Freda

Thanks - Riccarton and surrounding areas are soggy but safe. Rain is forecast to ease today and things should improve for those poor buggers close to rivers.

Considering the possibility of shifting the Friday Riccarton meeting to Ashburton....where will that leave the jumps races now?

You're not wrong there...but yes, I was really referring to provincial/country level involvement. Still need decent horses though.

Yep. Several years ago I estimated $30k to race a horse for a year. Costs have increased significantly since then, and relative returns, reduced. I was criticised, in some quarters, for not taking into account the times a horse may be out spelling. But, those same critics didn't consider the 'swings and roundabouts' of expense when extra, not budgeted-for, costs rear their head [ and neither did it occur to them that agistment still has to be paid for, which some, astoundingly, didn't think of ]. And my rough estimate didn't, of course, take into account significant travel costs - like Australia, for example. I have seen T.A accounts. Not cheap, but, with the enormous, and very successful, operation to fund, certainly not unreasonable for the level of service supplied. I should think $45k wouldn't be out of the way locally, and more if travelling is involved. And, why such a successful operation doesn't look at setting up in Australia, I don't know. They do have plenty of average horses, as well as the better ones...as does every stable. The rewards against costs, for those lesser horses still capable of winning races, are far in excess of what they can earn here. That doesn't make sense to me. The setting up of the Singapore option was, at the time, giving those horses below Grp status better earning chances. But, Australia is now so superior in every aspect, surely it is only a matter of time before a satellite operation is considered?

I think you'll find Pitty trained Just Tommy regardless. Anyway, the topic was about costs to travel horses, not to nitpick about specific horses. I can recall both Michael and Diane taking horses over, not every year, but over a fair period of time. Most recently, Savvy Coup. Sensei went over, that cranky Elusive City mare whose name escapes me; many years ago, they took a team including Noble Task, a stayer, to take advantage of the 2600 races in Melbourne in the off-season...Coup Align went more recently. So I think he has better information than most of us regarding travelling horses. And it's not easy to organise either . A few years ago, a friend of mine asked Jim Gibbs when he might take his classy sprinter over. I can't think of his name either, but he was by Volksraad. He replied that he would not consider compromising his horse's chances as a result of his own inexperience with Australian conditions. If the horse went, he said, he would place him with a local trainer, with all the infrastructure intact. Riders, feed merchants, health practitioners, all the paraphernalia involved in maintaining a stable already up and going. I'd go as a strapper for him, he added, if allowed!

I think we are all hoping that....not that it makes the accident any less awful, of course.

Good post Jess. I recently had an interesting conversation with a couple of former meth users, with whom I am quite well acquainted. So, with this topic in mind, I thought I would try and understand some of the ramification wrt humans. Obviously, equine metabolism/physiology is very different, so extrapolating responses of horses from human experience is probably not a lot of help. Certainly though, from their experience, absorbing through the skin seems very unlikely. Smoking, injecting, or ingesting, they said, some in prisons will eat it, as they have no 'equipment' to use to smoke/inhale. A good hit? high for five days to a week or more, so that being the case, it seems likely that a heavy user would certainly have traces in their system to be picked up in that time frame. Thorny topic wrt horses, the 'ethics' point you made, certainly pertinent, but it seems that some sort of trial to test contamination options would really be the only way to stop people being hung out to dry for nothing - or, in the other case, getting properly dealt with. As for therapeutic drugs - threshold levels seem fair to me, although not consistent with the need to present drug-free, necessary in most jurisdictions. But, lay people must understand that the sensitivity of modern testing really needs a different response. And, a slight digression - I was told by a stipe recently, that it was unacceptable to apply an animalintex to a horse post-race, under the current rules. I told him that the rules were effing ridiculous, and that it was an animal welfare matter. Didn't apply to me, the discussion was hypothetical, but I did say to him, in the context of the chat, that I would make a helluva fuss if I was prevented from caring for a horse injured after a race.

I stand to be corrected - sorry if I've jumped in here - but I think, in saying that owners need to be looked after better, Barryb isn't meaning flash facilities; rather, that owners need to be appreciated, respected, and not hammered in the pocket all the time.

The more recent song by Rod Stewart have any connection?

Agree wrt the strip down the back straight which appears ( at this stage ) to be just waste ground. Don't get how the spectators will be closer to the action when it is a way inside the turf track?

It wasn't great viewing watching her getting tapped up, lengths last. However, that's it, she can now have a nice rest and a new job.

Well, yes, kinda... but, even 'if 'we can provide a quality product, if that product offering is 'sold' too expensively, the consumer [ punter ] will still go elsewhere. As they have been for years now, pushed aside by practices which are contra to attracting business. Those punters won't return until - and if - they see cheaper, competitive pricing [ even if the product has improved ]. That is purely TAB business, not up to we grassroots folk, directly....but pivotal to improving the whole mess. The measures discussed above, all have merit, but even the release of money through cashing up assets [ great idea ] can't remain on the positive side of the ledger forever without income , meaning betting money going forward.

