Basil

What part of 'only a 1-in-7.5 million chance of the RIB being right' is impossible to understand? If you failed basic maths at school, then this isn't really an issue you should be commenting on. Obviously Lance Armstrong never happened in your personal history... What you do, if you actually care about horse welfare, is immediately suspend them, as in Kentucky, and there they stay until they're able to prove the 1-in-7.5 million chance actually happened. As WADA do. Unless of course you have no real interest in horse welfare, in which case you just do what RIB have done. Just as a thought experiment, suppose 3 kids at the same kindergarten dropped dead of heart attacks in the space of 3 months. Would you still be whistling the same tune — no evidence, kids drop dead all the time, nothing to see here etc etc? Assuming (hopefully) the answer is no, do you then see how ridiculous your current argument sounds? Ah yes, writing like a 2yo, blathering on about old memorabilia, and free-riding on the industry are way more important priorities than horses dropping dead, n'est ce pas? And that sums it up perfectly — "so long as my pleasure isn't interrupted, wtf cares about who gets hurt." Somebody once claimed that humans will attempt to justify anything, no matter how appalling, if it's in their own self-interest to do so. This forum is living proof of that hypothesis. Hypocrites who claim to be oh-so-concerned about horses, but only so long as it doesn't cost them anything. And then justify their Pilate-like behaviour on extraordinarily spurious and irrelevant grounds that'd be laughed at by a primary school debating team. No wonder racing is locked in a death spiral.

OMG, this is the new odds-on favourite for 2023 Own Goal of the Year Award — you've just quoted, apparently unwittingly, the very essence of the problem! For the benefit of those who haven't been keeping up, here are the facts: • Between 26 May and 9 September last year, the stable of Steve and Amanda Telfer experienced three sudden horse deaths in virtually identical circumstances. In each case, the horse became detached from the rest of the field and quickly collapsed and died. • International evidence on sudden racehorse deaths indicates that the probability of three such deaths within such a short time period being "unrelated sudden medical events" is about 1 in 7.5 million. To put that in perspective, the DNA evidence used to convict Scott Watson had a probability of 1 in 28800 of coming from someone other than the victim, i.e., more than 250 times weaker. Racing authorities in Kentucky appear able to understand this, in contrast to their NZ counterparts. • On 14 September, after some prodding, the RIB belatedly announced an investigation. On 11 October, it claimed it could provide no update as the investigation was ongoing. This turned out to be what's in modern parlance known as misinformation, as they'd advised MPI on 3 October that they'd completed their investigation and decided there was nothing to see. Remarkably, MPI asked no questions. • The RIB then sat on this conclusion for a further 3+ months, thereby bypassing cup week and delaying until the holiday season, before issuing the 3-sentence judgement quoted above. It steadfastly refuses to release any further details on undisclosed, and almost certainly spurious, privacy grounds (the only privacy issues involve the horses and they're all dead!) • More recently still, another horse from the same stable has suffered not one but two atrial fibrillations. The only response from the RIB has effectively been of the form "oh well, as long as it can still stand, keep racing it until it drops dead like the other three". • While all this has been going on, the father of the Telfer’s principal stable driver has continued to sit on the RIB Board, in an obvious and disturbing conflict of interest. The RIB apparently sees nothing wrong with this. So there we have it — a reluctant, rushed, cursory and secretive investigation that seems unaware of basic mathematics and completely ignores all known principles of acceptable governance. It's so obviously flawed that any novelist who based a plot around it would be dismissed as a fantasist. And all from an organisation that proclaims it has animal welfare at the heart of everything it does. Anybody who thinks this is ok has serious problems and needs to take a long hard look at themselves.

Kentucky racing administrators clearly operate with a different model to the RIB: no messing around with cursory and secretive reports, or denying basic mathematics, or facilitating massive conflicts of interest — just decisive and obvious action. https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/racing/300871219/churchill-downs-suspends-trainer-saffie-joseph-jr-after-two-horse-deaths

And since this bloke is in charge at the RIB, precisely nothing is what will continue to happen.

Yeah, although in many of the US wins of hers I've seen, she's actually been driven from the front. Of course, any other strategy at a track the size of Yonkers would be asking for trouble.

If the ATC is prepared to erect a decent monument marking the burial spot — even if it is in the middle of the car park — then let Cardy stay where he is and RIP. If for some reason he has to be dug up, then the obvious place for re-internment is Southland — he has no connection to Cambridge.

Indeed. BO clearly wasn't willing to risk another speed duel, especially over 2700m, and gave way. At which point it was all over red rover. Suspect a few more might be willing to take Copy That on now after watching last week.

Not to mention Self Assured. Same old story though, even over a mile. Leave Copy That alone and he's well-nigh unbeatable; put a bit of pressure on him and he's found wanting.

Keryn Manning's probably the most disgraceful driver to appear on NZ tracks in the last 30 years at least. Arden Rooney never raced again after that cup week, following the thrashing she gave him. She got a lengthy suspension, but it was nowhere near long enough — life would have been more appropriate.

This seems to be a topic that won't die, despite it having no legs whatsoever. The simple fact of the matter is that Auckland/Cambridge premier meetings have been propped up by SI horses for as long as any of us can remember. With the change in horse birthday date, it was well signalled that the xmas premier meetings would shift to a different time of year. Whether that was a sensible decision is certainly an arguable point, but nobody can say they weren't notified well in advance. So blaming HRNZ for scheduling races in the SI (where most of the horses actually are), rather than forcing SI horses to travel north to race, reflects an expectation that SI owners should subsidise Auckland/Cambridge. This is the ultimate in self-entitled behaviour. If Auckland/Cambridge want to put on open-class races at any time of their choosing, they need to stand on their own two feet and not expect to be bailed out by their southern brethren.

The entire Telfer-Williams stable seems to be teflon-coated.

There's no guesswork here. Internationally, the rate of sudden deaths in thoroughbreds is approximately 1 in every 10000 starts. Even if it's not lower still for standardbreds (which is almost certainly the case), that means the probability of getting 3 unrelated (i.e., accidental) deaths from the same stable in less than 4 months is no greater than (0.0001)^3. Anybody who thinks that's plausible might be interested in taking some Chch riverside property off my hands. All the various RIB reports will say is that they haven't been able to work out what caused the horses' deaths. That their conclusion is mathematically impossible clearly hasn't occurred to them (or they've assumed it won't occur to anyone else).

What a farce. The probability of three "unrelated sudden medical events" is zero.

He's a serial offender. 3 days is actually very lenient.

The RIB announced an investigation into the Telfers around the 3 deaths in late September. Not only has there been no subsequent updates, but that announcement itself no longer appears. It's not hard to imagine that certain organisations will eventually get wind of this and not let go. It's always the cover-up, not the crime, that gets people in the end. Oh well, of course if everybody feels sorry for the owner, then there's clearly no problem and all's well with the world... Anyway, we're not talking about one horse in isolation, are we? It's three. From the same stable. In three months. These are hardy standardbreds we're talking about, so what are the chances of that happening "by accident"? (the maths ain't hard...)