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Bit Of A Yarn

Give me a call yankiwi


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9 hours ago, Need to know said:

Before you start making assumptions on board members give me a call and have a chat and while you’re at it have a chat to Wayne.Dave Kingston 0274207989 I’m free tomorrow night.I take it you don’t know Fred or Steve either.

Thanks for the invitation, Dave.

To my knowledge, I don't believe we've ever crossed paths. The same would be true for Fred, Steve & Sean as well.

As for Wayne, who I have spent some time with and had many conversions with years ago, long before he gained his position on the board. I believe the last time I had any contact with him or any of his family was in 2015. Wayne & I seemed to get on pretty well and I believe he still may have a DVD or two I had loaned him back then. Don't worry about them Wayne, I had written them off many years ago.

As for Mike, the last time I had any conversations with him was in that same 2014/2015 era while he was a Steward. We had what I would consider a good working relationship.

As for Craig, the last time we had any correspondence was digitally, maybe 4 or 5 years ago, again well before he gained his position on the board. Oddly enough, we shared many of the same concerns & gripes back then.

So, I don't have any inside knowledge of the workings within your board room. That leaves me with only speculation to base my opinion on. With that, that's exactly what I've done to shake up the comfy nest of that board room. There are still serious problems with the running of the industry as I'm sure you're well aware.

I don't have the need to call anyone. I have nothing to hide by having what could become a "he said, she said" situation. I'm more than happy to have an open adult conversation right here on BOAY for everyone to see and become better informed by.

 

I'll start now with a few questions.

  1. What has happened to the petition many South Island trainers have signed do away with the preferential box draw system?
  2. Why did the GRNZ board state that after a successful trial of Wanganui's plastic safety rail in 2014, it would then be rolled out over the following year to all the other NZ racetracks, only to let the penny drop and never install one at another track?
  3. Why does it seem that decision about what direction greyhound racing takes is being dictated from headquarters and not from the GRNZ board?
  4. Why doesn't GRNZ release their injury data on an individual track basis, where it's easy to identify which are the most problematic tracks?

If you could please answer these few questions, it would be appreciated by myself and likely the wider key stakeholder community.

Feel free to ask any questions you may have for me here.

Apologies for any typos and/or missing words in my lengthy reply. I'm only allowed a brief time to correct any errors due to the tight time restraints of the forum.

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2 hours ago, Chief Stipe said:

Better than relying on your selective memory.

Time for you to back off Chief & let the grown-ups have a serious discussion which could change the future of the greyhound racing industry in a positive direction.

 

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4 hours ago, Yankiwi said:

Time for you to back off Chief & let the grown-ups have a serious discussion which could change the future of the greyhound racing industry in a positive direction.

 

Well I hope these "grown ups" don't rely on your statistics to make any decisions.  That would be the final nail.

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On 19/02/2024 at 10:31 AM, Yankiwi said:

I don't have the need to call anyone. I have nothing to hide by having what could become a "he said, she said" situation. I'm more than happy to have an open adult conversation right here on BOAY for everyone to see and become better informed by.

I had made a counteroffer which it seems Mr. Kingston has not agreed with thus far.

I have not or will not ring him.

What information could he possibly have he'd share with me that other key stakeholders and industry participants should be kept secret from?

 

39 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

@Yankiwi how did the "grown up" conversation go?  Or did you chicken out?

So instead of standing up for a regular participant on your forum, trying to get information out there for everyone have access to, you instead have chosen to have a dig at me.

Well done.

You really are a piece of work.

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10 minutes ago, Yankiwi said:

have not or will not ring him.

What information could he possibly have he'd share with me that other key stakeholders and industry participants should be kept secret from?

Then you are all hat and no cattle.  You got the opportunity you wanted and have turned it down.  Obviously you have an agenda that isn't what you proclaim it to be.

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It's not an opportunity I wanted.

If I had wanted an opportunity to speak with a board member, I would have rung Wayne as he suggested I do.

So, I didn't do what you thought I should do & that makes the decision I've made for myself wrong.

Got it.

His number is up there, you ring him if you want to.

Maybe the two of you can have a good ole bitch session about me!

 

Maybe now you'll go after him for not answering the 4 simple question I had asked of him on BOAY and find out who the coward is.

On 19/02/2024 at 10:31 AM, Yankiwi said:

I'll start now with a few questions.

