Robust process my arse

[nomates]

12 minutes ago, Doomed said:

Just watching the Warriors getting thrashed again and it did occur to me, do we really want the man who manages them as his day job running thoroughbred racing in NZ as his part time job?

And have a look at some of the players they have let go during his tenure that have turned into better than average players , Nichol Klostad for one , but happy to take Shaun Johnson back after saying they can't win a premiership with him , is this a sign that they have lowered their expectations and are just happy to play and collect salaries , as he is in his role with NZ racing .

[Huey]

NZTR unehtical ... no,no,no ...way......!

http://www.theoptimist.site/

 

This article sums up succinctly why the sport has no future in NZ!

[Chief Stipe]

NZTR Board unethical in appointing one of its own

http://www.theoptimist.site/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/2nd-final-skeletons-2-header-size.jpg

by Brian de Lore
 Published 23^rd July 2021

The New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing board proved conclusively this week that it lacks integrity, scruples, and the nous to recognise its proper role in the racing industry.

Racing people this week are aghast by the appointment of the new NZTR Chief Operating Officer announced on Thursday – NZTR’s own board member Bruce Sharrock after the advertised position drew an international response.

This board needs a sign nailed to the board room wall for its next meeting, with this C.S. Lewis quote in large letters: “Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.”

Well, the perenially diminishing number of racing’s participants and stakeholders are watching and are fed up with the treatment they’re getting from an organisation that exists supposedly to run the thoroughbred racing business smoothly for the people that fund it with hard-earned cash – the owners, and the hundreds of volunteers who have been serving this industry forever.

As New Zealand racing has continued to suffer from years of substandard administration and contracting numbers of horses and owners year after year, NZTR in its wisdom this year decided to expand its executive staff with the creation of a new position called Chief Operating Officer. The question is, why when we are an industry strapped for cash?

http://www.theoptimist.site/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/2nd-final-skeletons-2-Full-Size-1024x653.jpg

How can it be justified? What are they paying? It’s unlikely to be less than $250,000 or $300,000/pa. Why does NZTR suddenly need this new person now, or is this an orchestrated set-up to replace the outgoing Bernard Saundry who leaves in July 2022?

In a phone conversation with Bernard Saundry on June 16^th, I asked why they were advertising. He said: “We’ve got that much work that we’re not doing what we need to do, and there are projects that need to be completed, and I can’t do it with the existing resources.”

All you get out of Saundry and the media releases are the same old platitudes without detail, but The Optimist suspects that Sharrock, when he takes up his new role on August 30, will start dealing with the likes of the Dargaville Racing Club to try and enforce land sales and the equity transfers to NZTR from the clubs earmarked for closure.

Sharrock has been appointed to the new role after two of the current seven-man NZTR board applied for the position. It is also known to The Optimist that a highly qualified Australian applied for the job, but he realised he was no hope (just as everyone else who applied was no hope) when informed during his second Zoom interview of two rival applicants coming from within the board.

High-quality applicant not in the hunt

Needless to say, that applicant was ropable, as will any other applicant will be who wasted his/her time going through a process designed for appearance sake. The interviewing was done by Saundry, who reports to the board, and was appointed by the NZTR board four years ago. Draw your own conclusions.

Boards are entrusted with responsibilities and should be accountable, but as we saw with the NZRB board that existed until 2019, the behaviour can be appalling and the Directors’ Police never turn up. Don Argus AC FAICA outlined five principles for directors in Australia about 20 years ago which are still applicable today. Here are three extractions:

• Every board owes its primary duty to the company or stakeholders. No stakeholder (shareholder, employee, customer, or any other) is entitled to preferential treatment.
• In discharging their fiduciary duty, directors should disregard their own interests.
• The real key to effective governance is a properly functioning board where mutual trust and respect lead to open, informed and timely debate on any and every aspect of a company or entity’s affairs.

The NZTR system of board appointments has faltered, otherwise, you wouldn’t have four directors residing in Auckland, three of which were well known to each other before their appointments. Another lives in Hamilton while the remaining two come from Hawkes Bay and Canterbury.

Current Chair Cameron George, who currently resides in Australia, is well-known as CEO of the Vodafone Warriors. Bruce Sharrock is a Global Director of Esportif, a sports management company that manages a large number of Warriors’ players, and Andrew Fairgray worked for Vodafone. These three are far better qualified to run NZ Rugby League than they are racing.

