Even Te Akau are finding this Spring hard work!!

[Chief Stipe]

23 hours ago, Freda said:

Cheap shot?  How?  That just confirms that those particular horses are not trained here,  but elsewhere. 

Bollocks @Freda.  You've been listening to @Pitman too much.  You know where Te Akau EDUCATE their young horses.  It makes sense that they are educated in the Waikato where there are all the facilities you need plus world leading vet support and acres of high quality agistment.  Surely you are not suggesting that for a horse to be considered "trained at Riccarton" it has to have spent its entire education time and pre-training there?  That would eliminate quite a few of your horses would it not?

[Chief Stipe]

21 hours ago, curious said:

I wonder how they get on at Cranbourne then. I think there's only one grass galloping track there?

BUZZ - wrong!

The Cranbourne Training Complex is the completion of Victoria’s vision to build a purpose-built training facility. This complex is the envy of trainers from all areas, a fact that is displayed openly on trial days when all the metropolitan trainers appear with their horses to take advantage of the excellent surfaces.

Current training tracks include:

• Course Proper – 2400 metres – 27 metres wide
• Inside Grass – 2150 metres – 26 metres wide
• Viscoride Track – 1900 metres – 12 metres wide
• Fast Sand Track – 2020 metres – 15 metres wide
• Slow Sand Track (x2) – 1400 metres – 13 metres wide

Cranbourne Training Complex also includes trail tracks, sand hills, an exercise track, a swimming pool, a bull ring and an underground tunnel network which provides safe access to and from all training tracks.

[Chief Stipe]

Bloody all this angst and tribal diatrive over me making the comment that even Te Akau with all its resources are finding this Spring difficult to get their horses ready and that they prefer to educate and trial their young horses on Turf.

[Chief Stipe]

16 hours ago, Newmarket said:

Gee Chief…. How is Freda being sarcastic? You need to stop posting about Te Akau….its upsetting you too much. 

I only posted a comment that even Te Akau were finding this Spring tough to get their horses ready.  I assure you @Freda 's sarcasm and cynicism doesn't upset me at all.  She knows full well where the young horses are educated.  If she has problems with her own track facilities then she should take it up with @Pitman and Mills.

[Freda]

27 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

Bollocks @Freda.  You've been listening to @Pitman too much.  You know where Te Akau EDUCATE their young horses.  It makes sense that they are educated in the Waikato where there are all the facilities you need plus world leading vet support and acres of high quality agistment.  Surely you are not suggesting that for a horse to be considered "trained at Riccarton" it has to have spent its entire education time and pre-training there?  That would eliminate quite a few of your horses would it not?

No.

[curious]

38 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

BUZZ - wrong!

The Cranbourne Training Complex is the completion of Victoria’s vision to build a purpose-built training facility. This complex is the envy of trainers from all areas, a fact that is displayed openly on trial days when all the metropolitan trainers appear with their horses to take advantage of the excellent surfaces.

Current training tracks include:

• Course Proper – 2400 metres – 27 metres wide
• Inside Grass – 2150 metres – 26 metres wide
• Viscoride Track – 1900 metres – 12 metres wide
• Fast Sand Track – 2020 metres – 15 metres wide
• Slow Sand Track (x2) – 1400 metres – 13 metres wide

Cranbourne Training Complex also includes trail tracks, sand hills, an exercise track, a swimming pool, a bull ring and an underground tunnel network which provides safe access to and from all training tracks.

That only shows one grass track aside from the course proper doesn't it?

[Chief Stipe]

49 minutes ago, curious said:

That only shows one grass track aside from the course proper doesn't it?

That's TWO turf tracks.  Regardless of the obsessive negative nit picking how does the number of turf tracks at Cranbourne negate what the Ellis said about Te Akau's preferred training and trialling surface for their yearlings and 2 year olds?  BTW I'm not defending anyone or being a spokesperson I just posted a publically available online newsletter and made a comment.

[Chief Stipe]

1 hour ago, Freda said:

No.

But it would eliminate some?  

