Another good piece

[Doomed]

Another good piece from Brian de Lore.

http://www.theoptimist.co.nz/

Nothing new mind you, and nothing that we haven't been saying on here for ages.

It hardly needs an intellectual giant to determine where the racing industry is going wrong. Everyone seems to know what the problems are except for those involved with NZTR, the TAB and a few of the big clubs. All a bit bizarre isn't it?

[Reefton]

25 minutes ago, Doomed said:

Another good piece from Brian de Lore.

http://www.theoptimist.co.nz/

Nothing new mind you, and nothing that we haven't been saying on here for ages.

It hardly needs an intellectual giant to determine where the racing industry is going wrong. Everyone seems to know what the problems are except for those involved with NZTR, the TAB and a few of the big clubs. All a bit bizarre isn't it?

Frightening.  But it just reflects the collective thoughts of most on here.

And its all starts with the total lack of accountability at the top - those NZTR and TAB Directors who are unknowns and have not one tiny little bit of interest in the future of NZ Racing or its participants.  If we cannot control (via the ability to reappoint or not to as the case may be) the hierarchy we are rooted.  This independent directors BS that is the corporate watchword these days doesn't work in racing and slowly but surely we are winding down because of that.  And when you have the people with the power to change it (the Politicians) not interested then it just goes on and on in the ever decreasing circle.   Combined with the useless pricks managing the codes and the big clubs there is an inevitability about it all.

I said it on the other thread the other day 'they played the Ukelele as the ship went down'

 

Edited May 13, 2022 by Reefton

[Bloke]

The only issue is that he quotes that Prize Wanker, Hoskings 

[mikeynz]

My only criticism of Hoskings, is he spends most of his time talking knowledgeably about everything, has the number one show in NZ so people follow his words so why not firm a party and run for government, not to forget the 6 or 7 week holiday at xmas , words are worth nothing without action.

[Reefton]

46 minutes ago, mikeynz said:

My only criticism of Hoskings, is he spends most of his time talking knowledgeably about everything, has the number one show in NZ so people follow his words so why not firm a party and run for government, not to forget the 6 or 7 week holiday at xmas , words are worth nothing without action.

more money(a lot more)  in being the top rating radio show host I'm afraid Michael!

Which is exactly why Jacinda and her lackey's hate him - he has the audience and he has their number and there is nothing they can do about it

 

[Chief Stipe]

Increasing stakes isn't the answer when you have no opportunities to race on good safe surfaces.

[Doomed]

I can't get over how we now have a totally different meaning of the word asset. Back in the day the provincial and country racetracks would have been considered assets as it meant racing could be taken to the masses and had a great spread around the country. Jockeys and trainers could originate from anywhere; and they did, as we all know. Owners could be based anywhere and could follow their horses at the local racemeetings and were happy to travel to watch them race elsewhere. These days if a small town based owner still has a share in a horse it is more likely to be with an Australian trainer.

Now in the eyes of that well known quarterwit Sharrock an asset is something that can be sold and any returns sent to the far end of the country to fund racing in Auckland. (I came across that quarterwit expression in the Guardian and couldn't resist using it)

Can you imagine if NZ Rugby said to clubs in Eketahuna and Masterton and all other small NZ centres: "We have exciting news for you, we are going to rationalise rugby in NZ and centre everything around the five super rugby teams. So we are going to sell off your grounds, clubrooms, uniforms, rugby balls, and anything else we can get our hands on, and send all the cash to the Blues. You will still be able to be involved as you can watch the games on TV and even travel to Auckland if you wish. The cash from selling your asset (thanks for maintaining it over the years) will help fund a PR position in Auckland for 12 months and a cultural advisor for six months. So your sacrifice will definitely be worthwhile. It is all for the greater good."

 

[curious]

Gosh. Has Brian lost the plot again? I realise that the NZ breeding industry and pattern racing are intertwined with the racing industry but neither is necessary for the other. There are plenty of sources of horses for a racing industry here without a breeding industry. Hong Kong for example has a vibrant racing industry without a breeding one. It seems to me that breeding industry industry interests have been a big part of the downfall of NZ racing.

