curious

Not clear I get your point. 1 clear day is 12.01 am the day before raceday till 12.01am on raceday. 5 a.m. is 5 hours into that clear day, so clearly breaches the administration rule. Is that clear or am I misunderstanding your point/question?

I agree. It is the implication only of what Mr. Pike has said to Queensland stewards and we only know what has actually been reported. It is not reported that he clearly stated it is his usual practice. However what Dark Beau said indicates that it is. Perhaps Dark Beau would revert and tell us all how he knows what he said and thus potentially confirm it or otherwise.

I doubt it. The definition of clear day was quite clear when the rule was gazetted in 2016 if people can't understand it from reading the rule. It could only be misinterpreted by those who haven't or can't read the rule IMO. Here is the rule as gazetted in 2016: 4. Rule 804(5) – Prohibited Substance Offences This amendment makes it an offence to administer, attempt to administer or cause to be administered any substance that meets the definition within the Rules of an “alkalinising agent”. “Clear Day” means a 24-hour period from 12.01am to 12.00 midnight. 804(5)(a) A person, except for a Veterinarian who is an official, shall not, during a day of racing, administer by injection, nasal gastric tube, gastric tube, ventilator or nebulizer to a horse entered in a Race, or trial to which the Third Appendix hereto applies, on that day of racing any substance whatsoever, unless such administration occurred after the horse has raced or under the direction of a Stipendiary Steward or Investigator. For the purposes of this sub-Rule the day of racing is deemed to commence at 12.01am and to conclude after the last Race. (b) A person must not administer an alkalinising agent, in any manner, to a horse which is engaged to run in any Race, trial or jump-out: (i) at any time on the day of the scheduled Race, trial or jump-out and prior to the start of such event; and (ii) at any time during the one Clear Day prior to 12.01am on the day of the scheduled Race, official trial, or jump-out.

That should be easily established by the RIU, especially given treatment logs, owner invoices and even purchase invoices aside from the usual interviews.

While that's beside the point imo, alkalinising agents are recovery aids and commonly used for that purpose as soon as possible after racing. Providing recovery assistance to a horse the day before a race in this way is prohibited and provides an unfair advantage to trainers doing so over those complying with the rules.

Word for word identical Boxie. In a nutshell!

And here's the Doomben stewards' report that indicates clearly that whether knowingly or unknowingly, he lied to Queensland stewards who didn't bother to check the veracity of his advice to them. Following advice from the QRIC Integrity Investigations Team during routine stable inspections this morning, it was discovered that the treatment book for horses trained by Mr T. Pike, being SACRED MASTER (Race 3) and THE BOSTONIAN (Race 6) revealed that they had been administered with Neutrolene Plus which is an alkalising agent. The administration took place yesterday morning which is in breach of AR178AA. Acting under this Rule both horses were withdrawn at 11.45 a.m. by order of stewards. Mr Pike advised that the administration was performed in error as the Rules regarding the administration of alkalising agents to horses one clear day prior to the race differ from that in New Zealand. Mr Pike pleaded guilty to the charge and was fined $500. In determining penalty stewards acknowledged Mr Pikes forthright evidence and that it was an inadvertent error. It beggars belief that a trainer of Mr. Pike's experience and standing nor his veterinary advisor/s do not know the rule. If he has also been doing this routinely in NZ as Dark Beau suggests, then at the very least all stake earning runners from the stable during the period he has been doing so must surely be disqualified. It is out and out cheating. And we wonder why owners and punters are fleeing NZ racing.

Here's the Australian rule that he was charged under for comparison. 3.6 Alkalising Agents AR 178AA (1) A person must not administer an alkalinising agent, in any manner, to a horse which is engaged to run in any race, official trial or jump-out: (a) at any time on the day of the scheduled race, official trial or jump out and prior to the start of such event; and (b) at any time during the one Clear Day prior to 12.01am on the day of the scheduled race, official trial, or jump out.

Sorry Dark Beau but it's no more legal in New Zealand to administer alkalising agents the day before the race than it is in Australia. If that's what he has been doing here, the RIU should be investigating and if as reported, " Stewards fined Pike $500, accepting there had been a misunderstanding of the differing rules between Australia and New Zealand", then the stewards over there must be very gullible and have been lied to and sucked in. The NZ rule is quite clear on this and what he was penalised for over there is equally illegal here. 804(5)(b) A person must not administer an alkalinising agent, in any manner, to a horse which is engaged to run in any Race, trial or jump-out: [Added 15 April 2016] (i) at any time on the day of the scheduled Race, trial or jump out and prior to the start of such event; and (ii) at any time during the one Clear Day prior to 12.01am on the day of the scheduled race, official trial, or jump out. Someone needs to read the rules.

