Another One Gone

[Doomed]

I see Tauherenikau is off. Perhaps they could have moved it to the AWT at Awapuni.

[Bid]

12 minutes ago, Doomed said:

I see Tauherenikau is off. Perhaps they could have moved it to the AWT at Awapuni.

Time the place was closed to racing. The AWT that I haven't heard anyone I know that will run there horses on? My two that were in tomorrow wouldn't have gone to the all weather, i've been waiting for a wet track!

[Shad]

Shock horror one in Australia to,

[Doomed]

45 minutes ago, Shad said:

Shock horror one in Australia to,

But the Aussies have already moved the Rosehill card to Newcastle on Monday. They do anything to run the meetings. Didn't seem to be much effort to move Tauherenikau anywhere. Could have gone to Woodville, do they still use that track?

[Bid]

3 hours ago, Doomed said:

But the Aussies have already moved the Rosehill card to Newcastle on Monday. They do anything to run the meetings. Didn't seem to be much effort to move Tauherenikau anywhere. Could have gone to Woodville, do they still use that track?

No effort  at all. Too bad I you have a low rated horse and finally get a suitable race and expect a good run. Probably  end up sitting on the ballot now for a month and wonder why we get fucked off and lose interest. 

[Kihikihi Kid]

Surely NZTR are trying to find a venue to hold the card asap.

If not , you got major , major problems

[Doomed]

8 hours ago, Kihikihi Kid said:

Surely NZTR are trying to find a venue to hold the card asap.

If not , you got major , major problems

The place is a bloody mess from top to bottom. Look at the disgraceful fields at Tauranga yesterday for big money and they all come out of the woodwork to race for $12,000 at Mamata midweek.

[Doomed]

9 hours ago, Bid said:

No effort  at all. Too bad I you have a low rated horse and finally get a suitable race and expect a good run. Probably  end up sitting on the ballot now for a month and wonder why we get fucked off and lose interest. 

At least you have a ballot to sit on Bid. What about the poor South Islanders: no maiden race in the entire SI for 13 days at this time of year. In the NI they programme extra maidens at the drop of a hat and are happy to split them.

[Freda]

On 26/03/2022 at 6:35 PM, Doomed said:

But the Aussies have already moved the Rosehill card to Newcastle on Monday. They do anything to run the meetings. Didn't seem to be much effort to move Tauherenikau anywhere. Could have gone to Woodville, do they still use that track?

Waverly Friday 

[Ludwig]

2 hours ago, Freda said:

Waverly Friday 

Call me stupid but that seems a long way to go from Tauherenikau. But then I started counting up all the closed tracks en route____Masterton, Marton, Bulls, Feilding, Foxton, Levin etc

[Huey]

4 minutes ago, Ludwig said:

Call me stupid but that seems a long way to go from Tauherenikau. But then I started counting up all the closed tracks en route____Masterton, Marton, Bulls, Feilding, Foxton, Levin etc

Just what I thought, NZTR have a habit of rescheduled meetings about as far away from the original meeting as possible,  but then what choice do they have when they've gone out of their way to close most courses in between.

[Bid]

2 hours ago, Huey said:

Just what I thought, NZTR have a habit of rescheduled meetings about as far away from the original meeting as possible,  but then what choice do they have when they've gone out of their way to close most courses in between.

Woodville, one of the best Autumn/winter tracks around that hardly gets used. 

[Huey]

31 minutes ago, Bid said:

Woodville, one of the best Autumn/winter tracks around that hardly gets used. 

Absolutely and one of the courses that has clearly been suffocated by NZTR (in particular since the M report) to  the detriment of the industry. When we need every available track we have.

[Doomed]

I know I am pretty much the odd one out, but I have always thought one of NZ Racing's greatest assets was the variety and number of tracks scattered around the country. Others have always considered the number of tracks to be one of our greatest problems and consider we would be better off if most of them were closed and all racing was moved to a few favoured tracks.

I think it is good to be able to take races to the people, others think it is better to centralise away from the traditional racegoer.

I am waiting with interest to see all the figures relating to the closing of Motukarara and Wakouaiti and the moving of their meetings to Riccarton and Wingatui. Stakes for their two meetings increased by about $320,000 so I assume the cost savings were enormous to fund that. There must be a detailed list of costs, savings, turnovers and attendances from those two tracks due pretty soon.

[Huey]

11 hours ago, Doomed said:

 Others have always considered the number of tracks to be one of our greatest problems and consider we would be better off if most of them were closed and all racing was moved to a few favoured tracks.

 

These people are proven to be wrong more and more as each week goes by. 

The venue plan has proven to be nothing short of disastrous , that was always going to be the case when the plan was based on self interest, extreme bias and a misguided view on how the industry works.

We are only just begining to see the effects of it on the industry at the moment , it will get worse over time is my prediction.

[mikeynz]

On 3/27/2022 at 7:22 AM, Doomed said:

At least you have a ballot to sit on Bid. What about the poor South Islanders: no maiden race in the entire SI for 13 days at this time of year. In the NI they programme extra maidens at the drop of a hat and are happy to split them.

On a slightly different note I see an article in Southland times, Kelvin Tyler is reducing his racing team for next season, Robert Dennis the same, sign of the times I guess.

