Reefton

On 6/12/2022 at 1:58 PM, Huey said:

Why would they bother, when the experience is the same homogenous garbage they are getting at those venues all year at any rate.

What BS,NZTR and their consorts failed to realise was it was a completely different experience at those country venues and thats why people went, not to just support some club name on a racebook. Part of the reason the industry has headed backwards at an accelerating rate in terms of race days.

 

This is what they get - 

 

 

A bunch of boozed up kids who get the same experience they get when they go to a music festival as they do at a race day, 99% of them couldn't tell you the name of a single horse that raced , so there is no followup or flow on benefits for the sport of racing , just some booze sales.

 

 

Lets not knock the 'big day' marketing too much though.  If there is one out of every hundred of those kids actually notices the horses and thinks 'I quite like this game' then it is at least something.   Kumara is a classic example (although a bloody sight cheaper for the NZ industry than NZ Cup day or KM night) and very important to us guys.  However it should not be at the expense of paying attention to the genuine devotee who has had their local meeting ripped away and is understandably badly disillusioned with the game on that basis(a classic local example being the Westland Racing Club guys who were booted in the guts and retaliated).

All this focus on the big Clubs and big days due to the Waikato Mafia is all fine but the looming economic crunch is going to bite them too.  Some 5% owner with one of these syndicators who can't pay the mortgage is hardly going to stump up in Feb next year for another nag.

And we all know the old story - the bigger they are.....

We have had 'good times' economically in this country for a bloody long time and if they(TAB) could not make a quid then how are they going to do it with what looks likely to be coming?

3 hours ago, nomates said:

You mean to say there is any other type of minister of the crown .

fair comment

A procession of Racing Ministers illustrates your point perfectly

1 hour ago, NZRacing said:

while the hapless DIA is involved in providing advice to a Racing Minister and putting together policy to make changes to the Racing Act.  Excerpt from briefing to the then new Racing Minister.

The Treasury Dept was overseeing the TAB's finances which I doubt they wanted that to continue.  The DIA dummies informed the Minister that the TAB has traded its way to a healthier position. The TAB net profit in 20/21 before distribution was $178 million supposably 35% more than forecast - what a load of absolute bullshit. The previous year the before distribution was $162 million so the NZ TAB decide to allow the budget forecast to be $132 million. No wonder the forecast budget was 35% more in actual figures they dropped it by $30 million on the previous year. It would be more appropriate to advise the Minister the actual funding to the codes. The only time you would use a NZ TAB forecast budget would be in a COVID lockdown.

The slack dummies I bet didn't say to the Minister the NZ TAB still require monitoring, they rail roaded that no doubt by saying they are in a healthier position.  

If you want to read the so called 'in confidence' report link is below. 

The NZ racing Industry was better served by the NZ Racing Authority who had knowledge and expertise in wagering and the racing industry, once the DIA took over their role it was the beginning of the end. The DIA would struggle to put out a policy on how to lick a stamp.

If they did say that the TAB don't require any further monitoring because they are in a healthier state someone needs to get rail roaded as they obviously believed the crap they were fed by the TAB as results now show.

When you consider over recent months people on this site said things were bad and would get worse you also have to wonder why the codes never had the ability to see that as well. Once again they believed the crap fed to them. I wonder when the TAB are going to meet the codes to explain exactly went wrong - yeah right - they would have more of a chance to meet Father Christmas, the Tooth fairy and the Eater Bunny

https://www.dia.govt.nz/diawebsite.nsf/Files/Briefings-to-incoming-ministers-2022/$file/BIM-Racing-2022.pdf

BIM-Racing-2022.pdf (dia.govt.nz)

All government departments suffer from mediocre performance I'm afraid

Waka Kotahi and the disgraceful state of the roads

Kainga Ora and the housing debacle

Whatever the hell that endangered children group calls itself

The Health and Education outfits

The Reserve Bank Governor who reportedly had no idea how this inflation surge came about(when you study economics the second thing they tell you, after supply and demand, is that printing money creates inflation)

All the OIA requests waiting forever

Mind you there are one or two very very mediocre Ministers in charge of said departments so I suppose what can you expect

3 hours ago, nomates said:

Too late , they've tried that one .

I think there is a little more sizzle in that sausage just yet.  There is some pretty valuable real estate to be gobbled up by these guys.  Ironically the likes of my Club will be not worth their effort because the assets are worth f all but not long ago we heard about Levin.  If Ellerslie comes up OK watch em leering at Avondale. Rangiora clearly, Timaru and God knows where else.

no no no you lot can't see the big picture......

We'll just shut down a bunch of tracks and take the money to use to prop up the stakes for the big Clubs

And when its all pissed up against the wlll we will just  ........ um.........um

Oh f*#k it by then we will have resigned anyway.

