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Bit Of A Yarn

Matamata Trials - 14 January 2025. 260 nice horses on trial including a few Railway Contenders and the $2m 2yr old Filly!


Chief Stipe

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https://loveracing.nz/RaceInfo/53934/Meeting-Overview.aspx

30 Heats kicking off at 10:30 and not finished until after 4pm.  260 horses in total!!!

2 yr old progeny of:  Zonza, Rondinella, Guiseppina and the $2m dollar Avantage filly (Avantaggia).

 

El Vencedor

Alabama Lass

Captured By Love

Age of Discovery

Master Fay

Move to Strike

Babylon Berlin

Damask Rose

 

 

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16 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

https://loveracing.nz/RaceInfo/53934/Meeting-Overview.aspx

30 Heats kicking off at 10:30 and not finished until after 4pm.  260 horses in total!!!

2 yr old progeny of:  Zonza, Rondinella, Guiseppina and the $2m dollar Avantage filly (Avantaggia).

 

El Vencedor

Alabama Lass

Captured By Love

Age of Discovery

Master Fay

Move to Strike

Babylon Berlin

Damask Rose

So will the general public know of this meeting??  I doubt it. This meeting could have been a major holiday season event. Just shows the lack of any foresight by those running racing. With a "race" every 10-15 minutes the public would be kept entertained,. Maybe a couple tote races (mobile phone only betting) could have been thrown in just for publicity sake.

At this time of year horses are a valuable commodity. Many families turning up at races aren't interested in betting. With so many horses, so many owners plus all the holiday extras there would be plenty of interest even for the not so horse minded.

Another one of racing's own goals. 

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10 hours ago, curious said:

Not quite the esteemed fields of Matamata but Foxton also getting ready for trials today.

 

Foxton this time of year more so a summer destination. If I suspect this is an "industry day" then another opportunity gone begging. Also clubs can earn income by brokering syndicate shares giving prospective owners incentive to attend.

Full marks to Wandering eyes for using a bit of technology with the pics from Matamata.

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4 hours ago, The Centaur said:

Full marks to Wandering eyes for using a bit of technology with the pics from Matamata.

My apologies for not getting more photos or even video.  Not enough devices, hands or help!

It would have been easy to video live stream using YouTube on the BOAY account.  But I thought that perhaps the Trackside Team might have been floating around doing all that!  Leith Innes and Brendon Popplewell were there briefly.

It was a very relaxed environment and I spoke to a few trainers.  It would have been very very easy to interview Lance O'Sullivan, Roger James, the Team from Te Akau.  Was introduced to Blake Shinn who was very professional and went out of his way to talk to people.

Great interplay been the Jockey's especially the girls - overall really relaxed.  It wasn't hard to hear the Jockey reports to Trainers and Owners after each race.  Always a surprise to me how few words Trainers and Jockeys use to convey a lot.

Some very very nice horses on display.

Return To Conquor looks very special.  Probably the smallest head I've seen on a horse - not an overly big horse but built for speed.

The food was good and inexpensive as were the drinks - only water and soft drinks!

Probably walked off the course richer than any course I've been on........no Tote operating!

The track was one of the best I've seen for a while even with rail out 15 meters.

Met a very young lad who gets up at 3:30am every morning and is picked up by a Trainer just before 4am to work in one of the barns oncourse during the school holidays.  LOL he knew every horse trained on the course and even some of the stable names!  Actually there were a few families on course today relaxing.

To be honest today at Matamata was quite refreshing and invigorating.

If you watch 30 trials you can certainly guage what horses out of 260 are going to make it and those that are not.

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Disappointing that NZTR can't provide better quality video.  The times are pointless too without sectionals.

I'm surprised they haven't tried to teach Alabama Lass to trail.  From now on in her career it gets harder to lead all the way at the elite level.

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53 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

Disappointing that NZTR can't provide better quality video.

I made an interesting discovery yesterday. This was the stewards vision which is also awful quality for me, almost unwatchable. I downloaded it a replayed it and it was miles better. Is that maybe something to do with my browser CS? Though race replays themselves are fine.

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2 hours ago, curious said:

I made an interesting discovery yesterday. This was the stewards vision which is also awful quality for me, almost unwatchable. I downloaded it a replayed it and it was miles better. Is that maybe something to do with my browser CS? Though race replays themselves are fine.

More likely your bandwidth rather than the browser.  I've  noticed that the performance improves or degrades relative to the quality of the internet connection.

Some browsers will compensate to avoid buffering.  The other fly in the ointment is the CDN Cloudflare - it also compensates which can end up with a scrap going on.

When you download the video you obviously avoid any network speed issues and the buffering scrap.  Shame the networks don't actually deliver the bandwidth they promise without trying to fudge it.

Spark is the worst.

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1 hour ago, curious said:

Why would it work fine on race videos and other streaming apps though? Download speed tests run at about 150-200 mb/s here during business hours, faster at night.

Race videos are loaded straight to NZTR's (or Trackside?) servers.  Trial videos and Stewards Vision is loaded to a YouTube channel.  Perhaps they have only paid for the low speed channel.  Yes it costs more to load HD vision on YouTube.  

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59 minutes ago, Wandering Eyes said:

Race videos are loaded straight to NZTR's (or Trackside?) servers.  Trial videos and Stewards Vision is loaded to a YouTube channel.  Perhaps they have only paid for the low speed channel.  Yes it costs more to load HD vision on YouTube.  

Wandering E I don't know what your occupation is but should you be keen on doing something like you have done with Matamata trials with all race & trial meetings I believe there is a commercial opportunity or formula. Perhaps if interested you could PM me.

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