Kumara

[Huey]

5 hours ago, Reefton said:

We will irrigate before raceday make no error but it will be done carefully, consistently and evenly. Hopefully the trotting meeting eight days before enjoys good weather and then the irrigation will be all go. NZTR requires a dead 4 track on race morning and as I said in our submission on the venues our average race morning reading for the ten years 2010 to 2019 was 4.2.  NZTR wanted us to shift to Grey with a 6.8 race morning average. Bernard had no response when I asked why they wanted us to go from a virtually guaranteed great track to a virtually guaranteed shit hole.  It's summer FFS - people want a summer track.

Bernard has no idea full stop. Thats a very real problem with which our industry will live with the ramifications of for years to come.

[Pitman]

5 hours ago, Chief Stipe said:

I hope you don't use the Riccarton penetrometer - it needs calibrating.

Gee you're good, isn't it the tracks they callibrate not the actual pentrometers, they are used to get readings and each track has their own formula (callibration)

But don't let the truth get in the way, again!

[Chief Stipe]

2 hours ago, Pitman said:

Gee you're good, isn't it the tracks they callibrate not the actual pentrometers, they are used to get readings and each track has their own formula (callibration)

But don't let the truth get in the way, again!

Thanks Pitty.  That explains why a D4 at Riccarton is different from a D4 at Reefton.  Also explains why a maiden can run 1:07 on a D4.

Now you are also inferring that all penetrometers are the same and don't alter in terms of their accuracy over time and use.  I find that hard to believe. 

[Reefton]

6 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

Thanks Pitty.  That explains why a D4 at Riccarton is different from a D4 at Reefton.  Also explains why a maiden can run 1:07 on a D4.

Now you are also inferring that all penetrometers are the same and don't alter in terms of their accuracy over time and use.  I find that hard to believe. 

To be fair they have run 1020 at Reefton on a D4 in 57(or 1400 in sub 1.23) so not much difference I'd have thought.  Though as I have often said I am dubious about the measurements - and just as often they have told me they have been measured correctly and repeatedly.  How does one measure the distances on a racecourse?

 

 

[Chief Stipe]

4 minutes ago, Reefton said:

How does one measure the distances on a racecourse?

Don't you walk one of those wheels around the course a couple of horse widths out from the rail?

With regard to the penetrometer I'm convinced that the measurements at Riccarton are off.

[Reefton]

3 hours ago, Huey said:

Bernard has no idea full stop. Thats a very real problem with which our industry will live with the ramifications of for years to come.

I have to say he(Bernard) was under a fairly heavy bombardment from yours truly at the time.  Suspect his silence was in the hope that I would talk myself out and he might get a word in edgeways. Plus of course when  you make arbitrary decisions without research you are likely to be shown up.  As it was he (and the NZ First guy Patterson(??)) a couple of weeks later could really only repeat 'the status quo is not an option' tripe to justify thier positions.

At least Bernard fronted - there are a frigging lot in the hierarchy of this game who ran for cover and that includes Mackenzie who had been held out as the great white hope

[Reefton]

12 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

Don't you walk one of those wheels around the course a couple of horse widths out from the rail?

With regard to the penetrometer I'm convinced that the measurements at Riccarton are off.

Well ours are done by the stipes on race morning(earlier in the week we do them ourselves) so I presume Riccarton's are the same.  The issue the other day was the clear bias to the middle of the track.  Maybe future Riccarton readings for each 'lane' of the track should be published as obviously the inside to mid readings last Friday must have been far inferior to those on the mid to outside of the track at least down the straight.

Anyway it pissed down in Christchurch last Monday(I was there) then they irrigated bloody twice before Friday - exactly how much water do you want on the dump.

Regardless of that I did manage to own a couple of hairs on the tail of Pitty's only winner of the day so I was happy(with that at least) even if he was not.

I'm off to scrub the bird shit off the Reefton grandstand seats tomorrow if anyone wants to join me?

Don't all speak up at once now!

Edited December 11, 2020 by Reefton

[Ludwig]

6 hours ago, Reefton said:

Well ours are done by the stipes on race morning(earlier in the week we do them ourselves) so I presume Riccarton's are the same.  The issue the other day was the clear bias to the middle of the track.  Maybe future Riccarton readings for each 'lane' of the track should be published as obviously the inside to mid readings last Friday must have been far inferior to those on the mid to outside of the track at least down the straight.

Anyway it pissed down in Christchurch last Monday(I was there) then they irrigated bloody twice before Friday - exactly how much water do you want on the dump.

Regardless of that I did manage to own a couple of hairs on the tail of Pitty's only winner of the day so I was happy(with that at least) even if he was not.

I'm off to scrub the bird shit off the Reefton grandstand seats tomorrow if anyone wants to join me?

Don't all speak up at once now!

One of my student holidays jobs was to scrub every seat in the public grandstand, now demolished, at Addington. Happy days. 

[Shad]

On 11/12/2020 at 4:15 PM, Reefton said:

To be fair they have run 1020 at Reefton on a D4 in 57(or 1400 in sub 1.23) so not much difference I'd have thought.  Though as I have often said I am dubious about the measurements - and just as often they have told me they have been measured correctly and repeatedly.  How does one measure the distances on a racecourse?

 

 

Have to agree, those 2.02 and 2.03  2000m races always had me a tad dubious,