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Bit of a rant about a pet subject of mine, of no interest to many I know. I find it a pity that on the weekend before "Cup Week" the Canterbury meeting has largely $10,000 races. It's a bit like Victoria racing at Ararat the weekend before Melbourne Cup week, rather than Moonee Valley. I have no problem with a meeting at Banks Pen, but some slightly better stakes would be nice. It tends to indicate to me that there is too big a gap between the $25,000 lower grade races one week and $10,000 races the next week. Some middle ground might be nice. It is also interesting to see 37 noms for the maiden 1,400m and 28 for the rating 65 1,400m. I wonder if they will split those two to form five races, bearing in mind that they only start 12 horses from all start points. It does make one wonder why Riccarton only programmed eight races last week with no maiden. I feel this obsession with eight race programmes is ruining our racing and forcing horses to be continually racing outside of their favoured class and distance. A maiden 1,400m at Riccarton would only have cost $10,000 and produced the biggest field of the day. Bit of a no-brainer I would have thought. I do feel this sort of thing is symptomatic of the lack of real racing knowledge among those charged with running this industry. Great at big picture stuff (well perhaps not) but quite useless at getting the basics right. I don't really think this aspect was covered in that recent report either.

Completely agree with what you say here Gubellini I have been saying the same thing for years about irrigation of racetracks ? The Otaki debacle last week is just another example of a racing club being forced into a process that some shiny arse in an Sports Turf consulting office in wellington has charged the industry tens of thousands of dollars in consultation fees for producing a " pretty bowling green" I would put money on it at shorter odds than "Winx" that this shiny arse doesn't even mow his own lawns , let alone have any financial involvement in the racing industry other than fleecing in with exuberant consulting fees. "If its not rooted its rooted" I have the upmost respect for Michael Pitman he is the only Industry Professional that absolutely nailed the situation on Public Television in a interview with Andre Neil , he said when asked what the biggest problem in racing was he said " The irrigation of tracks" Our tracks are substandard . 30 years ago No irrigation, very few abandonments and trainers were happy to race on firm tracks , mind you firm tracks then had a good deep grass root system which fractured the soil structure beneath the grass giving it a bit of give. Now days no root structure you have a hard pan straight underneath the grass roots that are going horizontal along top of ground giving you the Carpet on a varnished floor problem.

Thanks for your POSITIVE comment unfortunately the atmosphere got to SC 38,000 hyped up Aussies make a lot more noise than 5000 conservative Kiwis. Next time she will be paraded in removable hood, that will probably be 10th Nov in $300,000 Matriach Gp2 at Flemington Only finished 11 lengths off the worlds best horse after racing very keenly and a lot handier than normal She has come through the race very good and we will be out to add to the $300,000 she has already won this season Cheers Michael

Hi I train Larima and I want to clarify a few things. I can reassure you all the horse is fine and she has never slipped before. Her shoes were great and as per all meetings they get checked prerace and were fine after the race too. Larima changed legs as she begun to make her move at around the 900m mark then slipped. She wasn’t the only one as there were a number of slip marks. I am just thankful she didn’t do any severe damage or take down another horse. Rosie was lucky not to fall and needed to check the horse was ok before continuing. She was also squeezed at the start and got held up at the end. Rosie is a group 1 winning jockey who can ride light. There are not too many that can claim that particularly in the CD. Her ride on Peso was great. She has also recently lost her father so I am willing to forgive the odd piece of bad judgement but class is permanent. Larima still finished off well and this wouldn’t have been the case if the horse wasn’t right. So a luckless run that couldn’t be much much worse.

Just to let everyone know Racecafe's owner now has his first share in a horse racing for Racecafe...we won the auction for the share for Maija...more to come later.

Lee vacated Cambridge Lodge about 3 weeks ago and has taken up residence at Diane Sargents property at Hastings. He has a new lady in his life and she has a home down that way and this has some bearing on his decision. Good luck to him, he has had a good few years with a nice team around him.

Congratulations Team Pitman and Mr Coupland. To be part of something historic with Winx. The world looking on, and to have a mare that imho more than justifies her place in the race, you are entitled to be incredibly proud. All the best. A great advertisement for Nz.

You're wrong there We took Coup Align to Melbourne where he won the Apache Cat Stakes his other 2 starts were on unsuitable tracks- it rained consistently- we bought him back from Melbourne on the Friday after going Melbourne -Sydney-Auckland -Christchurch he brained them in the Stewards only 5 days after leaving Melbourne CA was never "run over everytime he started" as you put it apology accepted!!! 5th. $200k 4th $250k plenty of horses don't win that in a lifetime

Naki, it's awesome when trainers /owners/breeders etc come onto these sites and explain things and discuss racing , couple down South Island do and again for a small time punter like me with a passion for racing it's brilliant, thank you .

Race 1 # 2 Chestnut , magnificent summaries from you. Well done . Thank you as always.

What I like about Racecafe is the diversity. We manage to cover the spectrum from the knowledgeable to the insanely stupid, from the witty & clever to those who voted for Winston. Leo, most of your posts are a delight, and the less than delightful ones I'm happy to overlook. Thanks everyone for making my life a little more interesting.... cheers, Nearco

Neruda is right about some of the rides. Race 1 set the tone and it did not improve. After being closed for so long I thought the welcome mat would be out but we arrived at the door of the public lounge to find a “ Prvate Function - no entry” sign on the door. And half the front lawn fenced off too. I left by race 4 and next weeks private function will be staged in my lounge, with all facilities in operation.