Fairgray and George are on Facebook together, photographed with the Vodafone NZ Derby trophy in March 2017. Was the Members’ Council who make the appointments to the board aware of the association of the three before the appointments?  Did they do their due diligence?

The strong rumour in the racing industry has been that Waikato Racing Club CEO Andrew Castles was the likely successor to Bernard Saundry when he leaves in 12 month’s time. When I repeated that notion to Bernard Saundry in June, he confirmed that he was also hearing the same rumour. He didn’t comment further.

Cameron George and Andrew Castles are former flatmates. Castles is also a close friend of TAB CTO Dean McKenzie who in turn is a former co-director of a sports management company with Bruce Sharrock.

All up, this is a cosy group, a little bit too cosy for comfort. When Cameron George became Chair last November, his first media release stated NZTR would adopt a policy of transparency, but to date, we have learned little from him, and the transparency comes exclusively through The Optimist.

[nomates]

Well if , big if , Castles is the next esteemed leader of NZ racing then we have definitely hit the bottom of the barrel and the industry is truly fucked .

[Huey]

27 minutes ago, nomates said:

Well if , big if , Castles is the next esteemed leader of NZ racing then we have definitely hit the bottom of the barrel and the industry is truly fucked .

Shudder to think!

[Chief Stipe]

What's that phrase...... deja vu?

Or is it Groundhog Day?

Meanwhile I understand the Polyfill at Riccarton got TOO WET to lay!!!!  Geez not many weeks left to the National meeting (I assume the grass has grown at Cutt's Brush!) and then we have the lead up to the Guineas.  

[aquaman]

Why does NZ racing linger, why not just put it out of its misery. Instead we are witness to death by a thousand cuts. Kill it for goodness sake, and let us just move on.

[Gospel of Judas]

Another Cameron George master stoke is it? guy is a dropkick supported by wankers like Leo Molloy in the past and crooked Vela family.  Can see why appointed one of there own! thought Cameron George fit in well in Labour Government. Crocked leading the crocked.

[The Centaur]

High salaries are self defeating. Lets say you or I have a good idea to advance racing. We approach a body say NZTR or TAB with the idea and it is considered good. Then because of the need by management to justify their high salaries the idea becomes their idea and the original instigator is left high and dry.

So the net result is people with good ideas keep them to themselves.

[Reefton]

6 minutes ago, The Centaur said:

High salaries are self defeating. Lets say you or I have a good idea to advance racing. We approach a body say NZTR or TAB with the idea and it is considered good. Then because of the need by management to justify their high salaries the idea becomes their idea and the original instigator is left high and dry.

So the net result is people with good ideas keep them to themselves.

Problem is there is a cesspool of incompetent people who put their hands up for those jobs.  Aussies who cannot get ahead over there, Club executives from here looking to pad their wallets and mates of the bosses  getting their snouts into the trough.  It is bullshit but then again is it any different to the way they appoint these Commissioners when the government wants an Inquiry or Government department heads?  John Allen for instance a career bureaucrat who no doubt had a glorious CV  and bullshitted his way into it.   He will pop up again. Purcell clearly the same.

McKenzie is the disappointing one.  People who knew him reckoned he was the real deal but the reality is he has been hopeless.

[Bloke]

I predict that once The Fat Butcher takes up as the CEO they will move the NZTR to Ellerslie if not before.

We live in a democracy, if Crusher gets voted in then I would have to accept it but with NZTR we have no democracy only some Old Boys/ Girls network with hidden agendas appointing their mates.

[Gospel of Judas]

18 hours ago, Reefton said:

Problem is there is a cesspool of incompetent people who put their hands up for those jobs.  Aussies who cannot get ahead over there, Club executives from here looking to pad their wallets and mates of the bosses  getting their snouts into the trough.  It is bullshit but then again is it any different to the way they appoint these Commissioners when the government wants an Inquiry or Government department heads?  John Allen for instance a career bureaucrat who no doubt had a glorious CV  and bullshitted his way into it.   He will pop up again. Purcell clearly the same.

McKenzie is the disappointing one.  People who knew him reckoned he was the real deal but the reality is he has been hopeless.

Allan had a history of bullying, fights with unions and general being a dickhead. His history at NZ Post was not what call great...

[Huey]

18 hours ago, Bloke said:

I predict that once The Fat Butcher takes up as the CEO they will move the NZTR to Ellerslie if not before.

