The Centaur

A few good things with UK racing bad many terrible. 1. Far too many bookmakers. A bookmaker is pre historic. RACING DOES NOT NEED BOOKMAKERS. With modern technology the bookmaker is obsolete. Good Bye. Good Riddance. 2 Pathetic information to the public. Often a presenter the only information is the trainers previous record in a race or cheek pieces are on. Pathetic. 3. Jumps racing needs to be downsized.

What a lot of fluffing around to run the Matamata Cup. Simple decision would have been to tun it at the Avondale meeting last week. Even with all the preceding rain the track was OK.

Thank you Delta Bro. Informative. Finally found a method of communication with the "club" their facebook page but only one posting in the last 2 years. Seems the track manager does a good job. As for the rest they should get out and let a new team takeover. The phone number listed hasn't worked for 2 years. The CEO mobile phone never gets answered and I doubt the email address would get a response. Asking say the NZTR for a contact reference gets the standard reply can't do that for privacy reasons. F***k me there was a time when every phone was listed in the phone book. Nowadays one has to waste a day just finding a business phone number. If that is what they call AI then count me out.

Avondale is asset rich and with a sale inevitable now was an excellent time to invest. At $1.5M or thereabouts the Dargaville property was a steal leaving plenty options open. One being working cooperation with the Field Days. Before anything is impossible it has to be proved its not possible. Installing trainers both harness or thoroughbred has possibilities. Pre training another possibility. Clubs need to work together. The trend in Australia is city dwellers like to travel say 60 miles to getaway from the city during the weekend. An opportunity lost.

Disagree forget about the main stand its actually top class. Now if Avondale had a bit of nous they would have purchased Dargaville racecourse. Used the Avondale track as security, worked out a deal with the Dargaville Club, and Auckland Trotting club with the intention of staging combined gallops/harness meetings with also involvement of Whangarei Racing Club. The annual Agricultural Fieldays https://www.nzherald.co.nz/northern-advocate/news/20000-people-attend-northland-field-days/XRTBL7GIMFHI3L6WH5BKD3UV2A/ are a major Northland event so that organisation would have needed to be on board. Once all those organisations on board then the Northern Regional Council would get right behind the whole concept resulting in easier funding. A WIN WIN situation.

Bit of drying weather this afo (Tuesday) but obviously with all the rain a heavy 10. But with rail in true and little use recently the inside should be quite smooth. Very little publicity on the meeting tomorrow so little interest. That should not have been the case. One question has always puzzled me. With the Avondale Sunday markets popular why did Avondale club never leverage that crowd to attend meetings. Sunday meetings say six races from 3.30pm could have been held still allowing for cleanup from the markets. Even on other days an abundance of innovative ideas could have been used. The attitude of the club very poor. e,g. no phone number contact and no one in the club interested generating general feedback and ideas. Avondale had all the advantages and could have been the most profitable in the country.

Just who has bypassed the idea of running Matamata's remaining races at Avondale? Is it NZTR, Matamata club or Avondale. There needs to be an enquiry. The track at Avondale should offer excellent racing. If not lets hear it. The silence from NZTR & Avondale itself is shocking. Just what ideas are Avondale considering for their nest egg?

There is a bit of AI being exercised at TAB but combining AI with custom databased knowledge should eliminate lot of the costs particularly integrity. Also there are retired people willing to contribute free services and that should be utilised. Property sales over recent times have kept many management in nice cushy jobs with little oversight. Also lets get rid of the club member mentality where those running the club think they are only answerable to the members. If an initiative is OK for one club then its possibly worth using it for all clubs.

de Lore is inaccurate suggesting Winston supported Chloe Swarbrick. Infact he distanced himself from her speech but criticized the speakers ruling. Seems to me Winston Peters personally is opposed to Luxons policy on Gaza but as NZ's rep is forced to toe the line.

Could have done that by all means. Certainly a colourful legend.There has been some good writeups including that by Dennis Ryan on loveracing. The time I met him in the eighties I remember he wasn't all that glowing about the honesty of Queensland racing as well as the politics there. As for more modern journalists I hope there is some award or acknowledgement at the end of season get togethers for Jamie Searle.

Joshua Smith . OK the trainer was positive and cooperative nevertheless these pieces are excellent in fostering interest in upcoming races. https://loveracing.nz/News/50082/Grayshuntinglocalriches.aspx

New Zealand can in no way match the protocols involved in UK jumping. If you can't do it properly then don't do it. Seeing an exhausted horse falling at the last jump probably injuring the jockey is madness to allow it to happen. Basically there is no public interest in jumping. Its more an extra option for some owners to recoup outlays. By all means create extra opportunities for flat racing but from an economical and business viewpoint jumping tote racing makes no sense.

H'mm.... got to admit this wasn't the Ranfurly Shield event I relate to. I went to the first challenge Taranaki had in 1957 against Golden Bay-Motueka which Taranaki won about 57 nil. Even for game like that there would have been almost 30,000 present with all the hoopla etc associated with it. In fact crowds up to in excess of 40,000 for other shield games were common. Looking at the Manaia event on youtube was a bit depressing compared to the 1957-61 era. Of interest a lot of the players from that era ended up being keen racing owners e.g. Neil Wolfe, Ross Brown etc.

Having spoken to locals tied up with Hawera and Opunake they are pissed off at the conflict. The trip over to New Plymouth would have been a highlight but now they are choosing to go to Manaia. I would say the ground will be sold out.

Rule One in Taranaki --You don't compete against Rugby. "I found that out when in a bar I cheered the Hamilton anti aparthied protesters when they occupied the Hamilton Rugby ground back in about 1982." Ranfurly Shield is a big thing in Taranaki and on Saturday the challenge is held in Manaia near Opunake. So why the hell is the Opunake Cup held on the same day?