Horace

Melody Belle carried 2kg less than the first 4 home, was beaten 8.1 lengths, and looked like a horse who has had enough.She's certainly been a champ..in NZ..but doesn't come close to Sunline who was a real champion, and won 2 Cox Plates. Jamie Richards said something before the race yesterday, about having a crack at a Group 1 in australia? On that run, forget it.

Maybe some of ' us ' need to take off our rose ( tangerine ) coloured glasses and be objective?

Yes I did watch it. You must have been watching a different race. She was battling before that happened. opie made a show of it but come on, she was beaten before the straight.

Yep and then read the report from te rapa? What about Melody Belle, stinking hot ( $1.30) favourite, craps out with a very lack lustre run. Maybe she's had enough and is looking for the stallion.however if that took place in Oz they'd have the trainer in the room, questions asked about how the horse was training, any medication or injuries leading up to the race etc etc..what do we get from oathum? bugger all apart from obvious replies from Opie..jeeze the stipes here in nz are nillers.

Show me where I said anything like that chief. Or Thomas for that matter. In fact my 'interim' solution in New Zealand racing is this: 5 strikes maximum throughout the race, no consecutive strikes. This should be instituted right now, and lets see how it would affect the quality/safety of racing. I'm picking we wouldn't see any difference at all. And that would lead to the ban on all strikes in my opinion. Racing would carry on regardless. Having ridden myself I'd accept that riders could carry whips but their only use would be for safety issues. Any use outside these boundaries should lead to a protest and disqualification of a horse which is placed..in fact that should be instituted right now also.

A couple of questions about whip use in races.especially in the last few hundred meters of a race.. If, as whip proponents say, horses don't feel the pain when struck with a whip.why hit them at all? Is smashing a horse with a whip near the finish a sign of frustration or panic on behalf of riders who don't know better or who are so unskilled that they have to resort to the whip? Or riders who have been put under extreme pressure to 'win' or else? Don't anybody try to say that aint happening right here in NZ right now. Top riders World wide don't whip horses. They may carry a whip, and they strike the horse with the whip to get the horses' attention, i.e.' hey mate, this is a race, time for your best effort!.,.but they do not flail with the whip. This is 2021. I've been around long enough to have seen the ' belters' here and across the ditch. Thankfully those types are disappearing like the dinosaurs. Do punters watching racing on tv and screaming..' hit the fucking thing' really have any idea about 'the horse'? Or do they care? And yes, I live with horses 24x7 and I have observed and cared for them for many years. They are not dumb creatures, they do feel pain. they do anticipate pain and human behaviour. They are individuals, so even the ones who are 'slow' or who don't meet human expectations are still beautiful animals. They deserve a hell of a lot better then many people are prepared to give. Belting them with whips is-or is going to be-a thing of the past in the near future. Can't come soon enough.

You need to re-visit the j.c.a. report. " permission was sought by the trainer of the horse for Mr Bosson to take the ride with approval being given by the Stewards'. So whatever Richards told the Stewards pursuaded them to let Opie ride the horse. When Opie turned up at the racetrack the first thing the Stewards should have done was check his weight and determine if he was going to be able to ride the horse at its carded weight as they had been told he would. Clearly he wasn't going to be able to do that, and the Stewards then should have stood him down as they must have been misled by Richards. As above, McNab was available, is a TeAkau rider,and could ride at the correct weight. He did not have a ride in the applicable race. Go figure.

So he weighed out over the 57.5 kg which the r.i.u. stipulated he couldn't accept rides for unless given special dispensation to do so ( in this case falsely because Richards must have told the r.i.u he WOULD ride at 57.5).right there if the r.i.u. on duty ( one of whom was Matt Williamson who used to ride with Opie!) had regard for the rules they would have stood Opie down.Michael McNab, who rides for Te akau, was at the meeting. In fact McNab rode Vernanme to win carrying 55.5 so clearly could have ridden this horse at the correct weight. This is not about Opie. Surely its clear what is going on here.

This whole episode just gets smellier and smellier. According to the j.c.a. report, the trainer of the horse ( J Richards ) contacted the r.i.u. and requested that Opie be allowed to ride the horse. The r.i.u. had earlier made a ruling that he couldn't accept rides at 57.5 without permission. So did Richards give the r.i.,u an assurance that Opie would ride at 57.5? If so, clearly it was bullshit. Secondly, according to the j.c.a. report, Opie told them ( j.c.a. ) that he tried to get off the horse twice, including on the morning of the race, and was told by a 'connection' of the horse to 'get down there and do the best you can'!! What? Guess who that would have been! If the r.i.u. aren't makiing an investigation into what looks like a conspiracy to cheat then it just confirms what certain people who post on here have been saying.

There are a couple of issues here that should/MUST be clarified by the r.i.u. 1. How did Opie manage to weigh out at 56.5 kg? Was any gear omitted at weigh out and not detected by weighing clerk? Very suspicious imho. 2. What did Opie eat/drink etc after weighing out to be 800g overweight? Apparently the horse carried its allotted weight so that makes the 800g a 'true' overweight. 3. Its very clear that Opie intentionally breached the Rules. He must have known that he would be well over when he weighed in after the race. Was he properly investigated on race-day about this? Or did the r.i.u. pull their usual trick and say, ' oh well its just Opie'.? The j.c.a. report on this could be interesting. 4. The 7 day deferrment. 7 days after this particular race would still allow him to ride Melody Belle at Te Rapa this Saturday. Do you think he was aware of this? Of course he was. So even if the j.c.a. had suspended him for this latest breach-one of many-he would still be able to ride MB at Te Rapa. A deliberate and cynical breach of the Rule. In my book...its called cheating. Opie is the one of the very best jocks EVER in NZ. But he's come to the end of it due to his body calling it quits after too much wasting etc. Look to a serious retirement announcement after Melody Belle wins on Saturday.