1 hour ago, Joe Bloggs said:

You know Doomed, in a brave new world the SI should say ''Fuck Petone'' and start their own breakaway racing association and compliance org.......

Petone will say OK, you are sanctioned, so what? there are enough jocks to say ''fuck Petone too'........the publicity would be enough to actually ''fuck Petone''..........but there has to be a will........a strong will...........surely there is strong parochialism down there? the Government whoever it would be would need to step up then and you just might end up with a level playing field, however it would take strong militant action to achieve that.

What's happened to SI racing is a travesty, sadly apathy has had a lot to do with that, once, in it's heyday it was as strong as the NI......

The kowtowing to Petone is gut wrenching and defeatist, if they went it alone would the Gov disqualify the TAB from betting on SI racing? Maybe, but that itself brings probable legal action, restriction of trade mainly, would Trackside drop coverage?  That could be overcome with closed circuit Youtube and associated outlets.......

Lets face it, Kerry Packer told ACB to fuck off and started World Series Cricket, it went gangbusters, Rupert Murdoch started Super League after telling the NRL to fuck off, it worked, well it brought the NRL to the table and now look how strong the NRL is.....anything is possible, don't tell me it's not, you are only limited by your budget and your imagination, I'll keep saying that over and over.......but curling up like a mongrel dog copping a kicking is not working is it? 

How many more youngsters from the SI will walk away, how long until there is no-one left to care? ..........bring it on, would love to see a breakaway racing league in the South, bring back the will, go on...I dare you?

Bit of an issue with the appeal (to the wider punting public) of South Island Racing.  Packer grabbed a red hot spectator sport and ran with it just like the LIV golf concept.  Is SI racing in any position to go it alone?  In an ideal world nobody would be more in favour of a breakaway but being realistic it isn't going to happen.

And as far as the CJC meeting next week on the AWT well there are a lot of horses in the District and if a trainer thinks there is an opportunity to pick up some easy money they will be there.  Clearly Michael Pitman for instance has virtually ignored Cromwell, will not go to Invercargill in a couple of weeks and did not trial anything at Ashburton this week so it is a fair bet there will be a ton of his team entered for a start. 

1 minute ago, nomates said:

A word i used earlier in the day , 1st race at New Plymouth , 1400 0n a H8 , official time 1.24.26 , track down graded after race 1 to H9 .

I call bullshit , how can simple things like this not be done properly , i checked time straight away so i could ascertain how bad the track is , but that time clearly doesn't represent the true nature of the track .

C'mon , this is not difficult . 

they might have been like Te Rapa that time - the gates might have been parked at the 1300m by mistake

5 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

But the point is it is easy for Reefton to present a racing surface when it is barely used either for race days or training.  The track manager at Riccarton (Awapuni, Trentham, Ellerslie as well) has been pushing shit up hill for years given he has fuck all to work with regardless of the money that might be available.  The soil and turf system is fucked and a major rebuild is required.  Good luck to the new centralised brains trust in trying to improve things.  They'd be better to race more at Timaru but no they need that capital for something else - most likely to subsidise stakes given the fall in revenue!

Well if effing Riccarton needs renovation let effing Riccarton pay for it.

Whatever work we do we pay for ourselves but these big clubs have got their hands out all the time and after getting millions given to them they still produce shit surfaces

1 hour ago, Reefton said:

you would know

We also don't have a range of full time track staff nor do we get grants from NZTR to run a training facility nor do we earn huge amounts of track fees

And while I am on the word 'nor'  to my knowledge nor have we ever abandoned halfway through our raceday.  We did abandon our day ten or so years back but that was seven days ahead of time because we knew we had no hope.

 

 

And another couple of 'nors'

nor does the Reefton Jockey Club get the guts of a million dollars worth of industry money lavished on it to splurge on stakes for one day then produce a substandard track for the said day

And nor would the Reefton Jockey Club say 'right we are refunding all the entry fees' but then basically beg people not to claim the refund.  I have to say that is a rather bizarre press release on behalf of the CJC.  I VERY much doubt anyone who was there for the actual racing would have any sympathy for them and the ones  who were there for the piss up probably didn't even notice there were no horses on the track so wouldn't care.  I would have just kept the money and if some individual whinged just refunded them their entry fee.

19 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

Your "guys know what they are doing" because they only race 3 times a year and have next to zero horses training on the track.  Not  bloody hard to keep a track in good condition under that scenario!

you would know

We also don't have a range of full time track staff nor do we get grants from NZTR to run a training facility nor do we earn huge amounts of track fees

And while I am on the word 'nor'  to my knowledge nor have we ever abandoned halfway through our raceday.  We did abandon our day ten or so years back but that was seven days ahead of time because we knew we had no hope.

