RaceCafe..#1...Tipsters Thread.... Share Your Fancies For Fun...Lets See Who The Best Tipsters Here Are.
We're Doomed

Right! That's it; surely!

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Surely this weekend sums up everything that is wrong in NZ racing and answers quite a few questions.

Te Rapa and Riccarton aren't minor country tracks, that are supposedly causing most of the problems; they are two of our top four or five metropolitan tracks. And there is nothing wrong with their stakes, but to be brutally honest a lot of the fields are rubbish despite reasonable stakes.

The Dyke at Te Rapa has attracted exactly the same field for $400,000 that it would have got for $200,000, and a pretty ordinary field at that. It shows that stakes are not our problem. Structure is a much bigger problem. We have far too many 2,000m WFA races scattered randomly throughout the season, all attracting poor fields. 

Riccarton gets six horses for a $35,000 race. Hardly surprising really, following only a week after a major meeting at Wingatui. The SI doesn't have the horses to be running major races at Riccarton every second week with Otago and Southland holding major meetings on the Saturdays between. And Otago and Southland have for some bizarre reason held low key midweek meetings with only seven races for the last three weeks, whereas the last minor meeting in Canty was mid December. Totally mindboggling really. How do they expect horses to get through the grades and fill the tighter class races?

I wonder if anyone has ever thought outside the square and thought of running a 1,200m 3yo race at Riccarton. It wouldn't clash with the Guineas down south. Perhaps even an 1,800m 3yo as an Oaks or Derby lead-up.  Anything to shake up the "lets drag last year's programme out of the draw" school of programming.

Many people on here love discussing the merits of pouring $20m into an allweather track and would love to create a few $1m races and close down a few dozen tracks, but as I have said many times most of the problems are structural and just down to administrative incompetence and don't actually take much to resolve.  Handicapping probably comes into this category as well. With all of the highly paid administrators about it is pity none of them have any interest or skills in the areas of dates and programming and general structural matters. 

What a pity we can't get the basics right. Then perhaps start thinking about building an all weather track somewhere.

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Programming is a mess. Not only the WFA 2000m races you mention, but the open staying races have been disrupted since the Auckland Cup moved and had a knock on effect on a lot of other races, similar to what happened with the Derby moving to March. In an ideal world you could work from a blank page and start from scratch with the whole programming of feature racing across the country. You need to have some sort of structure instead of races plonked through the season.

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Great post We're Doomed.

In recent times as a punter I have looked at a raceday and thought pass as there are only one or two races I am interested in studying and betting on. Largely due to small field sizes etc.Happened with both meetings on Waitangi Day. More to come this weekend.

This is down to a variety of issues but as you correctly identify handicapping and meeting programming are perhaps the two key ones.

Funnily enough they would appear to be the cheapest and easiest ones to fix as well. No  capital spend. Just the right people appointed and get it sorted (and you would think looking at what happens overseas and listening to industry players gives you all the information you need to improve these areas). They are not trying to invent time travel for gods sake.

These areas are entirely within their control. No need for a Govt handout, or legislation or trying to get money out of overseas betting organisations. By all means have a crack at those other things. But get our own house in order and change/improve things we control.

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Agree programming is average to say the least.

I don't like harping on about Aus but for most of their races they seem to have a journey thats leads horses there. The only two races I can think of that have a structured journey like that in NZ are the Derby and the Oaks , the rest is a complete shambles.

Not to mention the extra races that are put on , how they come up with that is just plain crazy.

I don't know why for industry meets they couldn't utilise something to find what trainers wanted beforehand not just a couple of trainers something that covers the entire area.

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I think I asked this once before and got no reply, but is there anyone that people know of in the Racing Board or NZTR that knows all about dates and programming and has a history in Racing that is making any progress in these areas? Or do they all just have a history in posting letters? Because it does appear to be getting worse rather than better. As McKenzie mentioned above a lot of the problems in the NI are caused by Auckland; firstly plonking an Auckland Cup carnival in where it doesn't fit and then slotting the Karaka meeting in and clashing with established meetings.

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11 minutes ago, hesi said:

Leggy or Admin will know this, but what is the process for setting the racing calendar/programme, and therefore what is the process by which change is made.

Seems to me like clubs do whatever they like, based on who is pulling the money strings.

NZTR dole out the 70 odd mil each year to the clubs, surely they have the right to say how it will all happen.

As I've said before, 70 odd mil to spend, work backwards from there, a bit like the Messara article, where you start with a clean sheet of paper.

I like his idea of ditching the RB, that's 209 mil in costs gone and a blank sheet to look at how you set it all up again, a lot more efficiently

Based on who's pulling the money strings,well said.Problem is outside the top 6 clubs,smaller clubs are run by amatuers,all voluntary(Thanks)At the 3 so called country clubs in my area,the only paid are the groundsman and of course, the accountant.So maybe why a lot of clubs pull the previous years meeting out as a guide line????

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"The Dyke at Te Rapa has attracted exactly the same field for $400,000 that it would have got for $200,000, and a pretty ordinary field at that"

- hoping Savvy Dreams shows that statement to be complete rubbish

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12 minutes ago, crustyngrizzly said:

They would have drawn the same ordinary field for 50k.Where else are they going to go.The big stake is a reward for being just a bit better than average.(not by much)

Tradition and structure something commercial interests have stepped on big time and they don't give a rats .

Nope - Savvy Dreams wouldn't be there for $50,000 - I doubt Lizzie L'amour, Coldplay, Devise and Wait A Sec would be either

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16 minutes ago, hesi said:

If the heavy rain forecasted takes the track to soft then Kawi and Sacred Star will come out leaving 7 at best going around for 200K, what a waste of stake money that will be

35mm in mostly the morning :blink: - that changed from what I read yesterday - what do you think that will take the track to?

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14 hours ago, mckenzie said:

Programming is a mess. Not only the WFA 2000m races you mention, but the open staying races have been disrupted since the Auckland Cup moved and had a knock on effect on a lot of other races, similar to what happened with the Derby moving to March. In an ideal world you could work from a blank page and start from scratch with the whole programming of feature racing across the country. You need to have some sort of structure instead of races plonked through the season.

Why are there 2 w.f.a. 2,000 metres races at Ellerslie, no w.f.a. 1,200 m. race and no w.f.a. 2,4000 m. race in the Group 1 schedule? Also, more 1,600 m. races than seem necessary.

Perhaps a racing structure like football leagues is needed.

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38 minutes ago, Phar Lap Fan said:

Why are there 2 w.f.a. 2,000 metres races at Ellerslie, no w.f.a. 1,200 m. race and no w.f.a. 2,4000 m. race in the Group 1 schedule? Also, more 1,600 m. races than seem necessary.

Perhaps a racing structure like football leagues is needed.

Yes there needs to be some sort of programme so we don't have a G1 WFA 2000m race in October, December, February, and March. Same with the Avondale Cup, City of Auckland Cup, Wellington Cup, Auckland Cup which seem to have not been thought out in terms of working together. Ellerslie does seem to be at the center of the constant shuffling.

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7 hours ago, mckenzie said:

Yes there needs to be some sort of programme so we don't have a G1 WFA 2000m race in October, December, February, and March. Same with the Avondale Cup, City of Auckland Cup, Wellington Cup, Auckland Cup which seem to have not been thought out in terms of working together. Ellerslie does seem to be at the center of the constant shuffling.

That’s the cause of the problem. It’s all their way, sadly for everyone else. 

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