I think it is high time that the whole regime directing the drug testing system, and also other rules/directives that are either misplaced, not well understood, or are relics from a former time. is overhauled and brought into the 21st century. Along with Pitty's topic ' How do we fix NZ racing ', this [ IMO ] is one that deserves discussion on its own merits. The recent cases involving the dog Zipping Sarah, Sharrock's positives [ Big Red might be many things, but a drug cheat I would say not ], the P positives from Taranaki a couple of years ago, the morphine case - even the cobalt in the cattle trough b/s, which left a nasty taste behind. There is no doubt that Frank Stammers or Tracey Hickey wouldn't get away with that crap as a defence, so that in itself throws the cat among the pigeons wrt the integrity processes....and the lack of security and hygiene in public facilities is a real concern. Kenny Rae had to wear the P positive for old Absolut Excelencia, even though he was nowhere around, the carers of the horse and their associates were all tested negative, and anecdotally, none were users anyway. Those in the district that may have been, weren't tested as far as I am aware, but as methamphetamine leaves the system fairly quickly, pretty hard to be definitive there. The security where Kenny's horse was kept was and still is non-existent, anyone can walk in from the street, and does. Only recently, a couple with a pram and a dog were wandering through the complex, wanting to 'have a ride on a horse'. Luckily a trainer was in the general area and shoo-ed them away. Those areas responsible for public stabling should be accountable as much as the trainers. The possibility of transmission of disease is also viewed with complacency. The ability to adequately isolate horses in these places is simply not good enough. There needs to be [ IMO ] threshold levels introduced, whereby contamination can be considered as opposed to deliberate administration.

All of the above, more or less. I'll try and be even more succinct. Improve the funding arm ( TAB) Repair code management. If done, much of the rest discussed would follow.

It sure ain't therapeutic.

Hopefully they will manage ok. Both have wet track form, but have also performed on firm. One I pulled out that I felt could be vulnerable. For what it's worth, even a dry track at Timaru won't be jarringly hard like Riccarton can be. Had a wee wet tracker at Riverton a few years ago, it came up gd 2. If it hadn't been so far away ( and so expensive to travel ) I wouldn't have run him. So, he raced, I chewed my fingernails, and he won. So, with that behind us, I lined him up at Riccarton some weeks later on a dead 4, thinking he would manage ok. He didn't. He felt every step and didn't regain form until he got a genuine wet track.

Yep, agree totally. Nothing wrong with it by all appearances, the consistency ( if maintained ) will have a steady pool of horses taking full advantage of the conditions and the proposed regular racing. But it will be a shame if those genuine wet trackers are now not catered for, elsewhere. That may not be the case in the Waikato but will certainly be the case down here, with permits/racedays shifted to justify the AWT....and the likes of Timaru with its gd 2 track for today are rubbed out as a matter of policy. The provision of superior training facilities is a plus for those able to utilise them but that was not the reason for nicking 20 mill from the public purse. If turnovers, and ultimately revenue, is improved, then we might have a show of moving forward- if not squandered or mismanaged. But wagering statistics don't show any significant difference elsewhere.

The state of the visiting yards/stabling in many places is not up to scratch. Testing is now so sensitive that the sloppiness of yesteryear just isn't acceptable, and security is nonexistent as well.

Hmm. Slick indeed....and I imagine, very effective.

I wasn't aware we had a grass track championship series....unless you are referring to the annual Racing Awards, which isn't quite the same thing. I thought the surface looked pretty firm.

I know how soft it was to walk on...and how hard the racing surface was in comparison. Again, look at the brown dry looking grass when Horlicks raced in Japan. Not saying it was the same grass but certainly different from what is used currently here.

As Pitty said, browntop. It'll be fine. You may recall an earlier conversation, where I mentioned that I had walked the dogs over an 'unimproved' and unwatered portion of the track, and found that the cushion was significant, despite the burnt-off appearance. A lot more 'bounce' than on the watered and green portion. That is a thought that others have had, following discussions about other renovated tracks and the issues that many have; that, despite the 'expertise' of the turf specialists, the grass types are not necessarily the best to use.

His neuro-transmitters are well and truly damaged. What a shame, and what an awful, destructive drug.

Riverton is a super track. Pity it is so far away.

True that. however, looking back, it has been shown repeatedly that it is not just the ARC that is being subsidised, but the bigger clubs generally. It is a no brainer that some sort of funding has to be set aside for the staking of Grp races - esp. as races here in NZ don't return their stakemoney through betting revenue on racing. They need to drag in all sorts of additional income just to maintain a veneer of profitability. But the smaller clubs have been squeezed more and more, to the point where, when the volunteers become too old, too tired, or just too dispirited to keep doing what they have done for years, facilities become shabby and rundown; that combined with poor dates....gone. So, if 'the Hill' development falls behind what is envisaged - what is left to get squeezed? And will future committees of the ARC be as keen to devolve their profits into propping up the rest of the industry?