Otaki 22 February 2025 - Abandoned after race 1.

[Chief Stipe]

27 minutes ago, Special Agent said:

Trainers shouldn't be forced out of their area to get a run, nor should they have to run on tracks they don't want to.  It depends upon how many starts you give each horse in a campaign too.

Are you serious?  What do you determine as the area that a Trainer should be forced to run in?

[Chief Stipe]

30 minutes ago, Special Agent said:

Like beating the old familiar drum, a lot of this could be solved by decent programming.

So 7 meetings in 4 months is too much for Otaki?

[Chief Stipe]

20 minutes ago, Special Agent said:

Kumara, Cromwell and Tauherenikau have good days with good turnovers.  A club could be financially viable with just 1, 2 or 3 days with the right circumstances

They may have good turnovers but obviously the track manager will have to be a volunteer or part time at best and would need to borrow the tools for the job from some local farmers.  Well THAT approach has proven to fail hasn't it!

[Chief Stipe]

23 minutes ago, Special Agent said:

The number of meetings is the same, dependent on what days you are allocated.  Three meetings close together, or in the winter might not work but if your track is picking up the slack from the abandoned meetings it is definitely going to suffer.

Rubbish.  How many meetings have been abandoned?  How many of those meetings have had the full number of races transferred to another location?

How many meetings to Otaki pick up that weren't planned that caused them to fail?

 

[Assange]

5 hours ago, Special Agent said:

There's an example of any amount of walking the track, jumpouts and trials being quite different to race day.  The track had the clean bill of health from all concerned before a disastrous return to racing.

Do the stipes walk the track?

[Chief Stipe]

9 minutes ago, Assange said:

Do the stipes walk the track?

Only to look for slip marks AFTER a horse has slipped.

[Special Agent]

35 minutes ago, Assange said:

Do the stipes walk the track?

Wouldn't know about every track but, have been early enough to some lower north island meetings to see Stipes on the track.  I couldn't guarantee they walk right around because I haven't watched them for long enough.

[curious]

3 hours ago, Special Agent said:

I don't think you can cut corners

You definitely can't if they've moved the rail out in the way.

[Special Agent]

49 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

Are you serious?  What do you determine as the area that a Trainer should be forced to run in?

Well who wants to clock up $500+ on a float from Cambridge to Otaki for example.  FFS, northern horses travel south for trials because they are eliminated from grass track trials.

[Special Agent]

Chief, methinks you are just picking to argue now.  Many tracks and clubs have picked up extra meetings in Central to accommodate abandoned meetings and tracks closed for remedial work.

[Wingman]

Time out. You two, Chief Stipe and Special Agent are carrying on like Maxwell Smart and his boss. You two can decide who is who and odds on neither of you two will agree. 

Fact 1  The tracks are not up to handling regular racing

Fact 2  The people currently in charge are incapable of dealing with the problem

Fact 3  The problem is not going to sort itself out. Raging about what should have been done does not solve

Fact 4  Tinkering with minor adjustments to the calendar and where races are held does not cure the problem.

Fact 5 The Industry requires a major adjustment to the calendar, where races are held, when, who (tracks) get major renovation, who (tracks) get reinstated, brought back into the racing Industry, e.g. Foxton and above all a guarantee that funds will be provided to annually maintain those tracks.

WHY; because the lack of guaranteed funds towards track maintenance is the reason we are in this mess.  

Fact 6  Agree on fact 5 and within a year most of the problems are solved

[Chief Stipe]

1 hour ago, Wingman said:

WHY; because the lack of guaranteed funds towards track maintenance is the reason we are in this mess.  

Agree.  It isn't because we don't have enough tracks its because we haven't looked after the ones we had and still have.

[curious]

1 hour ago, Chief Stipe said:

Agree.  It isn't because we don't have enough tracks its because we haven't looked after the ones we had and still have.

I agree too. If you read the Messara report, he recommended that along with the track closures over 6 years, that NZTR needed to spend $90 million on upgrading the remaining tracks during that time. That's probably $120 million now with increased costs. They got a slush of money from the Entain deal but there is still no sign of anything like the necessary investment, and that additional funding for the remainder of the guarantee period is now all committed to stakes.

[TAB For Ever]

56 minutes ago, curious said:

I agree too. If you read the Messara report, he recommended that along with the track closures over 6 years, that NZTR needed to spend $90 million on upgrading the remaining tracks during that time. That's probably $120 million now with increased costs. They got a slush of money from the Entain deal but there is still no sign of anything like the necessary investment, and that additional funding for the remainder of the guarantee period is now all committed to stakes.

Most never read the M report ,they just were anti it !

Some definitely missed the paragraph where he said NZ didn't have one decent track...not one ! 

At least since then Ellerslie have forked out their own money to get their track up to standard.....seems to be getting better by the month ! Good on em !