Chestnut cant thank you enough for the scoring and the way you did it... much appreciated PJ has a tough act to follow....... just kidding you made the last week or so fun and friendly.

Updates for Today - Round 22 For those of you that like to check in regularly to get the lay of the land .. below is when I will be doing updates, if I can get an update in between some of those close races I will but otherwise here's how it will go 1. Trentham R4 - 2.02pm - Hanley Formula Wellesley Stks (LR) - $50k, 1000m, 2yos SWs Update of results and top of the table 2. Moonee Valley R3 - 3.15pm - Powerflo Solutions Stks (Gr3) - $150k, 1600m, 4yos+ hdcp (x 2) 3. Ellerslie R6 - 3.24pm - Partners Life Soliloquy Stks (Gr3) - $70k, 1400m, 3yo fillies SWs (x 2) 4. Riccarton R6 - 3.33pm - Zacinto Stks (LR) - $70k, 1600m, 3yos SWs Update of results and top of the table 5. Riccarton R7 - 4.08pm - Christchurch casino Spring Classic (LR) - $50k, 2000m, open hdcp 6. Trentham R8 - 4.19pm - Gee & Hickton Thompson Hdcp (Gr3) - $70k, 1600m, open hdcp (x 2) 7. Moonee Valley R5 - 4.25pm - 1300 Australia Stks (Gr3) - $150k, 1200m, 3yos SW+Ps (x 2) Update of results and top of the table Then from here onwards updates will be after each race 8. Moonee Valley R6 - 5.00pm - Aquis Farm Fillies Classic (Gr2) - $200k, 1600m, 3yo fillies SWs (x 3) 9. Moonee Valley R7 - 5.35pm Schweppes Crystal Mile (Gr2) - $200k, 1600m, WFA (x 3) 10. Moonee Valley R8 - McCafe Moonee Valley Gold Cup (Gr2) - $500k, 2500m, 4yos+ SW+Ps (x 3) 11. Moonee Valley R9 - Ladbrokes Cox Plate (Gr1) - $5m, 2040m, WFA (x 5) 12. Moonee Valley R10 - Drummond Golf Vase (Gr2) - $200k, 2040m, 3yos SWs (x 3) May the racing gods be on your side today Enjoy a beaut day of racing all.

She stepped up!

Racecafe will be doing something to help here stay tuned .

Don’t forget Lance Noble to, great effort 3 in a day at Headquarters!

Great thrill to be there Col. Very light crowd, seemed to have your room to ourselves, wandered among the horses, 20C temperature made for a boomer with the win being the icing on the cake. Possibly back for the Metropolitan in a fortnight, have to use up some fly buys.

Well done Blue on the win ! And Mrs Cubes - best horse analyst in her house ;-)

Reckon Mrs Cubes should be make a guest appearance on "The First Call" for Cup week.

Racing always provides upsets. A bad ride, blocked for a run, interference causing loss of momentum, just a few ways even champions can get beat. Humidor gave her a big fright last year. I think that as the World’s best horse, she will win. However, I also think that this is her biggest test for a while. Just look what happened over the last 3 or 4 weeks with the Imports. The sprint is usually on from the 800m at The Valley, especially with the so called “450m false straight from the 800m to the 350m. The cambered turn is fantastic and you can bet that Benbatyl and Rostropovich and others will be full bore from the 800m and taking their chances on Winx not being able to run down the leaders. I’ve been at the Valley for about 18 Cox Plate runnings and the atmosphere is unreal! The best! I hope if Winx gets nutted that it’s Savvy Coup over the top for a last stride win. If a better racing man than Ray Coupland deserves to win and beat Winx, I can’t think of one more deserving- a thorough gentleman. Good luck to the kiwi connection - racing serves up some huge upsets, maybe SC will go down(up?) in history as the one to do it??

Good luck this weekend to Michael and all the connections...hope you can make it there and your mare does you proud.... http://media.skyracing.com.au/POD/57/LwBq0K.mp3

Sadly this situation carries on, more and more of the masses of low level punters like me will end up spending our punting dollar on Australian Racing, basically free up morning and early afternoon for other family activities and start our punting day at 3pm. I've started not looking too much at our racing more and more , I sadly find myself losing track of our racing especially while Aussie is absolutely enthralling Spring and Autumn. Hopefully somewhere along the line like Luke Radich wisely said on weigh in other week there's a middle ground from Messara report that can move racing forward here without crushing the people who have kept it going at the lower end .

The best harness shows coincide with Michael's absense.

Jesus, Ponderosa... you gave me a huge fright. I saw my brother's name in the Race Cafe postings and thought it was a Vale. Had he died ? I had just been on the phone to Lee last night giving him the usual brotherly advise. which was : Otaki Sunday 21 October 2018 a. Stick a nasal strip on One Prize No Goal, and teach the horse Te Rio..tell him about an Inter island Ferry called Aratiki that takes horses to Kelvin Tyler and Michael Pittman. b .Claim on Stradivarius at Otaki. from barrier 8 at 1600m .A wonderfully honest racing dynamo. c .Sorock . just line him up:: He wili get to open class . Lee is relocated and very happy.And very alive. Thank you Chris Wood for your lovely reply.