Boxing Day - Ellerslie v Westport Trots

[mikeynz]

On 1/1/2021 at 12:21 PM, Huey said:

Doubtful and this is where the logic of the likes of BS is so misplaced. I'm all for moving dates and venues if its going to improve the exposure, participation & ultimately returns to the industry , however this does not appear to be the case in any of these changes. 

Waikouiti at Wingatui tomorrow have good fields,good stakes,much better than Jan 1 would have got however as it's at Wingatui,is it better to race there with probably not many turning up crowd wise or going back home ,3 times the crowd,its a hard one to know which option is best.

I bet most of those Waikouiti racegoers will be a no show,not just tomorrow but probably any other time of the year and maybe for good,is that wise.

Edited January 14, 2021 by mikeynz

[Tesio]

48 minutes ago, mikeynz said:

Waikouiti at Wingatui tomorrow have good fields,good stakes,much better than Jan 1 would have got however as it's at Wingatui,is it better to race there with probably not many turning up crowd wise or going back home ,3 times the crowd,its a hard one to know which option is best.

I bet most of those Waikouiti racegoers will be a no show,not just tomorrow but probably any other time of the year and maybe for good,is that wise.

Great stake money on offer.......will be very interesting how the day unfolds

[Reefton]

19 hours ago, Shad said:

True, the kumara meeting is just a big social occasion for most, but at the end of the day no matter how we look at it, it's a great advertisement for coast racing, track seemed to suit all, and everyone won got around in one piece, be interesting to see if hokitika get a racing date next year, any one think they were to hasty in handing their track to local council, or was it just a matter of time before it was seized by the national body.

We will be fighting to get the day back I can promise but whether we do who knows.  Who knows where the world will be in a years time.  This virus is not letting go

[Freda]

5 hours ago, Reefton said:

We will be fighting to get the day back I can promise but whether we do who knows.  Who knows where the world will be in a years time.  This virus is not letting go

No, it isn't.   And I do have concerns that the imminence of a vaccine will lead to even more complacency than I see around me.

[Chief Stipe]

1 hour ago, Freda said:

No, it isn't.   And I do have concerns that the imminence of a vaccine will lead to even more complacency than I see around me.

Are you talking about Strangles?  Island there another outbreak in Canterbury?

[Freda]

1 hour ago, Chief Stipe said:

Are you talking about Strangles?  Island there another outbreak in Canterbury?

No and not that I've heard. 

[Chief Stipe]

2 minutes ago, Freda said:

No and not that I've heard. 

So complacency is OK then?

[Freda]

1 minute ago, Chief Stipe said:

So complacency is OK then?

Your point?

[Chief Stipe]

11 minutes ago, Freda said:

Your point?

I dont believe we are being complacent no more than any horse trainer is with regard to viral infection.  

If the opposite to complacency means living in fear and forgoing liberty then I'm all for complacency.

I assume you are talking about Covid-19.  If you are then what is the point of quarantine and isolating our country if we have to live in fear within it?  At the very best it is an admission by the Government that they can't manage quarantine except to double down on it.

I read an interesting research paper yesterday that found the majority of health workers that were infected with Covid-19 were infected by the process of removing their own masks.

If trained professionals whose training has a key emphasis on the prevention of cross contamination and infection mishandle the removal of their masks surely enforcing the general public to wear them only makes it worse.

[Shad]

9 hours ago, Reefton said:

We will be fighting to get the day back I can promise but whether we do who knows.  Who knows where the world will be in a years time.  This virus is not letting go

Hopefully it works out, but everything is a year by year proposition at the moment, and the virus is going to be around for quite sometime yet, I see they are letting in a 1000 school kids from overseas, if it was me I'd be shutting the border to all, but apparently they cant do that by law, mind you they changed the firearms laws very quickly. 

[Chief Stipe]

27 minutes ago, Shad said:

Hopefully it works out, but everything is a year by year proposition at the moment, and the virus is going to be around for quite sometime yet, I see they are letting in a 1000 school kids from overseas, if it was me I'd be shutting the border to all, but apparently they cant do that by law, mind you they changed the firearms laws very quickly. 

Going to have to live with it at some stage.  The Government and its cabal of rock star scientists are not being transparent and honest with us.

Even if you could possibly vaccinate 100% of people given that the vaccine horse that we backed is only 63% effective it is no path to nirvana.

If the only alternative is years of isolation and the restriction of civil liberties then that is the debate we should be having.

[Freda]

34 minutes ago, Chief Stipe said:

I dont believe we are being complacent no more than any horse trainer is with regard to viral infection.  

 

If you are referring to strangles, for starters it isn't a  viral infection.   I don't think any trainer is 'complacent' about strangles,  ill-informed perhaps, and maybe unwise in practice, but not complacent.

I'm certainly not.

As for the Covid thing,  the 'herd immunity/ let it take its course' approach espoused by Sweden hasn't turned out so shit hot, has it?

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, an anti-vaxxer, I prefer to take a pragmatic view;  and keeping us as safe as possible and not allowing our health system to be completely overwhelmed was, I think, the best course to take.  

I'm not a Labour/Jacinda fan  [ sorry Jess ]   but, she was a young mother thrown into a helluva three years, I don't think too many would have improved upon the response.   Not perfect, but far better than most.

The economic downturn [ which could have been a lot worse ] would have happened regardless - we are, after all, a trading nation, and other countries were hammered.  It was always going to affect us whatever we did.

[Chief Stipe]

11 minutes ago, Freda said:

As for the Covid thing,  the 'herd immunity/ let it take its course' approach espoused by Sweden hasn't turned out so shit hot, has it?

Comparatively it has worked OK.  Notice how the media have gone quite?

If you look at excess deaths over a long time frame then 2020 was not significantly different.  80% of those that have died WITH Covid-19 were over the age of 80 i.e. older than the median mortality age.  Greater than 95% had comorbidities.

I'm not a Covid-19 denier or a Granny Killer.  However I'm primarily concerned with the future of our youth.  Who have a vulnerability to Covid-19 that is 20 to 30 (or more) LESS than seasonal influenza.  Sweden did not close its schools and so did not cause considerable harm to their young.

Personally I would rather forgo a year or two at the end of my life and give my 14 year old daughter a chance to learn, grow and develop normally. My Grandfathers did it for me in WW2.

My daughters educational year this year was absolutely stuffed.  She'll never regain that. 

The reality is that we will have to learn to live with the virus.  For 99.9% of the population it isn't an issue.

 

[Chief Stipe]

1 hour ago, Freda said:

keeping us as safe as possible and not allowing our health system to be completely overwhelmed was, I think, the best course to take.  

There was never any possibility of our health system being overwhelmed.  Sorry but whats the point of having health staff and facilities if you are afraid of using them?  Bit like a army going to war and not expecting to fire a bullet!

The media crap promoted by the UK Government is trying to pull the wool over the publics eyes to cover for the Governments failures.  The NHS in the UK is "overwhelmed" EVERY winter.  This year the peak of patients in hospital with Covid-19 is around 20% of total occupancy.  However many of those would have been in hospital anyway with seasonal respiratory illness.  Many actually caught the virus IN hospital i.e. they were admitted for something else first!

Watch this space evidence based science will eventually prevail and it will force a considerable recalibration.