I agree with Doomed that the assets of the NZ racing industry are not the real estate but the racing events and the people involved with conducting them. The size of the foal crop or number of pattern races is largely irrelevant. That blog is just another side of what caused the demise of NZ racing in the first place. Shame.

[Reefton]

10 hours ago, Doomed said:

I can't get over how we now have a totally different meaning of the word asset. Back in the day the provincial and country racetracks would have been considered assets as it meant racing could be taken to the masses and had a great spread around the country. Jockeys and trainers could originate from anywhere; and they did, as we all know. Owners could be based anywhere and could follow their horses at the local racemeetings and were happy to travel to watch them race elsewhere. These days if a small town based owner still has a share in a horse it is more likely to be with an Australian trainer.

Now in the eyes of that well known quarterwit Sharrock an asset is something that can be sold and any returns sent to the far end of the country to fund racing in Auckland. (I came across that quarterwit expression in the Guardian and couldn't resist using it)

Can you imagine if NZ Rugby said to clubs in Eketahuna and Masterton and all other small NZ centres: "We have exciting news for you, we are going to rationalise rugby in NZ and centre everything around the five super rugby teams. So we are going to sell off your grounds, clubrooms, uniforms, rugby balls, and anything else we can get our hands on, and send all the cash to the Blues. You will still be able to be involved as you can watch the games on TV and even travel to Auckland if you wish. The cash from selling your asset (thanks for maintaining it over the years) will help fund a PR position in Auckland for 12 months and a cultural advisor for six months. So your sacrifice will definitely be worthwhile. It is all for the greater good."

 

Plunket did it.  All those wonderful people(mainly women I guess) who volunteered for years in the districts and fundraised to get their clinics built in all the rural towns then the national organisation grabbed the lot and sold them off. Disgraceful. 

I don't doubt Rugby would do it if theh could but most of those grounds would be council owned or reserves.

[Reefton]

7 hours ago, curious said:

Gosh. Has Brian lost the plot again? I realise that the NZ breeding industry and pattern racing are intertwined with the racing industry but neither is necessary for the other. There are plenty of sources of horses for a racing industry here without a breeding industry. Hong Kong for example has a vibrant racing industry without a breeding one. It seems to me that breeding industry industry interests have been a big part of the downfall of NZ racing.

I agree with Doomed that the assets of the NZ racing industry are not the real estate but the racing events and the people involved with conducting them. The size of the foal crop or number of pattern races is largely irrelevant. That blog is just another side of what caused the demise of NZ racing in the first place. Shame.

The foal crops and pattern racing may be a little bit of a sideshow but they are a direct result of the demise of the local industry.  When (many years ago) I studied economics they spoke of a country's 'comparative advantage'.  Being an activity that a country was superior to  in  so logic said that that country should be producing that commodity for the world.

Well one of NZ's comparative advantage activity was breeding thoroughbred racehorses.  Sad to think the breeding game is in serious danger of being buggered

[Freda]

Interesting.   Yes, that makes sense.

Also Interesting,  the oft - maligned Colin Wightman predicted just this and more, from his figures on foal crops back in 2011 at a Purcell roadshow.

The switch from the club-based Racing Conference to a 'professional ' management model in NZTR....the swelling numbers of salaried personnel as a result ....the abolition of the old district committee model...the RB's notions of 'driving turnover '   flawed, as also predicted by a few smart cookies and chickens have well and truly come to roost as a result.

So much more, nearly all predictable, back to NZTR and the handicapping/programming issues ....all pretty much resulting from the changes inherent with the 2003 Act.

 

[Huey]

What's most concerning about this article is that we have a guy whose leading the industry and his best idea for the recovery of the industry is to sell everyone up and put the proceeds on Term Deposit and have the industry live off that - seriously is this the best we can do?

As we all know the money will get wasted by those running the industry into the ground, nothing surer!

[Huey]

8 hours ago, Reefton said:

The foal crops and pattern racing may be a little bit of a sideshow but they are a direct result of the demise of the local industry.  When (many years ago) I studied economics they spoke of a country's 'comparative advantage'.  Being an activity that a country was superior to  in  so logic said that that country should be producing that commodity for the world.