  1. What has happened to the petition many South Island trainers have signed do away with the preferential box draw system?
  2. Why did the GRNZ board state that after a successful trial of Wanganui's plastic safety rail in 2014, it would then be rolled out over the following year to all the other NZ racetracks, only to let the penny drop and never install one at another track?
  3. Why does it seem that decision about what direction greyhound racing takes is being dictated from headquarters and not from the GRNZ board?
  4. Why doesn't GRNZ release their injury data on an individual track basis, where it's easy to identify which are the most problematic tracks?

 

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50 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

FFS in more than one of your posts that's what YOU wanted to do.  Gone all soft cock?

I'm more than willing to have an adult conversation in this BOAY thread. If that doesn't work for Mr. Kingston, then so be it.

He managed to reach out to me in on this forum, so he has a membership account and has the ability to reply to me in this thread if he chooses too.

Balls in his court.

Besides Chief, if we did have a phone conversation & I went on to post anything about it on BOAY, you'd just discredit it, call me stupid names & move the goal post, like you always do.

You want to talk to him, ring him.

If he wants to have a discussion with me, have it on here.

It's not difficult.

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30 minutes ago, Yankiwi said:

I'm more than willing to have an adult conversation in this BOAY thread. If that doesn't work for Mr. Kingston, then so be it.

He managed to reach out to me in on this forum, so he has a membership account and has the ability to reply to me in this thread if he chooses too.

Balls in his court.

Besides Chief, if we did have a phone conversation & I went on to post anything about it on BOAY, you'd just discredit it, call me stupid names & move the goal post, like you always do.

You want to talk to him, ring him.

If he wants to have a discussion with me, have it on here.

It's not difficult.

NO it is in your court.  But you don't have the Kahunas to contact him.  

You're the one making it difficult.

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On 19/02/2024 at 7:45 AM, Chief Stipe said:

Suggest you record the conversation ( @Yankiwi will)  , use speaker phone and set aside 3 hours.

 

4 hours ago, Chief Stipe said:

@Yankiwi how did the "grown up" conversation go?  Or did you chicken out?

 

3 hours ago, Chief Stipe said:

Then you are all hat and no cattle.

 

2 hours ago, Chief Stipe said:

Gone all soft cock?

 

Does this still stand true Chief?

Doesn't appear so.

 

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On 2/18/2024 at 6:49 PM, Yankiwi said:

Results are in.

My estimates assumed that 74 dogs would start as the original fields were posted. Two of those were early scratched, with no replacements taking their place. Two further were late scratched so they didn't go around either. That left 70 to start during the race meeting.

Even with four less dogs going around, I only overestimated injuries by one minor/med.

Two minor & two major were incurred.

Red = Bad.

image.png.05f628f790edd70981f83900ede387fb.png

 

3rd quarter current standings.

image.png.bf80ea5fc6b866ec5b03ba675aa385e5.png

 

Season to date standings.

image.png.3f9d594998d0712f77e7501058c93801.png

 

Well GRNZ, it's well past time to do something. Ignoring it is the old way of running the industry. Do something to minimize or alleviate the risks.

Doing something is better than doing nothing, right?

Do I have to spend another week embarrassing you to finally take notice?

Do I need to gain trainers support to simply stop nominating for Manukau?  There's at least 10 years of data I can compile to clearly show trainers why they shouldn't be racing there.

Do I need to get trainers to ring you and say that if you don't transfer racing operation in the north to Cambridge, they won't nominate their dogs for Sundays?

I haven't looked at the forward racing schedule, but PLEASE tell me this isn't one of the months the Waikato racing club is run on a Thursday at Manukau.

 

J Udy & D Cottam, M & J Smith, Tracey & Lisa Craik, P M Heterick, R & L Udy, R K Roper, R & N O'Regan, N P Green, J P Foot, A J Christiansen, G Farrell, D R Laing, and L D Martin. You all know what's going on in Manukau. I know most of you personally & I also know that most if not all of you care deeply about your dogs & their welfare. Why are you NOMINATING for Manukau? You have the power. Why not ring GRNZ and tell them enough is enough. This has to stop. Change all Manukau meets to Cambridge until the time they sort out this death trap out or build a new track if they are worried about the venue & it's future.

 

As for today, I did notice a key surname in the north with NO dog racing today. Can you spot it?

image.png.5fbf0697cfe8502f5d7b578a2ec0e3ab.png

Is it possible that the Wayne has made a stand & stopped nominating. Is he lacking the numbers on the board to accomplish anything? I've highlighted the people I expect would be fighting at board level for welfare & want this to get this sorted out.

