How can this be?

[Reefton]

That race six at Riccarton today - every single horse has been backed into a lower fixed odds price since opening.  Surely something would have lengthened?

[Freda]

Not my area of expertise at all...ask Mardigras.

What I want to know, is how can a bunch of maidens run 1.07 home 32 on a dead 4 track?

[Joe Bloggs]

17 minutes ago, Freda said:

Not my area of expertise at all...ask Mardigras.

What I want to know, is how can a bunch of maidens run 1.07 home 32 on a dead 4 track?

How's your blokes shins? Maybe the glove puppet will come up with a beauty over this joke, was there a howling tail wind? the dog leg must be 20lgth quicker than the course proper.

[curious]

37 minutes ago, Freda said:

Not my area of expertise at all...ask Mardigras.

What I want to know, is how can a bunch of maidens run 1.07 home 32 on a dead 4 track?

I was wondering that too. The track record is 1.07.01 I think and they went 1.07.18? The next heat of maidens took 1.08.27 which is pretty amazing in itself. Presumably the stipes will have been investigating and report. Did they forget to apply the advertised irrigation to the chute?

[Shad]

Took easy on the eye, thought the odds very poor, did look hard at Colorado miss as I took her up north a couple of times, she did let me down, stable change and dry track worked the Oracle, but I let her go, even 23s short for her, must be not much in the pools.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Maybe it wasn't firm enough for the puppets horse today damn it.

[mardigras]

5 hours ago, Reefton said:

That race six at Riccarton today - every single horse has been backed into a lower fixed odds price since opening.  Surely something would have lengthened?

It may depend on the opening prices and the time they were set. As there were scratchings, the opening prices would be adjusted after scratchings, and therefore may make the opening prices look inflated (if those prices were set before the scratchings impacted prices).

The way NZ TAB set prices, it's unlikely to happen in other ways as they would tend to tighten the margin, not drift it.

[Chief Stipe]

Starting gates in the wrong position AGAIN!?

[Joe Bloggs]

1 hour ago, Chief Stipe said:

Starting gates in the wrong position AGAIN!?

You have to be kidding, did they have to move them for any reason? or is it just plan incompetence?

[Reefton]

3 hours ago, mardigras said:

It may depend on the opening prices and the time they were set. As there were scratchings, the opening prices would be adjusted after scratchings, and therefore may make the opening prices look inflated (if those prices were set before the scratchings impacted prices).

The way NZ TAB set prices, it's unlikely to happen in other ways as they would tend to tighten the margin, not drift it.

Yes I guess there were a couple of scratchings but it is not like they were favourites. Did they simply set the prices too high?

[Freda]

10 hours ago, Joe Bloggs said:

How's your blokes shins? Maybe the glove puppet will come up with a beauty over this joke, was there a howling tail wind? the dog leg must be 20lgth quicker than the course proper.

The little guy pulled up ok, he's got a nice action and is pretty correct, so no drama with him, apart from being absolutely gobsmacked at how fast everyone was going around him!  I'm very pleased,however, that I had the chance to talk to Alan Reeves who took his dogs around the track Thursday evening - and went up the 1200m chute.  He said, you may as well run them up  Yaldhurst Road.  So, with no more ado, I scratched my other runner. 

Tina Comignaghi said, that track is like concrete.

This is after rain on Monday and irrigation same evening as well.

The other interesting fact is that further irrigation on Wednesday night was advertised,  after fields came out, on an advertised D 6 -  and then didn't happen.

 

[Freda]

9 hours ago, Chief Stipe said:

Starting gates in the wrong position AGAIN!?

No.

nd no upgrade from a D 4 although [ apparently ] all riders agreed that the going was very hard.

[Chief Stipe]

34 minutes ago, Freda said:

No.

nd no upgrade from a D 4 although [ apparently ] all riders agreed that the going was very hard.

1:07 on a D4?  Geez I'd hate to see a G2!

Has the Track Manager been seen this week?

Or are all the staff working with shovels on the AWT?

[mardigras]

9 hours ago, Reefton said:

Yes I guess there were a couple of scratchings but it is not like they were favourites. Did they simply set the prices too high?

I don't imagine they would set the collective prices too high since a computer does them. They can certainly set prices that the public think are wrong for some runners.

Does NZ TAB publish the deductions for scratchings? The two scratchings incurred deductions of 18.5% on another betting provider. That's pretty significant when looking at price moves alone. That's effectively 5s into 4s, 10s into 8.1 etc. So to have any shift out from opening would require a 22.5% drift just to get back to opening price. 

 

[Pitman]

3 hours ago, Freda said:

No.

nd no upgrade from a D 4 although [ apparently ] all riders agreed that the going was very hard.

And that’s why they were racing well off the fence with rail out and coming down the outside where the track was best And irrigation can’t reach 

It was very hard, YEAH RIGHT!

[mardigras]

14 minutes ago, Pitman said:

And that’s why they were racing well off the fence with rail out and coming down the outside where the track was best And irrigation can’t reach 

You seem to have just described what I would call, a completely stuffed track.  No wonder punters are reluctant to bet on NZ racing.

Edited December 4, 2020 by mardigras

[Pitman]

Yesterday I agree with you hard track shortest way home not one rider wanted to be anywhere near the fence and the rail was well out

[Freda]

2 minutes ago, Pitman said:

Yesterday I agree with you hard track shortest way home not one rider wanted to be anywhere near the fence and the rail was well out

Pitty and I have had many a discussion about tracks,  hard,  soft,  whatever ...we actually don't disagree as much as it might seem.

Inconsistent,  patchy going that is a result of our irrigation practices are no good at all for horses, either wrt soundness or confidence to stretch out.

What incensed him most - and I agree with him - is why was irrigation even contemplated on an advertised D 6 ?   Then, when posted on the website post withdrawal, it didn't actually happen?

Clearly, there is something amiss with calibration .

And why the misinformation?

[Freda]

11 minutes ago, mardigras said:

You seem to have just described what I would call, a completely stuffed track.  No wonder punters are reluctant to bet on NZ racing.

Yep.

And all the racing on the AWT won't fix that.

[Chief Stipe]

34 minutes ago, Freda said:

What incensed him most - and I agree with him - is why was irrigation even contemplated on an advertised D 6 ?   Then, when posted on the website post withdrawal, it didn't actually happen?

I said the calibration was obviously way off in the previous debacle that arose from the October 5 hard track.  Pitty slammed that discussion.

[Joe Bloggs]

7 hours ago, Freda said:

The little guy pulled up ok, he's got a nice action and is pretty correct, so no drama with him, apart from being absolutely gobsmacked at how fast everyone was going around him!  I'm very pleased,however, that I had the chance to talk to Alan Reeves who took his dogs around the track Thursday evening - and went up the 1200m chute.  He said, you may as well run them up  Yaldhurst Road.  So, with no more ado, I scratched my other runner. 

Tina Comignaghi said, that track is like concrete.

This is after rain on Monday and irrigation same evening as well.

The other interesting fact is that further irrigation on Wednesday night was advertised,  after fields came out, on an advertised D 6 -  and then didn't happen.

 

It's an animal welfare issue, someone needs their arse kicked, but the watchdogs are arse lickers not kickers! #nointegrity.