On 14/11/2022 at 12:49 PM, Freda said:

Yeah.....have to agree with both parties here.

Sure, It isn't the fault of NZTR if clubs choose to ignore their guidelines.   

However there never seem to be any consequences.  If a small/provincial/country club 'ignored guidelines'  they would most likely be asked to show why they should be allowed a licence to run races.

And there has to be considered the suitability of such 'advice'.

There was, until recently, a 'venue inspector' who was ostensibly responsible for all the tracks country-wide.  It doesn't take much thought to realise that one size doesn't fit all.   Advice pertaining to Ruakaka will not suit Invercargill, or Riverton.

Even in a geographical area considered ' one district' i.e. the Coast,  what works for Kumara will most certainly not work for Reefton.   So you may have, in those situations, local club track men, whether volunteers or otherwise, taking not a blind bit of notice and with plenty of justification.

Dead right.  You cannot apply the same logic at Riccarton and the Coast when it comes to track prep.  Our guys know what they are doing and the national track man (Garry Foskett) knew that. 

1 hour ago, Chief Stipe said:

Did you make that up?  Or is it real?

Happened to read the exact same circular to my Committee tonight. Banged my fist on the table as I did.  Dated 15 November 2022 from B Sharrock

1 hour ago, Doomed said:

I think a guaranteed start would be a good inducement, it is a horse that has spent a lot of time on the ballot. Hopefully now Pam can plan a campaign with some hope of actually getting a start.

Well since you mention it.....

That's another bloody thing Wellington dictates - who (all things being equal of course) gets a start and who doesn't

Tim Mills basically dictates the program(as the SI programming committee of one) and  NZTR will refuse additional races at their own whim.

We don't even discuss the program at committee meetings because no correspondence is entered into

And then there is the calendar issue that Curious is justifiably unhappy about.  In the next nine weeks there is not one feature meeting within five hours of Riccarton.  Not bloody ONE!  I offered to redo their entire South Island Calendar when they made the mess of the Coast schedule in January but why bother when it is not appreciated.  It would not be hard - just pin your features(GN Cup Week, White Robe Lodge day) and schedule around them.  Sure have say four weeks after Cup meeting but Timaru and Ashburton should have feature meetings in the Christmas leadup even if they are Friday Twilights.  Give those Clubs the opportunity to hop on the Christmas Party bandwagon with their locals.

The Timaru Cup would fit nicely there.  

1 hour ago, nomates said:

I suggest a cash inducement to ensure the trainer makes the right programming decision , always works for me . 

Well there's a chilly bin full of booze as a trophy and often the owners don't turn up so if he wins it and Mr Gardiner fails to show his face I guess it is Pam's(wouldn't be the first trainer to snaffle it with glee)

4 hours ago, nomates said:

Hope you look after them .

Setting him for the Couplands next year ?

Hope they'll be setting him for the Reefton bloody Cup!  Forget the second rate events

I could make quite a fuss over the battlers Pam and CWJ(and the poor old owner I suppose) in the President's speech

They went perilously close to winning one there last time

1 hour ago, Ludwig said:

It's fascinating that the tracks where the problems are occurring are the higher profile tracks such as Awapuni and Riccarton. Yet smaller centres such as Reefton seem to cope just fine.

Perhaps it should be the smaller successful clubs who offer advice to the city ones, rather than the other way round.?

Well I have no idea on Riccarton and don't really want to publicly condemn them because (1) I am sure they did what they thought was best and (2) Murphys law says it will happen to us in seven or so weeks time BUT............

If there was an issue with the irrigation being blown by the wind and therefore all the water dropping in one lane (as appears to have happened) why don't they get a water cart and the verti drainer(the spiker machine) and have the cart follow the verti drainer around with the boom very close to the ground so the water went precisely where they wanted it to.  Yes it would be slow but it would be consistent.  I know it would have been windy in Canterbury because it pissed down here for a lot of last week but too many people knew of the issues(long grass and inconsistent watering) and the 'blundering' surely ought to have been ringing alarm bells?????

Apart from anything else wasn't irrigation inconsistency the problem at Rangiora?  Was no lesson learnt?

They should be consulting KT Myers(Farmer and Horse Trainer - and good bloke -  who knows his stuff on tracks)

22 minutes ago, holy ravioli said:

About the tracks probably but not his discredited ideology of the efficiency' of private ..enterprise.