Absent from that list is Emerging Director Corey Steele, who I know deeply cares for his dogs too.

What about these surnames? Why didn't they have dogs going around Manukau today? There were only 70 starters in a race meet that should have at least had 96.

  • W & T Steele
  • C Steele
  • Walsh
  • Pruden & Whittaker
  • Lozell
  • Potts
  • Codlin
  • Lawrence
  • Ferguson
  • Mullane
  • Elder

Trainers that raced today, you have the power to get this sorted once & for all. Ring GRNZ and demand they fix Manukau, nothing less. This will help Wanye gain the power he needs to get the dead weight on the board over themselves.

In regard to your questions 1 The petition I saw on the Chch kennel block wall .I don’t know who organised it or what happened to it .To my knowledge it has not been presented to the board .2 What was decided in 2014 I am not aware of this as I have not seen any thing regarding this issue .3The board is having a strategic meeting in march,I am very keen on progressing this and had a discussion with Wayne the other day.I firmly believe that we should have a Ten yr plan in place at the very least.3 Injury data is available,But I can’t see any point in highlighting it .Perhaps a ph call to Michael  Dore .In regard to not getting in contact with you yesterday,I had a meeting in the morning and races last night and have been busy all day.Regarding injuries,everyone is very concerned about this and every effort is being made by the team to get to the bottom of the problem.I as I think all board members are very approachable and are working extremely hard under very trying times.Rest assured that we do have both yours and the dogs interests at heart Dave

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Firstly, thank you for the reply.

56 minutes ago, Need to know said:

In regard to your questions 1 The petition I saw on the Chch kennel block wall .I don’t know who organised it or what happened to it .To my knowledge it has not been presented to the board

I do not know where the petition had ended up, that's why I asked. Personally, I'm in two minds about the PBD. Positive = somewhat less interference entering the first corner. Possible negative = With less interference going into the first turn it could mean greater speed, which means more pressure being applied to the track, which could mean more broken leg bones.

 

56 minutes ago, Need to know said:

2 What was decided in 2014 I am not aware of this as I have not seen any thing regarding this issue

Fair enough. Follow up question - Why hasn't the safety rail been installed at Manukau by Jan 2023 as stated in GRNZ's October 2023 quarterly report? 

https://www.grnz.co.nz/Files/Quarterly Reports/GRNZ October 2023 Quarterly Report - FINAL.pdf

 

56 minutes ago, Need to know said:

3 Injury data is available,But I can’t see any point in highlighting it .

Injury data is not made available on an individual track basis. It is only made available as on combined total of all 6 NZ tracks. Is it not the goal of making each individual NZ track to run within the KPI targets GRNZ has set?

 

56 minutes ago, Need to know said:

Perhaps a ph call to Michael  Dore

As for speaking with Mr, Dore, I have only had contact with him about an operational subject years ago, which did not go well. See this thread below more info.

https://bitofayarn.com/topic/110789-attention-grnz-racing-operations-manager/

 

One further question for you.

It's obvious that Manukau is by far returning the most serious injuries per start this racing season, being even further compounded in the current 3rd quarter. It also has had a bad track record (so to say) over the last several years during this time of year. Wouldn't it be prudent & in greyhound welfare's best interest to transfer any & all northern race meets to Cambridge, where major injury percentages are running the lowest of any NZ tracks this racing season?

 

image.png.7cbab90b45c4fb50498ba9f03025d6d5.png

 

The data above has been compiled by me from information within Stewards reports. I'm aware it isn't 100% accurate as I don't track the injury data back thru time. Example - If a dog received a 60-day stand-down on race day, then it was later reduced to a 28-day stand-down, my data has not been updated for the deviation in those type of occurrences.

Again, if you have any questions for me, fire away, I'm an open book that's not afraid to spit out the brutal truth.

Edited by Yankiwi
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As a follow up to my above post & final question, this is a comparison of the 23/24 racing season 1st quarter data.

In the top section, the top row is the data I had collected & correlated.

The middle row is the fixed GRNZ's stated KPI injury target percentages.

The bottom row is a correlation of the data GRNZ made publicly available via the Oct 2023 quarterly report for the minister of racing. 

image.png.af210566690e7df58ff160874a58d743.png

 

As you can see in the bottom (GRNZ) line, I've simply entered the data provided by GRNZ.

image.png.211cf3ff8343be390035a719cb45a1dd.png

image.png.20992d208f822e6caa7faa9712d0898d.png

Conclusions of that comparison

My data returned 3 more overall injuries than GRNZ had reported.

