Freda

Ha. Not a chance.

The dog raced at Invercargill and Dunedin. He's a big dog, lord knows how he managed to scramble around tight corners, he looked like an eggbeater, but he managed to win three in an awful lot of starts! Running along the beach in a straight line, he is a different animal, much more fluent. He can't be bothered now though, he splashes half-heartedly for a few minutes then ambles along beside me.

Completely off topic, sorry - but my re-homed greyhound has a knotted muscle in exactly that area, and is lame when he gets off the couch [ which isn't often ]. I did wonder what he might have done, seems like that is what it was.

Yeah. I had two flatmates who were on jobseeker benefits, amd one on a sickness benefit. The sickness beneficiary went back on meth and is in goal - again. Now the other two are both on 'medically assisted' benefits. You couldn't make this shit up. No wonder unemployment is down.

I can't make it play properly....the bits I heard were plain unadulterated lies.

I wonder how the average Yank feels with the option of either Biden or Trump?

..unless you are unlucky enough to be a Uighur.

Shit. At that price I'll get over any desire to read any part of it.

I'll try and get hold of it. Meanwhile, have a gander at ' Party of One ' by Chun Han Wong. Very interesting indeed.

I think I can guarantee that Special Agent would be impervious to ' brainwashing ' in any flavour.

Great fun, good work by Kirsty Lawrence to get the concept organized and running. Supported by NZTR with enthusiasm too, I believe. The supporters, Mums, Dads, siblings, all had such a good time, many of them had never been to the races and they watched [ loudly !! ] from the stands, some of them will be converts for sure. As the kids - some of those ponies were not, exactly, easy to manage! next generation of apprentices right there.

Five years of guaranteed stake money; get in now, try not to get depressed with management in the interim. Whatever happens after that, the industry, whether the better for the intervention, or worse because of inept direction, will bear little resemblance to the one most of us grew up to work or participate in, in some respect - and love.

Won't happen.

What a waste.

Some clubs may do. Don't forget stakes are bulk-funded, clubs don't have to find the money themselves. However the income 'earned' per medium of race turnover doesn't cover the stake money. Any surplus comes from non-NZ racing sources, and now - Entain.

For what it's worth - my two cents of opinion. Firstly, no NZ race day ' pays for itself ' or 'covers its costs', however one wishes to phrase it. To that end, the AWT's will be in the same boat - except that it wasn't industry money, for the most past, that set them up. Yes, they provide somewhere consistent for work, that has to be a positive. However, not all horses like - or can cope - with the surface. Some cannot even manage being worked on the surface, and, here, locally, a magnificent training facility has been very harshly modified with the construction of the AWT. Now, training options are very severely reduced. The policy seems to be to close down quite functional grass tracks to 'justify' the things, those horses are badly served indeed. The closing down of tracks, in itself, increases the pressure on the remaining ones so of course you are going to see those reluctant to run trials, they don't want their grass hammered. Cambridge has excellent facilities quite apart from the AWT, and there are still plenty of grass tracks left in the Waikato. The CD seems to have been poorly served in that respect, with closures, and years of under-investment in upkeep coming back to bite many - and those clubs, in the main, can't be held totally responsible for that under-investment. Policies designed to deprive them of their turnover share [ and I'm going back decades here ] in favour of the bigger clubs has left many struggling - and then the finger is pointed at them. Here, in Canterbury, the closure of one excellent facility in particular has deprived locals of a very good trials track. The AWT does take up some slack in that area but, as the Chief alluded, the large entries at the remaining grass trial facility shows clearly what the preferred option is for most. As for Cambridge - with the huge number of horses in training in the Waikato, to have to abandon a trials day through insufficient entries shows very strongly the opinion of most trainers there too.

17...!! Seems like yesterday.

Glad to help!

I may not be completely normal....but I was there each day and didn't see any fashion competition. Didn't notice many people either but it was cold (Reefton's favourite wind in evidence) and a lot may have been tucked away inside the corporate boxes.

Have a chat to Reefton about said Stipe.

Explain to me how that would save money? I'm not disagreeing with you, but I can't see how moving offices to Ellerslie from the Waikato is a great cost saver? Esp. given that there has just been - or will be very soon - a move from Petone to Hamilton or Cambridge or wherever.

Agendas.

I read that learned ecclesiastical folk in the middle ages used to argue how many angels could fit on the head of a pin. H.R would be in his element.

Very interesting, M.M. Although not up with the economic situation in Vic, the stakemoney drop has been made public. I did wonder myself why Vic and not NSW for the stable.

Ah, C, to use 'other options' would require an admission that the agendas have been awry. Could that happen?