the point where they need to close down winter racing altogether apart from the AWTs which don't suit most winter gallopers anyway.

I wasn't questioning what racing jurisdictions you or anyone else choose to watch. I was simply pointing out that a lot of the world's racing is not conducted on turf as you suggested. That includes some 30000+ races a year in North America which are run on dirt or synthetic tracks.

There's a lot of racing in North America that [s not on turf and not necessarily on fast tracks. Could be half the world's racing. I've seen them there salting snow and ice and training and racing on the resulting slush. Tracks are still generally pretty safe. Safer when they are slower, like here.

Looks like they have added the 2 15k races

It is also likely they would have got more noms. Not too often you get a chance to run an R65 for 15k with the best available (based on ratings) 13 horses excluded from entry. Of course, that would now make it somewhat unfair if someone could enter late, a horse that would have otherwise made the 30k race.

Yes. That seems a bit odd. If adding a second consolation is not dependent on additional noms (and they have enough already), why wait till 9am tomorrow to decide that?

The saying that only the blind can see springs to mind.

They did say a second consolation would be considered and confirmed by 9am tomorrow.

Enough noms in the 65 1400 to fill 3 fields there. Do you think there might be something awry with the programming or rating/handicapping systems?

No there are feature meetings and 40k MAATs at Cambridge.

https://loveracing.nz/RaceInfo.aspx#bm-meeting-calendar

No WD. Not at all. What I am arguing is that the rationale for synthetics with respect to reducing abandonments was based on scheduling more winter races/meetings on the AWTs where they are much less likely to suffer weather related abandonments rather than so that last minute transfers of abandoned grass meetings could occur. That scheduling is already in place at 2 of the 3 AWT venues this winter with Awapuni presumably to come on stream next winter. I have already shared my thoughts at the time here and elsewhere on the PGF funding, particularly of Riccarton. The PDU was clearly not happy as you suggested, to fund it stating that ""The proposed Riccarton Park synthetic racing track is located in Christchurch City, which is ineligible for PGF funding," The PDU "assessed that the project did not meet the PGF's criteria" and it was "unclear as to the extent the proposal would increase productivity", despite likely benefits of job retention and security for industry workers" Unfortunately (from a taxpayer perspective), due to some political shenanigans of the coalition government and a very fuzzy process, the funding eventually materialised from a subsequent application. So, now we have them, we need to make the best use of them that we can and somehow ensure they are well maintained. Aside from the racing they certainly are a great training asset.

The application to the PGF clearly did not argue anything about transferring meetings. It actually gave as a rationale on the reduction of abandoned meetings: Abandonments avoided through a combination of increased meetings on Synthetic surfaces and improvements to efficiency of scheduling.

I agree that abandoned meetings were used as a justification but my take on that was that meetings on the AWTs once in place were much less likely to be abandoned, not the suggestion that John Allen makes there about transferring grass meetings to AWTs. I think that meeting abandonments will in fact decrease for that reason once the AWTs are all up and running and I agree with John Allen's comment that for that purpose they needed to be built closest to the main horse populations.