NZTR has track improvement 'top of mind ' in their strategic plan.

The Waikato Greenfields project would be great for the future......hopefully a sale of Avondale will see some dollars go that way !

Overall some fantastic racing around the world at weekend.

Ellerslie of course...come on admit it .....don't focus on the price of hotdogs or the stop/start tactics of jockeys ,Ellerslie better by the month !

And there was Mr Brightside , Mike Moroney etc showing their stuff in Melbourne.

And the Saudi Cup ...with kiwi content....world's richest race. No doubt they had a choice , and run the race on Dirt in front of Winston too !

He heard murmuring ......Maybe i'll give the perennial keyboard warriors some ammo by building a couple of them Dirt tracks. Maybe climate change etc will demand it !

Some of the worlds best horses and horse people racing on dirt / synthetic tracks.

Now there is an idea.....no doubt he saw the South  Island horses running around for $50 k on a Sunday and states the Doomed logic....would get the same field for $20k.

[Trojan]

33 minutes ago, TAB For Ever said:

At least since then Ellerslie have forked out their own money to get their track up to standard.....seems to be getting better by the month ! Good on em !

 

33 minutes ago, TAB For Ever said:

Some definitely missed the paragraph where he said NZ didn't have one decent track...not one ! 

We still don't have one.

[curious]

45 minutes ago, TAB For Ever said:

Now there is an idea.....no doubt he saw the South  Island horses running around for $50 k on a Sunday and states the Doomed logic....would get the same field for $20k.

Exactly my point! And then there would be another 250k to fix the tracks, and it might generate enough revenue to pay for the stakes.

[curious]

2 hours ago, curious said:

I agree too. If you read the Messara report, he recommended that along with the track closures over 6 years, that NZTR needed to spend $90 million on upgrading the remaining tracks during that time. That's probably $120 million now with increased costs. They got a slush of money from the Entain deal but there is still no sign of anything like the necessary investment, and that additional funding for the remainder of the guarantee period is now all committed to stakes.

Correction. The above should have read $190m and $220m

[curious]

1 hour ago, Trojan said:

 

We still don't have one.

Exactly. To quote Messara directly "New Zealand does not have one track with a high-quality racing surface."

All they have done, is closed many that had better surfaces than those that remain and spent nothing fixing the latter. That expenditure and work was supposed to be completed by now.

Edited 12 hours ago by curious

[curious]

54 minutes ago, curious said:

Exactly my point! And then there would be another 250k to fix the tracks, and it might generate enough revenue to pay for the stakes.

Again to cite Messara, "these prizemoney increases can apply following the full implementation of the reforms".

What do they do? Use the money, not to implement the reforms which he thought would generate the revenue to double stakes, but spend that money immediately on stakes, even taking some of the money in advance to do so more hastily.

[Freda]

All good points and quite correct. 

Now, as CEO's are charged with carrying out Board policies by and large, as well as being proactive, the new bloke will have to have an in-depth understanding of these issues raised above,  and the strength of personality to get things done despite the apparent lack of understanding of this Board.

Should we be running a book on the likelihood of this?

[curious]

The problem I think, as has been mentioned, is that he has no financial resources to do so unless they immediately reduce stakes significantly. He possibly has an even larger problem looming in that there appears to be no plan B in the strategy for the likely event that the Entain deal will mean substantially reduced code distributions in 3 years unless they can pull a rabbit out of a hat.

[TAB For Ever]

9 hours ago, Trojan said:

 

We still don't have one.

Well its great we have one heading in the right direction !

And 3 x synthetics my slow slugs and open minded trainers are happy to race on !

[TAB For Ever]

9 hours ago, curious said:

Exactly my point! And then there would be another 250k to fix the tracks, and it might generate enough revenue to pay for the stakes.

Come on champ.....we all know better stakes were essential to even keep the industry afloat.

[TAB For Ever]

8 hours ago, curious said:

Exactly. To quote Messara directly "New Zealand does not have one track with a high-quality racing surface."

All they have done, is closed many that had better surfaces than those that remain and spent nothing fixing the latter. That expenditure and work was supposed to be completed by now.

Come on champ........many tracks should have been closed over 50 years ago when it was first talked about !

Money wasted on tracks with NO future and relevance has slowed down considerably the move into the modern world, with higher expectations , greater and intense competition , strict health and safety rules  etc

OK ,bemoan the past but look to the future , that more important !

Do yourself a favour ,book a ticket north to Champions Day at Ellerslie in March. Take you grand daughter too they having a Kids area .

Something for everyone  ....at acceptable modern standards.

Never been a better time to be involved !

[Chief Stipe]

4 minutes ago, TAB For Ever said:

Money wasted on tracks with NO future and relevance has slowed down considerably the move into the modern world, with higher expectations , greater and intense competition , strict health and safety rules  etc

I take it you think Ellerslie is the new exemplar?  If so - why?