[curious]

29 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

That's TWO turf tracks.  Regardless of the obsessive negative nit picking how does the number of turf tracks at Cranbourne negate what the Ellis said about Te Akau's preferred training and trialling surface for their yearlings and 2 year olds?  BTW I'm not defending anyone or being a spokesperson I just posted a publically available online newsletter and made a comment.

You are the one nit picking. I said one grass training track. The course proper is not used for training, just trials sometimes and racing. There are 250-300 horses in work there. You said that TA bring their 2yos up on grass tracks. It seemed a reasonable question to ask how that might work at Cranbourne.

I'm not knocking Cranbourne as a training facility. I think it's excellent. In fact I might send a horse there later in the year.

Edited 11 hours ago by curious

[Chief Stipe]

No you said there was only "one grass galloping track there".  There are two.  You'd "like" that wouldn't you @Freda?

On 15/10/2025 at 10:33 AM, curious said:

I wonder how they get on at Cranbourne then. I think there's only one grass galloping track there?

 

56 minutes ago, curious said:

The course proper is not used for training, just trials sometimes and racing. There are 250-300 horses in work there. You said that TA bring their 2yos up on grass tracks.

So the 2yr olds can develop on one grass galloping track and trial and race on the other?

As for saying TA "bring their 2 yr olds up on grass tracks" - it is just an observation based of the fact they consistently avoid galloping or trialling on synthetic tracks with young horses.  

Ellis referred to that fact in his newsletter which was the lead post in this Topic.

 

On 14/10/2025 at 9:59 AM, Chief Stipe said:

We actually had 40 horses ready to trial that day, including 18 two-year-olds who were set to have, in many cases, their first official hit-out. For many of these youngsters, transferring to the synthetic track at Cambridge simply isn’t an option in our mind - they need turf to learn and progress, and take care of their young conformation.

 

[curious]

16 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

No you said there was only "one grass galloping track there".  There are two.  You'd "like" that wouldn't you @Freda?

 

So the 2yr olds can develop on one grass galloping track and trial and race on the other?

As for saying TA "bring their 2 yr olds up on grass tracks" - it is just an observation based of the fact they consistently avoid galloping or trialling on synthetic tracks with young horses.  

Ellis referred to that fact in his newsletter which was the lead post in this Topic.

 

 

Yes, an odd comment from Ellis when synthetics are significantly safer than grass.

[Chief Stipe]

1 hour ago, curious said:

Yes, an odd comment from Ellis when synthetics are significantly safer than grass.

Well if that is the case then why are NZ Trainers avoiding the Synthetic with their young horses?  Perhaps the variability of the turf is better at initating that physiological response that trainers are seeking.

Of course you have the full data on yearlings and 2 yr olds being "significantly safer" on Synthetics?

[curious]

3 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

Well if that is the case then why are NZ Trainers avoiding the Synthetic with their young horses?  Perhaps the variability of the turf is better at initating that physiological response that trainers are seeking.

Of course you have the full data on yearlings and 2 yr olds being "significantly safer" on Synthetics?

Yes for racing.

[curious]

7 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

Well if that is the case then why are NZ Trainers avoiding the Synthetic with their young horses?  Perhaps the variability of the turf is better at initating that physiological response that trainers are seeking.

I guess because they have experienced synthetic tracks that have not been properly maintained and prepared, so fair enough. A lot of those are using sand and dirt tracks instead though which are probably worse.

[Freda]

2 hours ago, curious said:

I guess because they have experienced synthetic tracks that have not been properly maintained and prepared, so fair enough. A lot of those are using sand and dirt tracks instead though which are probably worse.

Yes, unfortunately.   It's a lesser of evils really.  

[hesi]

There is so much conjecture put around on the racing social media sites about the issues with tracks, the pros and cons of each type, it becomes very hard to know what fact is actually.

What was actually wrong with Ellerslie in the early days

Why did Awapuni go so badly

What was actually wrong with Hastings, according to some it was easily fixed with a 'home job' and a tractor.

Was there a problem on the Riccarton synthetic

I suppose it is a bit like the media these days.  If you want to get an accurate picture of what is going on, you are not going to get it in the media.

You could always get your info from the many know it all dickheads on these social media sites, but I wouldn't put any credence in what they say.