Wingman

What a Madam

I do not know how, yet the reality is yesterday they produced an improved decent racetrack. Now stop being unnecessarily argumentative and annoying or you will be sent to the naughty boys room.

A very reasonable rebuttal. When I became aware of the two 'competing' sites I over time decided this site is by way the superior of the two, unless you like picking competitions. So why post on an inferior site CS? I look at the other site, sometimes read some excellent posts, I also read many excellent posts on this site and the bottom line is regardless how annoying Chief Stipe can be, he is not vindictive. The same cannot be said for the other site. Now that said back to the title of this post "Trentham is a joke' I agree regarding what the idiots in charge have down to the aesthetics, having to watch the first half of sprints down the once famous Shute is an appalling disgrace. That is however the result of selling your land. The place looks like a train wreck waiting to become a development site. Why would one depress themselves by turning up and having memory after memory being destroyed in front of your eyes. Where I disagree is re yesterdays track presentation. It was significantly better than last weeks meeting and ignoring the laughable race times gave every runner a genuine chance. There was no bias, the best horse on the day won if it was given a professional ride. By not looking at the surrounding 'train wreck' a bit like blocking out power lines impeding an otherwise lovely view, I enjoyed yesterdays racing at Trentham and kudos to the people that improved the condition of the track.

The horse was (with permission) named after the Doctor who saved her Childs life

Which raises the question have they fixed a problem area then 'fixed' the home turn which to the best of my knowledge wasn't a problem area?

make that 400-430m, used to be longer before they did work on it

500 - 530m

jockey was probably over confident and perhaps the horse hit a flat spot which gave the pacemaker an added advantage. There are two rules for four horse fields, 1 Avoid, 2 Refer to rule 1

Ha Ha, howeva you can't beat Wellington on a good day

I will give NZTR a small credit for owning up to this balls up, a bit like, if I may indulge briefly, like as a judge deducting 10% from the maximum sentence than sending them down. What really gets under my skin is the third bullet point. Same crap indicating they really have no clue, hence my continuing to refer to NZTR executive as Muppets.

Regrettably it will not change in the short term. The people (muppets) in charge do not understand no track no races. "Oh we will put protocols in place to ensure this doesn't happen again, meantime, where else can we hold a meeting". It will take ongoing carnage that we are factoring in as almost the norm, until finally there will be a real cleanout of the muppets. By then maximum damage will have been done however if race savvy executive are employed (big if) then....

It has been an issue for decades, just these days harder to sweep away/hide. I had a decent bet on a horse early winter at Awapuni in mid nineties. Going to bolt in. Falters at around 150m, picks itself up, runs 2nd. I was perplexed until I read that it had put its leg in a hole. Stopped betting May though Sept after that.

On 11 March I put forward a post titled 'Land grab and spend'. In it I quoted the new NZTR CEO who said on the Guerin show quote "There are some big infrastructure issues especially in the Central Districts. There are some big real estate plays that need to happen and they are in train hopefully in weeks or months. And we can start to understand what we can do with the funding" unquote You can bet your house that what 'THEY' will not do is downsize their bureaucratic structures.

Well we will have to agree to disagree although at the risk of sounding fickle I believe we are both correct and on this I am unanimous

Todays issue is a result of tracks being over used. Had Te Teko still been available, there would have been a number of trial meetings each year that would have taken place at Te Teko, not Taupo. Last time I was there was when I had a horse racing there over ten years ago and to the best of my knowledge did not used to be problematic.

How the fuck would I know what muppets think. They do tend to say great, Excellent, well maybe needs further investigation

I think the telling statement from Balcombe is him saying they are considering (what is to consider? DO IT) an irrigation system for Woodville. This is on the back of a few years ago, Woodville being a track that NZTR considered surplus to requirements. People like Balcombe would have been down the road years ago in the corporate world. They lack vision and love driving ambulances to low lying areas and then pausing to wait for the casualties to arrive.

Te Teko was a backstop. When they decided under I think Saundry's time as NZTR CEO, ten tracks were told they were for the chop. Those people in making that decision said they could not justify the cost to maintain them but little thought went into who/when picks up the slack. Now look where we are,,,what more could possibly go wrong!!

Same people, same woe is us, waffle. And they treat those not in their idiotic inner circle as 'outsiders' who will continue to nod sagely at the nonsense they have to say. Look at the sentence below WHICH is then followed BY

Trials have been rescheduled for next Tues April fools, then Thurs 3rd at Ellerslie who then have a race meeting on Sat 5th.

And saline drips on the bus

The folly of ditching Te Teko starting to bite!

What tracks are left in the CD that can be trusted to do the job they were once made to do?

The rating system pushes all above average horses up the grades too quickly. I had a look at the last 5 Oaks winners and prior to winning all bar one fell in the 70 somethings. The exception was Amarelinha who was R91 due to a ridiculous 17 points penalty for winning the Eight Carat but the most notable, beyond ridiculous was Pennyweka who came into the Oaks rated 70 having received 5 points for 3rd in the Desert Gold, nothing for 3rd in the Lowland, then showing a total disregard for the horses future once out of age group racing the handicapper penalises Pennyweka, with 28 points!

I have just finished watching a recording of tonight's Guerin report. To get straight to the crux of the matter regarding thoroughbreds, Minister Peter's is not impressed with the slow progress of 'rationalization' which he believes is a continuing drag on the industry and stopping its ability to financially develop. He talked about events from the past, one that obviously annoyed him to a large degree, where he was invited to Kumara. Bookings made, entourage confirmed, travel booked and made, then on the day the meeting is cancelled due to pigs digging/rooting the turf. Sound familiar to Tauherenikau's disaster yesterday? (All be it a lesser meeting but still an expensive exercise for most who didn't get to compete) His take is basically bigger is better, yes, he said, we want (singular) representation in the provinces but so what, about small tracks that race once or twice a year, yet continually let the industry down. I know there is a catch twenty two here in that if the industry does not fund track development then how can country tracks afford to maintain their tracks to the level of city tracks. Then there is the shameful state of the Trentham track which suggests there is a hidden agenda which is, do not fund the tracks NZTR has no interest in being around come 2030.