[Huey]

38 minutes ago, mikeynz said:

On a slightly different note I see an article in Southland times, Kelvin Tyler is reducing his racing team for next season, Robert Dennis the same, sign of the times I guess.

Happening across the board Mikey.

Costs through the roof, returns through the floor.

Staff hard to come by, racemeetings a 50/50 to go nowadays, Calendar and programming woeful and all the while overseen by a bunch of incompetents who wouldn't know the state of the industry if they woke up to it every morning!

[mikeynz]

Racings not only industry with issues but how do you get the stakes to keep pace with cost, racing basically survives by turnover then deductions, if people ain't betting as much or not betting enough what can 1 do?

There is only a limited amount of money to go around, fact of life.

Southern racing will survive but its gunna be the small time trainers who will keep it going, training a big team out of Riverton, one can only sustain the travel and other factors for so long, plenty of enthusiasm is met by reality I guess

Places like Southland probably need some of those mini meetings, they are becoming very regular these days for harness racing in Auckland.

 

Edited March 28, 2022 by mikeynz

[The Centaur]

15 hours ago, Doomed said:

I know I am pretty much the odd one out, but I have always thought one of NZ Racing's greatest assets was the variety and number of tracks scattered around the country. Others have always considered the number of tracks to be one of our greatest problems and consider we would be better off if most of them were closed and all racing was moved to a few favoured tracks.

I think it is good to be able to take races to the people, others think it is better to centralise away from the traditional racegoer.

I am waiting with interest to see all the figures relating to the closing of Motukarara and Wakouaiti and the moving of their meetings to Riccarton and Wingatui. Stakes for their two meetings increased by about $320,000 so I assume the cost savings were enormous to fund that. There must be a detailed list of costs, savings, turnovers and attendances from those two tracks due pretty soon.

Could not agree more.

The problem as I see it is there no organisation grouping all the racecourses together and making efficiencies and initiatives around the nuts and bolts of the venues.

NZTR is concerned with organizing participation in racing events. They do stray away from their brief but only in a slaphazard way. THe UK has a separate organisation for the purpose of maximising racecourse business activities.

AS an example. Say a handful of racecourses wanted to expand into motor camping services then combining them into one marketing entity would make business sense. 

[Doomed]

On 3/29/2022 at 10:17 AM, mikeynz said:

On a slightly different note I see an article in Southland times, Kelvin Tyler is reducing his racing team for next season, Robert Dennis the same, sign of the times I guess.

Interesting article. I was surprised by the comment that "The next round of stakes increases will occur on April 3." I thought stakes were dropping on April 3. The $40,000 open races go back to $35,000.  Of course they don't publicise these things very well, I couldn't find anything on the NZTR website, so perhaps there are increases coming.

I thought Saundry sounded a bit arrogant when asked whether he was concerned about trainers cutting back. He basically said trainers come and go, but total numbers remain "relatively consistent". Basically saying "fuck off Kelvin, you won't be missed."

Of course there is every chance Saundry has no idea where Riverton is. He probably thinks it is one of the back waters where they thought they had closed most of the tracks. He is probably looking at his atlas right now thinking, "bugger we missed one, how did that slip through?"

[mikeynz]

29 minutes ago, Doomed said:

Interesting article. I was surprised by the comment that "The next round of stakes increases will occur on April 3." I thought stakes were dropping on April 3. The $40,000 open races go back to $35,000.  Of course they don't publicise these things very well, I couldn't find anything on the NZTR website, so perhaps there are increases coming.

I thought Saundry sounded a bit arrogant when asked whether he was concerned about trainers cutting back. He basically said trainers come and go, but total numbers remain "relatively consistent". Basically saying "fuck off Kelvin, you won't be missed."

Of course there is every chance Saundry has no idea where Riverton is. He probably thinks it is one of the back waters where they thought they had closed most of the tracks. He is probably looking at his atlas right now thinking, "bugger we missed one, how did that slip through?"

Strange irony about the stakes in the south, how many harness meetings have stakes like the gallops, yet numbers are better than the gallops, getting back though to Tyler, the travel especially in winter, must be a killer  and with Riccarton AWT starting soon if you dont like it your options are less and less.

With the stakes I thought the hike in stakes might have been to april  maybe they are just leaving them at that level so yea they are up but only as opposed to last year  not sure.

Edited March 30, 2022 by mikeynz

[mikeynz]

I just looked at some of the programmes, lots of 35000 races, maybe they have been eased back, what does that suggest ?

Edited March 30, 2022 by mikeynz

[Huey]

1 hour ago, Doomed said:

 

I thought Saundry sounded a bit arrogant when asked whether he was concerned about trainers cutting back. He basically said trainers come and go, but total numbers remain "relatively consistent". Basically saying "fuck off Kelvin, you won't be missed."

Of course there is every chance Saundry has no idea where Riverton is. He probably thinks it is one of the back waters where they thought they had closed most of the tracks. He is probably looking at his atlas right now thinking, "bugger we missed one, how did that slip through?"

Utterly clueless leader and a man given a free ride by many in the industry because he was seen as good guy, he doesn't care he is soon on his way and what did he achieve ... anything... anyone?

Numbers aren't staying stable they are only going one way from here on in and BS and his cohorts have contributed considerably to that.