CustardSquare

Last meeting, 12th January, a number of jockeys expressed their concerns over how rough the track was after the trials beforehand. Last time Matamata was called off due to slipping was on December 8th, yet no results on LoveRacing site? One race was run - was it void?

So long as the money from the sale of clubs/land is going "back into the industry" then clubs can sell... Asked the same regarding Ellerslie Hill, thought it would have to go to NZTR as you say "all tracks are "owned" by the industry"...

I was fortunate enough to go through the Vic Riding Academy. The school was second to none, we had fantastic mentors inc. Rob Gaylard helping with interviewing and speeches, Alf Mathews with form analysis and he took us out walking the tracks etc etc. The mechanical horses were hooked up to VR and they could make them "hang" with a push of the button, slow down or speed up in the middle of a race. We went through race analysis thoroughly, not just our winning rides, also looked at a lot of senior rides the good and bad. We learn't about the technical side of things - how to read form, weather, winds affecting the race patterns, rail positions, how many lengths in a second, tempo of races - staying and sprinting. We had a sports psychiatrist come in whom we could chat to one on one, because race riding is as much mental fitness as it is physical. I bought back ideas to the apprentice school here, including having to trial in raceday gear before riding raceday, giving you one less thing to worry about - they wanted none of it, said Australia was just "Too fussy" and "We don't do that here in NZ" Unfortunately, I only wanted to help improve our young riders.