Completely agree that owners can not be ignored but they have been for a long time because there have been no effective strategies implemented to build revenue to improve things like stakes and facilities in any sustainable way. It's more than stakes and infrastructure that need to be fixed here though and the critical issue is to build a racing and wagering product that is attractive to punters and grows sustainable wagering revenue. To do that requires investment and the only available source for that is existing revenue. It also requires owners to provide the product and they will continue to rapidly disappear as you and I have if the stakes to cost ratio continues to shrink. So, I agree there needs to be some sort of balance between the two. To answer your question, I think if the right strategies and structure were put in place, with stakes sustained and perhaps slightly increasing for the next 2-3 years, then things could begin to snowball from there. What I am more certain of is that if we continue to expend almost all available revenue on stakes, we'll get the same result we've had for at least the last decade. You know the old story - keep doing what's already not working etc.... We are now borrowing perhaps $15-20m a year from reserves to fund current stakes. When the reserves are gone in a couple more years, what then? What if the government decides to pull pokie proceeds from racing, or decides that a greater share of revenue from overseas and sports events should go to sports and/or the taxpayer? Goes back to what I said, if you want improved stakes then racing needs to generate revenue from racing to provide and sustain those.

Maybe, but I don't think there is any provision in the current Act that gives anyone the power to do that.

Aside from the fact that I've bred, owned and raced horses for 40 years barryb, though down to zero in NZ as of 3 or 4 years ago, I think you are entirely missing the point here. The only way to have sustainable and much higher stakes levels, is to generate sustainable and much greater revenue. To do that requires investment of existing revenue. If all existing revenue goes to stakes, then that will never happen and you will have continually declining amounts available for stakes. Much higher stakes levels are the main objective here, but the desire for instant gratification in that regard has destroyed any chance of achieving that.

I'm particularly referring to track surfaces there that make racing fair and attractive for wagering and reliable for punters. Long overdue relaying of existing tracks with upgraded drainage and 21st century irrrigation systems could be part of that, as could all weathers.

Peters can drive legislation and appoint board members, but regardless of what the report says, he can't make the NZRB do anything that the report suggests. So, yes, he can take it on board but if it requires action from the NZRB, they will need to be convinced.

I struggle to see how anything like $60m in costs can be found unless they do something constructive like shutting down the FOB operation. And even if they could find that, if they distribute it to codes it will likely mostly be wasted on stakes. It needs to be used to maintain distributions until the pain incurred from properly and competitively restructuring the tote business is mitigated and revenue from NZ Racing recovers and starts to grow. I'd say that could take at least 2-3 years. Any additional distributions to the codes from a TR perspective needs to go to infrastructure, sorting the handicapping and integrity systems, etc. so as to provide a more attractive wagering product.

Nice work Chief.

No worries Newmarket. When you wake up, maybe try and get a life.

Is that what BOAY stands for? Here I was thinking it stood for Bit of a Yawn.

Seems to me that what might increase revenue is overall pricing. That in essence means offering the rebates to everyone via lower takeouts. This worked before when the duty relief was first granted. Then they unexplainedly reversed the strategy.

I'm not sure why you raised it here then in a galloping chat forum. I was concerned that you had some personal anxieties with your pedigree and/or living arrangements and may want to talk further about that. I agree it has nothing to do with racing and suggest this thread be moved to a more appropriate forum so we can keep the focus here on galloping chat. Of course, it is possible that Darwin was right.

Do you need to say some more about that Hesi? I mean your living arrangements and parentage.

Completely agree. I still have that half a crown from the bet that grandpa put on for me when I was 6.

I generally agree. The likes of Betfair suggested 20-30% on racing and 10% on sports. The likes of Ladbrokes suggested that any charges be calculated on the same basis as GST for simplicity and efficiency. That makes sense to me. What do you think about somehow prohibiting 'best tote' type offerings? And what about allowing complying operators the right to advertise in NZ? In other words remove the core tote business competition as far as possible but encourage legitimate betting exchange and FO operators to build revenue for NZ racing via the IUC.

No they don't and I didn't think that Reefton's question was about publications but about betting operators. Of course there is an arrangement with the respective TABs in each country where those operators do pay. But for example Betfair Australia arranges bets on NZ racing but pays nothing for racefields information (even though they offered to 10 years ago but the NZRB didn't want their money). The likes of Sportsbet and Crownbet who also take bets on NZ racing don't either, although the latter have a commercial arrangement with NZ Rugby where they do pay them directly for relevant sporting information on NZ events which they offer a market on.

Costs might be being generated to a fair extent by trying to garner that revenue too.