Sorry HR I can't quite get the gist of what you are saying.  Private enterprise didn't run the schools or the water or the Hospitals(well not the vast majority of them) or the polytechs

But I drove to Christchurch today to attend a race meeting(I had left by the time of your triumph sorry Pam!) and I passed literally hundreds of trucks carting all manner of stuff(Logs, milk, frozen goods, general freight) I also on multiple occasions passed close by a perfectly good railway line between the Coast and Christchurch and wondered to myself why NZ Rail (a government organisation) is not able and much cheaper to cart those goods.

And if there are hundred to and from the Coast there will be thousands on SH1 (which coincidentally also runs close to a railway line).  If I ever need a to know why private enterprise works better I need only think of that.

1 minute ago, holy ravioli said:

And pray tell what is the real way forward....privatise vital utilities and milk the working class?

I see dentists are screaming for the gummint to subsidise dental care for...all.

Would be a nice sinecure for them andsave them having to reduce their eyewatering rates to attract more...business.

God knows what makes you think the gummint wants to manage racing tracks!Are you..pissed?

I think he might have been taking the mickey

Would the not be better to say 'what are the tracks where this never happens doing right?' not ' how can we get it set up so it happens to everyone?'

We are only a one day Club but last year after the Trotting meeting and with forecast seven days of 30 plus degree temperatures before our meeting in prospect we went all out with irrigation and it worked. We didn't need Wellington to tell us - it was common sense.  But we also make sure our irrigation(k-line) is working properly and is covering the ground evenly.  It is moved twice a day to give one and a half days to cover the entire track so there were basically 4 laps before the meeting.  It's not hard and we aren't experts but we're not mugs either.

NZTR considering taking over the management of all the tracks in NZ? 

Are they trying to organise more effing abandonments?

Their man they appointed to supervise the upper South Island tracks (Mr A Chapman from Riccarton no less) gave us a great demo of how to produce a track this week.

1 hour ago, curious said:

It's not that it happened that worries me. That's a mistake. It's that those who are supposed to inspect the track on race mornings including the course manager and stipes didn't, that's inexcusable. They obviously didn't even bother to drive around it.

Good point actually.  On reflection there is of course a penetrometer reading done in the morning.  There was more than one person not doing their job.

Good job Riccarton is so wide and they could swerve to avoid the cones.

17 minutes ago, billy connolly said:

There maybe an excuse at a once a year bush meeting like Reefton who no doubt rely on volunteers but there is absolutely no excuse at a metropolitan track with a multitude of payed staff.

CEO Mills lives on the property at Riccarton Park, a stones throw from the course proper, how many times would've he walked the course before a race meeting? I personally have spent many hours around Riccarton (mostly track-work mornings) and can't ever recall seeing Mills present but have regularly seen him sitting on a bar stool at the Racecourse Pub !

Although I have little respect for Mills, the buck stops with the stewards in charge of the meeting to ensure all is in order regards track issues etc. and ignoring the fact that a multitude of runners have blundered the start through no fault of their own is unacceptable.

 

Couldn't agree more. Just someone to drive the course beforehand to make sure everything is in order. You would expect it to be standard practice

It shows the loss of the stipes going out to patrol towers - one of them surely would have picked it up.

11 hours ago, Joe Bloggs said:

No starter should let the field go with blokes/gals in front, no go!!!........in 50 years here in Oz I have never seen or heard of that happening .......was the starter who did that let go?

I remember once the starter's assistants went on strike and sat down in front of the gates.  Think it was in Melbourne.  I thought to myself if that happened on the coast we would be a laughing stock.

Mistakes happen in all areas of life it is just that when the happen in televised events we all know about them.  I have a relation,  an extremely experienced coal miner now retired, who worked at Spring Creek at the time of Pike River.  He reckoned there was an incident at Spring Creek the week before that was the most frightening he had seen in his career.  While it was Pike that went bang it could easily have been somewhere else.  It's a fact of life

1 hour ago, curious said:

If you are referring to the cones incident at Riccarton I don't agree. That is a mistake in that they were left there in the first place. Pure negligence and incompetence that the first race started with them still there.

Agree it shouldn't have happened but equally nobody did it on purpose. When you rely on staff you get cockups

38 minutes ago, Freda said:

Don't recall Reefton having ANY issues, my memory may not serve me well but the glass house is pretty safe I think.

True although they tried to make one when that girl let that horse run straight instead of steering it around the corner.  Your ex partner was very handy that day pointing to pilot error.  But the bottom line is mistakes like the cones are easy to make and so in the heat of the moment are scenarios like starter's assistants not being noticed in front of the gates.  Not acceptable because someone could get killed but easy to make.

I make mistakes all the time and it is but for the grace of God there have been no tragic consequences for me or others. 

Remember Cromwell last year when eagle eyed Stipes picked up those halfwits on the track on the bend out of the back straight.  Nobody gives them credit for averting a tragedy there.  These guys, I am sure, are doing their best.