Reefton

To be fair to them guys it is pretty hard to avoid clashes of interest in NZ racing if you are truly a racing person - you are always going to have known someone or had dealings with them somewhere. Otherwise we end up with the NZTR or NZRB scenario where no clash of interest but of course no empathy or direct involvement in the actual racing game.

Ellerslie may have got it right this time with their track but there have been plenty of times they have pissed vast amounts of industry money up against the wall on infrastructure(as have all the other Metro Clubs). And what bloody right has NZTR to go and give them $500,000 to subsidise races for which the majority of horses are not eligible?

Sponsorship(which will not be forthcoming if we cease) and gaming grants in the main. Plus the sweat of club Members of course doing work that, at the major clubs, would be done by paid staff or contractors Your question re non stakes funding is irrelevant - if we transfer it will come with us(ie none of that stuff is for the maintenance of facilities - we have never got money for maintenance of facilities from NZTR)

I've been annoyed by them but never employed by them no. They just have this culture shared by central and local government agencies of 'we know best' and 'the taxpayer/ratepayer/stakeholder will pay'. Just crap

'Turd polisher'???? Excrement embellishment technician pleeeeaasse!

The whole OSH thing is a red herring because every raceday the Club's appointed 'OSH' man(in our case me) has to have a meeting with the stipes about hazards or issues. And you can bet if something happened NZTR would be doing their darnest to pin the blame on the Club and/or the OSH man. More BS to justify their existance. Why am I the only club admin person in NZ(bar perhaps Curious) prepared to expose these wankers and their carry on?

Its accounting bullshit whereby they say 'well we have to have all these staff at HQ to service the industry so we will say that each club/course costs us so much' So they can say $1m a year to employ them divided by 50 clubs/Courses equals $20,000 per club/course and that is what it costs to maintain Reefton racecourse (say) Which would be fine if , when they shut the ten racecourses, the salaries decreased by $200,000. But as we all know they won't and there will be fewer clubs to shoulder the same burden. They blind us with BS to back up this theory and carry on the same way they always did until the whole thing collapses under the weight of bureaucracy. Solid Energy was an example - for every actual coal miner they had seven other staff - so when he went down the hole he was expected to generate enough to pay eight wages/salaries. When things got tough in the mining game what did SE do? _ sacked a heap of miners so when he went down the hole next time he was carrying twelve other staff wages/salaries on his back. And then they wondered why the whole thing went belly up!

Actually given that the cynic in me(99.9999% of me to be fair) says that these closures are a fait accompli I might question why Bernard is even bothering travelling the Country because it is not like it is going to achieve or change anything? Might get Bernard a bit of a tiki tour around the Country but cost the industry a fortune? Better if he wants to play the good cop to set up a video link one might have thought???

You have had a go at me before and got burnt off I will use little words because you are clearly not terribly bright it does not cost the New Zealand Industry one cent to 'maintain' the Reefton track If you cannot contribute some thing intelligent to the conversation don't bother posting 'Tis better to remain quiet and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and prove it'

Now Bernard....... One of the things your little venue review plan uses as its primary plank is how much will be saved by shutting down all these courses. Now to your credit you are prepared to travel the country and come to places like the Coast to put up with the demented ravings of people like me(I do not imagine any of the non entities who make up your Board will front but anyway.....) I suppose you wonder how the hell Clubs like mine claim to cost the industry nothing are you? Well Bernard here is the first thing my club doesn't do. It doesn't ask the Secretary to provide catering for every Committee or AGM meeting it holds. So why have you asked for catering to be provided(no doubt at NZTR's - read the NZ Racing Industry's - cost) at the West Coast meeting?(an no doubt every other one around NZ?) You see Bernard this is why we have have managed to survive (if not prosper) for so long Because we are CAREFUL with our money and do not incur unnecessary expense (a quality and protocol NZTR - and NZB - does not seem to be able to appreciate) It might not be a lot of money (it is requested as finger food and I imagine a cup of tea) but why waste $500 or so of industry money feeding people(half of them will be like me and too bloody fat already) Bernard?????? It is easy to spend money when it is not yours.

The Centaur are you saying(1) the possession of jiggers is common place in Aussie racing and (2) there is nothing necessarily sinister in Weir having three of them. If either answer is yes can you tell what reason they would have other than an illegal attempt to improve a horse's performance? And please don't suggest the master bedroom thing is a clue because in that case why would you need three?

Could you give me an example of when one might be used in a nice manner that the horse might enjoy? And if not could you give me a suggestion as to why they would have them at the stable.

Seriously? Who has brought racing into vastly more disrepute?

How does Australian racing reconcile James McDonald getting two years for backing a horse he was riding himself with the requested four years for Darren Weir? Weir should be getting an absolute minimum ten years if not life

What I would like to know is who the info was about and how they jumped to the conclusion it was about them?

Thanks. It is obviously a big family thrill(though I am, in the current circumstances, a bit sour on the NZ Racing Industry so to me she is purely and now simply a money making venture in the twilight of her racing career) and while she was originally leased as an interest for our (now late) Mother Saturday would have been the 99th birthday of our late Father so a bit of sentiment involved. No race is easy to win and it is very nice to have one good enough to win several very very good races and to get to race the best in the world last season. Not sure how much longer she has to go (obviously a start or two more) and there will not be many opportunities at favourable weights with legendary jockeys aboard but we shall see I guess.

