curious

It’s no secret that the massive scale of government stimulus through the pandemic has seen core Crown borrowing surge in nominal terms. It was up another 17 per cent in the year to May 30 — to $193.63b.

New Zealand’s total gross debt continues to expand and break new records. Liam Dann Liam Dann 1506 words 24 July 2023 The New Zealand Herald NZHLD A018 English Copyright 2023 NZME Publishing Ltd. New Zealand’s total gross debt continues to expand and break new records. In our annual Nation of Debt series, we tally all the nation’s debt statistics, from across the private and public sectors. This year we’ve hit a grand total of $790 billion. That’s up from $739b last year — a relatively subdued increase of 7 per cent. But that’s now an average of $151,000 in raw debt for every Kiwi. Since the series began in 2016 that total nominal figure has ballooned by 60 per cent — from $492.5b.

Some ride here

A couple more from this season. Such fun.

200 horses booked to go round there tomorrow though, from New Plymouth to Hastings, including the likes of Pennyweka among a number of good ones. Connections speak.

30 heats at Te Awamutu tomorrow. 29 at Foxton.

Foxton's racing club still alive and kicking https://www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-standard/opinion/300936714/foxtons-racing-club-still-alive-and-kicking

They should also be funded to make sure grass training gallops are available most of the time. It is ridiculous that Awapuni trainers have to take their horses to Foxton for that or likewise Riccarton trainers to Rangiora.

I think if they are going to concentrate trials at the likes of Awapuni and Riccarton, which is fine with respect to proximity of the horse populations, then those tracks have to run 10 or 12 grass trial meetings a year whether that be on the course proper or a trial grass if they have one suitable.

Yes. And should be better funded for that purpose. Only subsidisation from the trial business keeps the training facilities available.

Probably not a total waste Freda. A very good trialling and training facility with grass training tracks available almost year round and the ploughs pretty much all weather. Might be better in that respect than Riccarton has become?

And a week later.

Some clubs do but they certainly don't stay in business from racedays for the most part. Industry days are lucky to cover costs for most clubs, as the likes of Reefton I'm sure will tell you. And if they do it is the outside income from pokies, overseas racing etc. that allows NZTR to sufficiently fund clubs to run them. They are not fully funded by the revenue that they generate directly from wagering. Doubt there is a race day in NZ that is anymore.

Those too.

Yeahh. Probably time to close them all. Mostly an eyesore and a drain on the industry which had their day decades ago.

Did you back the wrong one in there nod?

Meeting News Tuesday Trials to Awapuni Due to rain, and not being able to complete the rail move at Foxton, the trials scheduled for Tuesday will now be held on the synthetic track at Awapuni. Track looks good and from the facebook post below, sounds like they got the rail moved during a working bee this morning. Hope someone told them not to bother. Working bee has been moving the running rail out 6m!

Connections did pay about $1250 in noms, acceptances and rider fees so it really only covers that as I said above.

A handicapping system is theoretically supposed to do that, so for me, I'd say fixing that so slower horses have an equal chance would both achieve HR's objective to a greater degree and make the wagering product more attractive. We do have a small amount of appearance money now (back to 10th) which seems reasonable. So, already those horses essentially race for free.

Not sure your extrapolation is valid based on the data. Isn't it the evenness of fields and competitiveness of them that adds attractiveness to the betting product? Our highest quality fields are our poorest earners relative to the stakes cost.

Yes, I wondered about Woodville. Also Foxton might have been called on for a couple of these to keep the pressure off those other tracks. Good they are fixing Awapuni, hopefully properly, but the pressure on some of these other tracks doesn't make much sense when there would seem to be other options in much closer proximity to the horse population.

Gosh that seems like a lot of pressure on tracks that are already struggling to cope, especially Trentham?

I don't think they are quite sure. The stewards' report says "With the weather becoming showery during race morning the track was inspected by Stewards with senior riders prior to Race 1. Following this inspection, a meeting was held with all riders with the decision made to continue with the programme. The abandonment report says "Around 45 minutes before the start of Race 1, steady rain began to fall, with Stewards undertaking an inspection of the track with senior rider representatives.