The differences of those injuries

  • My data returned 1 more (1 to 10-day) injuries.
  • My data returned 1 more (11 to 21-day) injuries.
  • My data returned 1 less (22 to 42 day) injuries.
  • My data returned 2 more (43 to 90 day) injuries.

Out of interest, I did back-track on the two more major (II) injuries I had recorded and found that they were both major (II) injuries recorded on the race day that were later downgraded to major (I) injuries after further vet examination in the days following. That's as far as I researched to determine the inconsistencies.

That is why I claim & know that it's not 100% accurate. The overall differences between both sets of data does not change the injury percentages enough to skew the data in a meaningful way. Both sets of data show GRNZ achieved the KPI target for the first quarter.

When I look to second quarter & the ongoing third quarter data, things start to look very ugly & it's getting worse with time. My data has been provided on this forum. My second quarter results have been posted on BOAY many times, so I won't bother to do it again here.

I feel it is best for industry participants (Trainers/Owners) to have this information in a timely manner so they can make informed decision on where to go & what to do with their dogs. The GRNZ second quarter data, which still is still yet to be released for some reason, is very important information for trainers/owners to be using now to be better informed. This is one of the main reasons why I'm a firm proponent for individual track injury data, even if GRNZ were to be three months behind in their reporting of it.

If back in 2014, if I knew that my dogs were nearly three times as likely to have a major injury when raced at Manukau than they would if it were raced at Cambridge, my dogs wouldn't have been in Auckland. But in 2014, I didn't know. I didn't have an accessible way to know. Now 10 years later, I still wouldn't know, if I hadn't spent numerous hours collecting & comparing the data myself, because GRNZ has never released data on an individual track basis.

To sum up my data, I decided to retrieve & compile it myself, then share it on this forum, even though I'm continually bombarded & discredited by the forum owner for doing so.

He seems to question my motive.

Above is a summary of my motive.

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On 19/02/2024 at 10:31 AM, Yankiwi said:

Why did the GRNZ board state that after a successful trial of Wanganui's plastic safety rail in 2014, it would then be rolled out over the following year to all the other NZ racetracks, only to let the penny drop and never install one at another track?

 

15 hours ago, Need to know said:

2 What was decided in 2014 I am not aware of this as I have not seen any thing regarding this issue

I've done a bit of digging thru some of my channels about this Dave.

Here's what came back.

Back in 2014, GRNZ, led by Keith Coppins (then a GRNZ headquarters employee who in now employed by the RIB) they purchased & received delivery of the safety rail which was installed at Wanganui. At the same time, GRNZ also purchased & took delivery of all the materials required to install similar safety rails at the other six racing venues (Forbury has gone since).

When the GRNZ board approached the Christchurch & Auckland and other clubs about installing their safety rails, they met fierce resistance from those clubs. I'm told it became a very heated affair. The clubs didn't want them because it made it much more difficult to see the dogs on the track.

  • One of sources said that eventually the GRNZ board backed down, let things settle a bit, then returned the unused materials back to the vendor in Australia, for far less than the purchase price.
  • A second source confirmed with the only difference being that the materials may never have been returned to Australia and could be sitting around in NZ somewhere, but instead of returning the physical materials to the vendor, they may have simply let GRNZ keep the materials and offered some form partial refund to GRNZ.

Either way, I believe it would be worth a bit of digging on your end to find out.

If you chose to verify this information, which I strongly suggest you do, then feel free to get in contact with Mr. Coppins. I would think he'd be happy to fill you in further and/or correct any errors I may have made in this post.

I'm more than happy to help when & where I can, as long as it is in public view.

Now, I know the forum owner will be all over me about this statement. Oh well, I have broad shoulders & I'm used to it anyways. The abuse I receive will be worth it, if the information I provide helps towards the safety of the dogs & the longevity of the greyhound racing industry. I can't "prove it" as he'll soon bark, but if you do some research and can confirm some or all of it, acknowledgement from you of something like "hey, he was right" in this thread coming from you would be advantageous to me, when in the eyes of my main critic.

Edited by Yankiwi
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On 18/02/2024 at 11:11 PM, Need to know said:

Before you start making assumptions on board members give me a call and have a chat and while you’re at it have a chat to Wayne.Dave Kingston 0274207989 I’m free tomorrow night.I take it you don’t know Fred or Steve either.

You guys in the board finally sorted out a list of owned assets yet?

Edited by BitofaLegend
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