Well one of NZ's comparative advantage activity was breeding thoroughbred racehorses.  Sad to think the breeding game is in serious danger of being buggered

I agree the foal crop is another barometer of how the industry is performing, as Curious says horses can come from anywhere to boost up numbers in our industry , but realistically who is going to be importing horses into NZ to race for our stakes , apart from the obvious. It isn't going to happen.

So for me the foal crop indicates whether owners,breeders have any real faith in our industry as its probably the most affordable means of getting a horse available to locals outside of the obvious.

[curious]

23 minutes ago, Freda said:

So much more, nearly all predictable, back to NZTR and the handicapping/programming issues ....all pretty much resulting from the changes inherent with the 2003 Act.

 

Yes. I A bloke I know quite well gave up training commercially in 2001 when that Act was still a bill. Not a bad call I think.

[holy ravioli]

22 hours ago, Reefton said:

more money(a lot more)  in being the top rating radio show host I'm afraid Michael!

Which is exactly why Jacinda and her lackey's hate him - he has the audience and he has their number and there is nothing they can do about it

 

He has an audience of people incapable of...thinking for...themselves.🤪

[curious]

 

 

1 hour ago, curious said:

Yes. A bloke I know quite well gave up training commercially in 2001 when that Act was still a bill. Not a bad call I think.

Of course, some continued very successfully. Some gave it away later. Others battled on and some of those still are. A few moved to greener pastures at the time and later, a number very successfully. Chris Waller springs to mind as one who astutely made the move to Oz then.

[Freda]

On 14/05/2022 at 3:15 PM, curious said:

Gosh. Has Brian lost the plot again? I realise that the NZ breeding industry and pattern racing are intertwined with the racing industry but neither is necessary for the other. There are plenty of sources of horses for a racing industry here without a breeding industry. Hong Kong for example has a vibrant racing industry without a breeding one. It seems to me that breeding industry industry interests have been a big part of the downfall of NZ racing.

I agree with Doomed that the assets of the NZ racing industry are not the real estate but the racing events and the people involved with conducting them. The size of the foal crop or number of pattern races is largely irrelevant. That blog is just another side of what caused the demise of NZ racing in the first place. Shame.

Unfortunately, Brian is another who - although he has real passion for the industry, and is not scared to speak - is blinkered about much of how it really works, and shifts his allegiance as well.

He and I used to have much dialogue about the wisdom of pinning racing's fortunes on Winston.  Even the former Hokitika president, who was a NZ First member and had worked with Winston quite a bit, was positive that the old bugger would step up and 'save' Hokitika.  Winston has always been about the regions, he used to say.  We know how that turned out.

After the Messara report [ which Winston did get initiated ]  we used to argue about track closures.  He would dismiss my concerns, airily.  That's just a red herring, he would say. You're hung up on that and it isn't important.

Now he's hammering the immorality of just such actions.

[curious]

Yes. Brian seems to run with the hares one minute and hunt with the hounds the next. Generally, his writing tends to present his latest new idea which often comes from buying into someone else's ideas without expressing any critical thought. The other sides of his arguments are hardly ever considered.

I did watch Weigh In this week for the first time in many months, if not years. A refreshing piece of quality racing journalism that I haven't seen the likes of in any New Zealand media in yonks.

[Reefton]

5 hours ago, Freda said:

Unfortunately, Brian is another who - although he has real passion for the industry, and is not scared to speak - is blinkered about much of how it really works, and shifts his allegiance as well.

He and I used to have much dialogue about the wisdom of pinning racing's fortunes on Winston.  Even the former Hokitika president, who was a NZ First member and had worked with Winston quite a bit, was positive that the old bugger would step up and 'save' Hokitika.  Winston has always been about the regions, he used to say.  We know how that turned out.

After the Messara report [ which Winston did get initiated ]  we used to argue about track closures.  He would dismiss my concerns, airily.  That's just a red herring, he would say. You're hung up on that and it isn't important.

Now he's hammering the immorality of just such actions.