We live in a democracy, if Crusher gets voted in then I would have to accept it but with NZTR we have no democracy only some Old Boys/ Girls network with hidden agendas appointing their mates.

Well he is certainly odds on now with the latest appointment.

[Huey]

18 hours ago, Reefton said:

Problem is there is a cesspool of incompetent people who put their hands up for those jobs.  Aussies who cannot get ahead over there, Club executives from here looking to pad their wallets and mates of the bosses  getting their snouts into the trough.  It is bullshit but then again is it any different to the way they appoint these Commissioners when the government wants an Inquiry or Government department heads?  John Allen for instance a career bureaucrat who no doubt had a glorious CV  and bullshitted his way into it.   He will pop up again. Purcell clearly the same.

McKenzie is the disappointing one.  People who knew him reckoned he was the real deal but the reality is he has been hopeless.

I differ somewhat in that I believe the problem is those who employ them into these roles are the real problem.

You only have to read De Lore article to understand what an absolute farce the entire process has been, not to mention no one knows why we need this role in the first place, same way this organisation does everything no analysis,no reporting , no consultation just something they believe is the right decision and worst of all no outcry. If this industry actually made decisions based on facts , unbiased consultation and without favour it would be in far better shape than it is now. 

You are very right about Mckenzie though I am one who thought his involvement would change things for the better, but they fooled me again!

[Reefton]

39 minutes ago, Huey said:

I differ somewhat in that I believe the problem is those who employ them into these roles are the real problem.

You only have to read De Lore article to understand what an absolute farce the entire process has been, not to mention no one knows why we need this role in the first place, same way this organisation does everything no analysis,no reporting , no consultation just something they believe is the right decision and worst of all no outcry. If this industry actually made decisions based on facts , unbiased consultation and without favour it would be in far better shape than it is now. 

You are very right about Mckenzie though I am one who thought his involvement would change things for the better, but they fooled me again!

Is Sharrock a brother of Alan Sharrock?

[Huey]

11 minutes ago, Reefton said:

Is Sharrock a brother of Alan Sharrock?

https://loveracing.nz/News/33866/SpecialresultforSharrockinOpunakeCup.aspx

[nomates]

11 minutes ago, Huey said:

https://loveracing.nz/News/33866/SpecialresultforSharrockinOpunakeCup.aspx

And they are all tight with Castles , dominos are falling into place at NZTR .

I do know that A Sharrock isn't happy with current direction of NZ racing so hopefully his brother is coming to him for some coalface ideas .

[Gospel of Judas]

On 25/07/2021 at 10:10 PM, Bloke said:

I predict that once The Fat Butcher takes up as the CEO they will move the NZTR to Ellerslie if not before.

We live in a democracy, if Crusher gets voted in then I would have to accept it but with NZTR we have no democracy only some Old Boys/ Girls network with hidden agendas appointing their mates.

Get the feeling with National, would like industry to deal with own shit. As usually, when Government comes in and regulates something. It turns to shit or worse.

[Gospel of Judas]

5 hours ago, nomates said:

And they are all tight with Castles , dominos are falling into place at NZTR .

I do know that A Sharrock isn't happy with current direction of NZ racing so hopefully his brother is coming to him for some coalface ideas .

Depends on what is substance and what is facade of other peoples agendas. 

[Reefton]

6 minutes ago, Gospel of Judas said:

Get the feeling with National, would like industry to deal with own shit. As usually, when Government comes in and regulates something. It turns to shit or worse.

I suspect McKelvie is mates with some of the big players in the breeding game and would give them support though he may be reluctant to say so publicaly and alienate a lot of his rural supporters from areas losing courses.  The Nats did eff all to amend that Racing Act and he was on the select committee which tells me  he is a closet supporter of the Messara Mob

 

[Gospel of Judas]

3 minutes ago, Reefton said:

I suspect McKelvie is mates with some of the big players in the breeding game and would give them support though he may be reluctant to say so publicaly and alienate a lot of his rural supporters from areas losing courses.  The Nats did eff all to amend that Racing Act and he was on the select committee which tells me  he is a closet supporter of the Messara Mob

 

Follow the money, look who grave NZ First Foundation money  and NZ First donations. Then join it all up, from short LJM mouth to his funders, spiners and other shadow people. Then see who really controlling things.

[Huey]

 

 

I can't be bothered watching another one of BS FB live , but did anyone watch it and see if they gave any context around the newly created position?