The Centaur

100% owners so the delight obvious. When was the last time a Grp1 was won by a 100% owner/trainer?

Traditionally the post race photograph includes jockey, trainer and owners. Now the owners are usually over 50 years so won't be around 50 years time. Yet having the day to day carer and track rider in the photo means the person will have something 40 years on.

Not very diplomatic criticizing Jamie Richards at the top of his game but it gets tiresome hearing from him about the great team. Yet hardly ever hear who is in the "great team" or interviews from them. Anyone else think the "Plonkers of the week" award go to the Melody Belle syndicate owners. Seems they want to sell when she finishes racing possibly at the end of this season. When it comes to sentiment the first sentiment is quick cash.

Certainly don't mean those self serve. My scheme is system of scanning a customer form with QRcode, barcode etc then checking the bet on the mobile phone before sending it by phone.

Sorry I thought you were back there visiting. There are several innovative ways to make oncourse betting pleasurable. Fiddling around with a phone app in glaring sunlight is not one of them. Payments should be made just once and a deposit slip carry the balance. All selling machines must be self serve but I agree some form of bookmaker presence be available however more as a marketing gimmick.

JB, Looked a terrific crowd. How did they handle the betting? Any new technology around the selling terminals?

With Probabeel winning yesterday in Australia thats another high class winner to come out of the Matamata Trials. I stand by my statement. The Matamata Trials was the best meeting in terms of quality, interest, entertainment and spectacle to occur this season. The problem is NZTR were blind.

BGP getting the formula right isn't going to be easy. Pooling cash together for a big splash isn't a sustainable model. We saw that with the Melbourne Cup day. Also going to the races e.g. "a bunch of boys" sneaking off with the household budget for a day out is no longer all that appealing. Race crowds when they happen are more family orientated with the female side more interested in the animals. Having accumulated say 18,000 internet members and say 600 keen racing followers that really is the easy part. The big challenge is capitalizing on that.

I said look at the meetings on the NZTR calendar where they are classified as meeting, premier and trial.

Sorry everyone failed. The meeting which was probably the best to attend to spot future winners and see the cream of NZ thoroughbreds with horses such as.... Melody Belle, Probabeel, The Chosen One, Aegon, Quick Thinker, Crown Prosecutor, Travelling Light, Need I Say More, Pop Star Princess, Amarelinha, Kahma Lass, Festivity, Equinox, Burgundy Belle, Vitesse Bo etc and about 200 others was Jan 12 Matamata Trials run on a perfect track. Yet there was no publicity, no crowd to speak of. Shows the incompetence of those running racing. The open trials could have been incorporated into a tote meeting giving the holiday crowds an extra attraction.

No.

Final Clue. Numerically most number of starters and possibly most number group one wins. Easy now!

Good try but NO. No to Freda as well. Mind you Overtheriver a help.

No,No,no just meetings January of this year.

No. As stated this meeting could be the No1 if one took into consideration say stakemoney won overseas but one would need to check up on any ex Hong Kong horses. Nevertheless first time responders can have 3 meetings for an answer.

Wrong. Just to clarify. By stakemoney I mean the historical stakemoney won by the horses in New Zealand.

No. One could argue the fifth should be the top. Keep the answers coming.

wanted quick answer. Doing research is deemed cheating. QUESTION: Looking at NZTR calendar for January which were the top 5 meetings that garned the best horses. Clue.... the top four were the two days at Ellerslie and two days at Trentham so you only need the fifth. Criteria used is stake money as at 1 Feb 2021 and a general judgement of up and coming horses both in number and quality.

It all boils down to the backward step in going with the new platform. Previously the tote pools and odds were update every few seconds just prior to the race.. Seems the new system is incapable or else the managers are too scared to overload the system with too many updates. Today the TAB made an announcement all fixed odd win bets on Captain Tom would return bonus bets. Now thats a pretty vague statement. Is the original stake returned or the full winning amount. Next the TAB backtracks and now classifies a multi bet as not a fixed odds bet which is stupid. Also TAB in store bettors are not eligible. When queried the phoneup help person excuses the contradiction as thats what the "system" allows.

What an amazing run from the Sharrock stable but his strike rate this season is only 2nd. The first is Emma Davies. According to NZTR Sharrock has 49 horses and compared to say Tony Pike 190. Also I the majority of Sharrock horses appear cheapies. Interestingly he has only started once at Ellerslie this season. Anyone know the main reason for such a fantastic record this season?

Really looks like Waisake/The Good Fight quinella. However seldom seen such a weight drop from one year such as Dee And Gee 59kg to 53kg. Just can't get a decent draw.

OK time for a bit of nostalgia. Justin Evans take note: Style triumphs over screaming. Peter Kelly in all his commentaries never missed a beat. Fluency perfection. The first Wellington Cup I attended was as a 14 year old. Arrived oncourse with a yearling for stabling at the sales just before the race. This was Great Sensation winning its 3rd Wellington Cup but couldn't really find a spot to see the race. Anyway here is Peter Kelly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA6nfXJkAsc&t=35s

Couple of things. TAB marketing has to be separate from operations. In retailing you can't have the operators at the teller deciding who should have a free bottle of wine for being a good customer. In this case the intentions of TAB were naive in the extreme. You just can't have certain customers getting special odds excluding others. Thats what leads to corruption and as I've pointed out I just can't see how an auditor could pick out this sort of carry on. Secondly I feel BGP were being used by the "publican" down out the viaduct. Clearly his egotism means he's got to get back at racing for banning him for a year. BGP are not doing their members favours by devaluing their racing experience by hocking them off to the viaduct. Surely Auckland Racing Club would have had some pre and post racing functions there is plenty time for the viaduct but only one millions night. Sadly some TAB employees have bought into this ego tripping.

Clearly a pricing miscalculation by the bookies. Their error was not taking into account the million dollar stake money. In low grade racing where there are two $2 favourites the last thing a trainer wants is a gut buster going head to head. Thats why often one favourite is ridden up front whereas the other is ridden for luck coming with a late run. So the stats for those types of quinellas are skewed. In this case a quinella price of $1.70 probably right therefore fair to say BGP gifted $30,000 on top of the other perks.

USA have recently legalised online sports betting. Maybe the TAB thinks it can jump in on the action. Or perhaps there are Americans with funds lying in NZ Banks. I suspect the TAB is quite happy to turn a blind eye to American money laundering but being over zealous about New Zealander's activities give the impression they are in line with American regulators. Speaking of USA can someone tell me of what interest is some Russian politician over in Russia under arrest for 30 days yet Julian Assange imprisoned for the same offence for 30 months in England and nothing said. Nannia Mahuta is rapidly losing credibility.