I do have to note my surprise at the way B de Lore changed from an absolute Messara devotee (I know he used to work for him) to quite strongly anti the concepts in a hurry.  Would have to say the Messara report has drastically affected the morale of the local industry (which was bad enough before it came out). Any one who ever trusted Winston wants their head read.

[Doomed]

43 minutes ago, Reefton said:

I do have to note my surprise at the way B de Lore changed from an absolute Messara devotee (I know he used to work for him) to quite strongly anti the concepts in a hurry.  Would have to say the Messara report has drastically affected the morale of the local industry (which was bad enough before it came out). Any one who ever trusted Winston wants their head read.

I wasn't aware of the de Lore back story, but I do tend to agree with most of what he writes these days.

Winston has been a shocker. I can recall thinking his first contribution to racing, the five $1m+ races, was a total waste of money, but others used to argue it was a great idea.  Basically 15 races largely won by no name horses that has contributed nothing to the industry. The stakes for those races now range between 25% and 50% of what they were all those years ago.

His latest effort used the provincial growth fund to shaft provincial and country clubs and produce three white elephants for the industry.

The idea behind the Messara report may have been sound, but the execution was poor. You get the impression he was captured by a specific lobby group so the recommendations where largely corrupt and biased. His name will forever be associated with that poor effort, which is a pity when he really could have achieved something useful.

[Huey]

59 minutes ago, Reefton said:

I do have to note my surprise at the way B de Lore changed from an absolute Messara devotee (I know he used to work for him) to quite strongly anti the concepts in a hurry.  Would have to say the Messara report has drastically affected the morale of the local industry (which was bad enough before it came out). Any one who ever trusted Winston wants their head read.

The M report totally split the industry and the only good thing it really did was flesh out those with extreme levels of self interest into the open for all to see. 

Many of these with extreme levels of self interest will find out the hard way that the views contained in that report were never about bettering the local industry.

I can't think of a single thing in that report that has worked out for the industry, the chopping up of the TAB has left service levels below what anyone ever  dreamed of , the states of our tracks worse than ever and this report coupled with Saundry utterly pointless/useless venue plan has left the industry on the verge of complete and utter demise!

[Chief Stipe]

33 minutes ago, Huey said:

I can't think of a single thing in that report that has worked out for the industry, the chopping up of the TAB has left service levels below what anyone ever  dreamed of , the states of our tracks worse than ever and this report coupled with Saundry utterly pointless/useless venue plan has left the industry on the verge of complete and utter demise!

Once can't say that the new RIU/RIB setup is any better.  Just the same as before but higher cost and bigger salaries.

[Chief Stipe]

45 minutes ago, Doomed said:

The idea behind the Messara report may have been sound, but the execution was poor. You get the impression he was captured by a specific lobby group so the recommendations where largely corrupt and biased.

But who was that "lobby group"?  The only AWT that made sense was the one built at Cambridge - the irony with that one being the fact that Cambridge didn't need funding to do it if they wanted to.  They have the horses in training to maintain it as well.  Although I suspect a few trainers are not so keen on it as they were before.

Riccarton and Awapuni AWT's are unnecessary but seem to have been funded to appease those two clubs.  It certainly had nothing to do with abandoned race meetings - it never ever did have anything to do with them.  The biggest red herring in the entire plan.  

So aside from the Cambridge "lobby group" (a reasonable case for an AWT there) who were they in the other regions?  A few prominent trainers with a lack of foresight pushing their own self-interest perhaps?

[Doomed]

2 hours ago, Chief Stipe said:

Once can't say that the new RIU/RIB setup is any better.  Just the same as before but higher cost and bigger salaries.

When did the RIU start? There never used to be one and the industry seemed to cope perfectly well through the 80s and 90s. It seems to be a multi million dollar organisation to satisfy a need that no one previously even realised existed.

[Huey]

7 hours ago, curious said:

 

I did watch Weigh In this week for the first time in many months, if not years. A refreshing piece of quality racing journalism that I haven't seen the likes of in any New Zealand media in yonks.

Maybe so with the rants, but Emily Bosson sure does her best to sidestep any controversy , it would be substantially better if there was some actual dialogue around the issues between the two of them , she looks like she is worried about losing her job and its just a really poor look imo.