That sounds like what Bernard had to say when he was here in November. Kumara have no concept of cooperation(they just run a - admittedly very successful - piss up) so they would be out. All the rest have very much aging committees who, when faced with a suggestion of amalgamation, will simply say 'aw no if we have to do that we will just drop out'. As I have said before about ten years ago I suggested they should get together and set up a dual code(incl the Trots) venue half way between Greymouth and Hoki - even had the place sorted (and at the time the NZRB had the money for at least an investigation of that sort of thing) but that was essentially the reaction. And in the meantime the Greymouth Trots have disappeared as well. Now with all the shit we have had to put up with since(massive increases in bureaucracy and lack of accountability principally) I have hardened my attitude and in simple terms I say we have the best course(we even have room to expand to a 1600 or 1800m course - might hit Shane Jones up for some regional development dosh) so we are not relocating to a (comparatively) second class venue. If it comes to that they can stick it where the sun doesn't shine. There is no cost to the industry to have Reefton Racecourse and not one person has been able produce any evidence that there is. The failing state of the NZ breeding industry is not the fault of the Reefton Jockey Club. And as I have said before if we go that is it for me. Once these donkeys(Consensus included) are finished I will kick the mud off my boots and won't be back.

Yes well there aren't exactly household names and faces within those of us down where the muck is raked in this industry.

your site your call CS. That's the way it works on the other side so you are entitled to exercise the same modus operandi. Personally as I have said before I think Thomass is harmless enough although now suspect it may have been you who stopped the lewd comments rather than anything on his own part.

Bernard(who to his credit is fronting up himself) has indicated he is happy to meet wherever we want. Just thought that we might want to go meet him in Westport. I did suggest in an email to him that some of the faceless mob that make up his Board should have the guts to front as well.

Nope! Needless to say we have advised that it is unacceptable as a venue. I would assume they are trying to save money as there is a direct Wellington Westport flight(rather than Wellington - Christchurch - Hokitika) And they will not want to visit venues because they would discover that the superior venue in every way(except circumference) on the West Coast is of course Reefton

Nice to see the boys are heading out to the scrub to face the music from the affected Clubs(and since the Coast carries a disproportionate amount of the 'close' tracks very decent of them to schedule one for the Western Side of the Alps on Feb 22nd) However.... Geography is clearly not their strong point as they have scheduled it for Westport - there has not been thoroughbred racing in Westport for twenty years and whats more NZTR is seeking to close down the other track in the Buller(Reefton) in its new policy of 'lets not bother at all with the Northern South Island' What is disturbing though is that we all live in bloody Greymouth or south of Greymouth a minimum of an hour and a half away! Surely they can make more of an effort to come to us! I guess it is one why of avoiding that grumpy a#*ehole President of the RJC! In other news the NZRB haven't managed to get us the dates draft because of problems with their email(strangely they emailed us to tell us they couldn't get an email through to us - not sure how the second one worked but the first apparently didn't) The Keystone Cops comes to mind

Sadly I think you are right. I really cannot see how the game is going to survive - there is simply too much quality product coming in from offshore(and rightly so) and too many halfwits running the show and pissing the dosh up against the wall. And these studs are going to really get wound up when the inevitable collapse happens. It just makes you sick but not sure what viable options are left to fix it. Relying on politicians of either side is hopeless - they are that paranoid about making decisions and copping the blame any action is years down the track(and it will then be more of the same BS because they have to consult the consultants) And we have the Nats all on the bandwagon to save the courses after years of the worst Racing Minister we have ever seen on their watch. I wonder why I bother worrying about it.

Losing Savabeel really does not bear thinking about for the NZ Breeding industry but it will happen one day and the irrelevance of the NZ industry(internationally) will really come home to roost. But since this thread is called 'musings' I will have a 'musing' of my own about one thing I would consider to try to start getting the horrendous costs out of the game. Why could we not go back to the days when the Clubs ran their own tote operations? One of the big planks of Messara and co is cutting the costs of the TAB's operations and oncourse costs have to be a significant part of that. I do not see why Clubs could not band together to run their own totes and if history is any proof they(well some of them - the Coast ones for a start) will run it a bloody sight cheaper than the TAB does. They seem to get into on-course sound systems and providing communications that are peripheral to their actual responsibilities and role and I see no reason why we could not provide that sort of thing ourselves(and for that matter the pictures as well - in this day and age that gear gets cheaper and cheaper and better and better as well so what is to stop us doing it ourselves and supplying it to Trackside?) even employing the commentators(within reason of course)

lets say you are a handy bloke about the place and buy a property to rent. As you go along you tidy it up , paint it, sort out the gardens fences and driveways. Not because you are in it for a quid but because you enjoy that sort of thing as a hobby. Then sometime down the track inflation does its work and someone comes along and wants to buy it off you at a very good profit. Why should CGT catch you? Or for that matter some bloke who buys an old car and restores it? Racing is not the only 'hobby' that might be caught out. Stamp collectors for instance as well. What people will need to be wary of is not carefully recording their costs. So if you pay cash for your hay and cash to the breaker, cash to the girl who rides it work and cash to your mate who owns a float then sell the horse at a big profit the department is not going to be too keen to accept 'cash' expenses as a cost of the animal. Same with the do up house or the classic car. There could well be an exemption though for horses - especially if you think back to Big Dave buying King's Road for $1.75m and him winning $20k or so. That is quite a big capital loss. Not sure what he spent in the last month on horses but say it is $10m - the law of averages says they will earn perhaps $3m in stakes between the lot of them - 'cant have everyone treating their horse ownership as a business now can we?' says the IRD