curious

Not a dog person but just saw this. There was quite a bit of discussion with Foxton Racing Club a few years back about putting a straight dog track in there. Club was open to it. Might have been a better option? Would have been a genuine straight course.

Maybe. However I think there is enough competition between NI and SI horses to align ratings, especially major Riccarton events such as cup week. That's how us punters have to do it and I don't generally see any major discrepancies so I think the handicappers are doing a pretty good job.

I don't see how their ratings/performance would improve just because they race against NI horses, unless they are actually better than their assigned ratings in which case their is something wrong with the relative ratings and the handicapping system.

It's nothing to do with NZTR and yes, I'm certain the pattern committee would consider an upgrade if that meets guidelines.

You'd think the Timaru Cup should at least get its listed status back though that is dependent to some extent on the subsequent performance of the place-getters. And as suggested be upgraded to feature level replacing one of the two we've just had in Otago/Southland.

Might pay to put a link to the subscription page on the homepage chief?

Yes. It's the latter that would stop me. I bet an even amount always based on confidence. Yet if I strike a 10/1 winner in the first bet of an allup for $100 bet, I'm suddenly risking 1000 on my next bet, a risk I can't tolerate.

Be better by a street.

I didn't know that. Seems if I rate two horses as value bets individually and take them in an all up, the risk/reward/value would be the same.

Is that NZTAB? For what period?

Interesting

Is that because they've lost the plastic running rail they had?

That's pretty much how Levin jumpouts got going. Needs to happen here in Canterbury too. If Rangiora had their own set of 8 gates. Could easily be done but given the CJC controls the Rangiora clubs, hard to figure how you could make it happen.

They don't. It's on loan to them. They control the 7/12 TB share but can't sell it without agreement from Harness.

Because the CJC don't own the land.

6 noms for a 50k open 2200 at Wingatui on boxing day

No. Recovering from injury (heel) for a year.

Chris Johnson, David Walsh, Lance O'Sullivan, Noel Harris, David Peake, Bill Skelton and Michael Coleman

Going a step further, assuming NZTR won't be moved on the SI as one region thing, then couldn't the programming committee do that? So, for example we have 2 feature meetings scheduled in Otago/Southland within 10 days at the moment. If they moved one of those to Canterbury, say to Timaru, perhaps upgrading the Timaru Cup meeting, then all horses in the region would have day trip access to a feature meeting within that period, instead of the large Canterbury horse numbers having none for two months. It is also still an easy day trip for the likes of Wingatui based horses.

If that's the case, then it is perhaps not the programming at issue but their definition of regions that needs reconsidering. The south should maybe divided in 2. Essentially, Canterbury/Westland and Otago/Southland. I can't think of anywhere in the CD or the North where a horse within those regions can't go to the races within the region on a day trip. Back when I was training down here -20 years ago, for a trip from Canterbury to Invercargill, we would go on the Thursday to give the horses a day to recover and loosen up before racing on the Saturday. That's probably a luxury with costs these days but I don't see with today's costs that you could consider a track not reachable in a day trip to be in the same region.

I think had it been batteries, they wouldn't still have worked once plugged back in, or for the rest of the day.

The disconnect has been there for two decades, though then the TA were not interested in advocating for change and they've done nothing since. My only hope is that Entain will somehow persuade NZTR to fix it so that they can get more competitive betting races, fuller fields, more revenue etc. Trainers are angry because they are probably losing owners who may have to pay 2 months training before there is a suitable race for their horse and they then may not get a start.

The inventory is there, many going round in circles for 2 months because there's no suitable race for them.

And feature meetings in Canterbury between cup week and the end of January? I sometimes think the programming committee just sits down, Has a couple of drinks and says we'll just do the same as what we did last year, then all go home.

Might be all that's required.