Tauhei Notts

I went to a funeral two months ago at the Game Lounge in the Bayview Pub. It was named in honour of that great horse.

Blue, yes I am that old. So old that I remember when they used to run the Trial Plate on the second day of Trentham's winter meeting. It was the only maiden race at Trentham all year. So they put on a maiden race this Saturday and get eight acceptors!!

I think the race name should be the "Trentham Hack Gold Cup"

That Trentham Gold Cup. If Hard To Be Humble wins it will interesting what rating a 68 horse having just won an open handicap, gets. Possibly seven tops!

I see that Rhododendron won the group one Lockinge Stakes. Hydrangea was not in the field, possibly because all the florists who take the Rhododendron-Hydrangea quinella were at Windsor Castle. Hydrangea has finished second to Rhododendron on three occasions. I saw where Abel Tasman was one the best horses in the USA last year. So I backed James Cook in the Dante Stakes. The money would have been best placed in an inferno.

Gruff, that is correct. But have you noticed that he is winning on horses that punters like me do not rate; that is, they are outsiders. Only very good jockeys can do that.

Nathan Guy should have done that years ago. That person (for I cannot call the whimp a man) must have had some bad oil on John Key, for Key to tolerate that sad puppy as long as he did.

Chelseacol's comments are good. But from what all I have seen and heard about the Jackson Street, Petone outfit; the public service attitude is all pervasive. With that public service attitude will come juicy redundancy payments. A very sad fact. And the trainer made redundant because of the Racing Board's activities; his redundancy pay will be sweet fanny Adams. Another very sad fact.

I wonder if racing will get taxpayer relief for the huge redundancy payments that will be payable at the Racing Board, after the Aussie's report is activated. This could be a very significant sum.

I follow a couple of foreign racing sites and have been surprised at the behaviour of the Poms. They had trouble with fighting at Goodwood a few weeks ago. Then at Ascot the sight of gentlemen in three piece suits bashing one another!!! The old cliché; "as funny as a fight" comes to mind. It is long odds on that all participants had a tummy full of giggle juice. Then I read about a couple of hooligans who sought banishment from a Ladbrokes betting shop because they were compulsive gamblers. The Ladbrokes manager, in the best bureaucratic managerial talk, told them; If you want a restraining order you must get a passport sized photo. After half an hour they asked that if they smashed the place up could they get a restraining order. The bureaucrat replied no, they needed a passport sized photo. So they did 20,000 quid's damage to the betting shop. The judge did not order reparation as the two idiots were such bad gamblers, that they were stony broke and they could not pay a penny.

That John Allen said on the video that complaints about the huge salaries at TAB management have been going on since the TAB started. I call bullshit on that. I have been reading and listening and following racing since my young days. I was surprised how long I had been following racing. I saw a copy of Sportsweek, which used to come out with Turf Digest and Best Bets every Tuesday morning, for the Saturday after Queen's Birthday 1956. I was surprised at how many horses, jockeys and trainers mentioned in that publication that I could recall. Keep in mind that I was only seven years old when that Sportsweek was published. I had come upon it in an antique book shop, for sale for $7. It originally cost one shilling and I am so old I know that is ten cents. My point is that John Allen said that complaints about the huge salaries in racing administration have been with us forever. I cannot recall the exact date when I first heard complaints about the top heavy cost structure of horse racing administration. But I am sure it was only in the past 10, possibly 15 years. To other bloggers, John Allen looked like a man under pressure. To me he sounded like a gentleman whose truthfulness I doubt a bit.

Tax offsets. If you want to save $3300 in tax you could either; (a) Pour $10,000 into a broodmare that has less black type than there is on the average speeding ticket. or (b) Use the $10,000 to pay me a consultancy fee, a good part of which will be spent on a long lazy leisurely lunch with lascivious ladies at Leo's. You know the choices; which one will you take.

I hard that the Boys Get Paid are getting filly to be named Geegee Elle. I wonder what the GGL stands for?

Further to Blue's cryptic crosswords, maybe Cubes spent $2.80 on the date and that is why he wanted the name "nine to five".

I see Scat Daddy had four runners in the Derby today, as well as one of the runners in the 2000 Guineas. That is an impressive line up from one crop.