Leaderboard

IMO horses that retire sound & have a good nature deserve a life after racing. Champions like Christen Me are in a different league in that they've earned their retirement. I always slow down past a large paddock in West Melton to catch a glimpse of the occupants. Lyell Creek, Take a Moment, can't recall the others - such a great sight to see these old warriors happy and obviously very well cared for.

Mr. Gary Woodham - the answer here is obvious. If your TAB had better service and products than the opposition you would have nothing to worry about!

This letter is pure bully tactics (do they think they are the mafia) and not in the best interest of nzracing. They wasted $50K suing Morton and now this. NZ racing needs to compete not worry about others. This website is also no a co.nz address, so they have no jurisdiction over this. NZ racing wants overseas people to use the nz TAB but not let it go the other way. This is crazy. Also people make like this alternative website, and therefore be following nzracing more and punting more. This letter is beggars belief. GET WITH THE TIMES NZRACING. If I deposit $100 in my bet365 account, I get best odds guaranteed. If I somehow manage to win, I hit withdraw and it is back in my bank account. If I deposit $100 in my nz TAB account they charge me $2.15 admin fee to do it. If I somehow manage to win I must get in a car drive to the TAB and withdraw it.

How do you know that Christen Me will not be treated well in the U.S.? You are all making wild assumptions about the fate of the horse. In my opinion, he will be better looked after in the U.S. than he is now. In the States each horse has a personal groom to tend to them. Also as they race over a mile in the U.S. the training and racing regime will also be easier on the horse.

To be fair,if those changes hadn't been made with NZ Post we would now be comparing NZ Post to the 1980s version of NZ Rail which was a shocker at losing money.NZ Post was a good company,problem was they couldn't predict the world wide drop off in mail just as most countries didn't.

So Gary Woodman, a man who's made a career out of larging it up at the industry's expense, has now decided he's going to appoint himself the industry bully, when he can drag himself away from the crayfish, Bluff oysters, port and Stilton. I doubt you'll get any sympathy here Gary because unlike you we actually work for a living and without us you ( or all your "friends and family" ) wouldn't have a job. Enjoy the Lions and your three tables at $15,000 a pop, you lucky bastard. I doubt any hard working racing people will get to see the Lions play live, and if they do it'll be in the cheap seats, not at some flash box with hot and cold running champagne and a silver lined pig's trough. Give yourself an uppercut Gary, you're a disgrace and you behave like a right cock. BTW I penned the reply below to you, but you knew that.

And that is why so many horses in States can race until they 9 or 10.They look after them so much better than anywhere else in the world.

It amazes me that a few anonymous individuals think they have the right to decide whether a slower dog should be allowed to race or not. As above the welfare reforms in Australia are expanding all the time to assist with the problem of "wastage". Yes most of us would like to have C5 dogs but there are many owners out there that are just happy to have a dog going around. The problem is not slow dogs but the result of several rule changes and practices over recent years that have all added to the accumulated result of a clogged up C1 grade. I don't have a problem with the two wins in class one, if all the other problems were removed. It used to work. The changes, or going back to what worked before, that I would like to see includes: 1. Revert to the 4 misses to downgrade. 2. No downgrade below C2, and/or no dog can downgrade more than 2 grades below it,s highest grade achieved. 3. Remove the "running out noms" rule, except obviously when qualifying for a final. This was brought in with TAB betting to prevent small fields. With to days nomination system I doubt that the reserves would not cover dogs being scratched and less dogs would be double and triple nominated anyway. 4. The Assn revert to the "every race is a race" interpretation for the regrading/downgrading rules and drop this "series" rubbish. The only correct application of their theory would be that heats (being weaker) don't count with the final only being regraded. 5. The Assn have a close look at the "Penalty Free" situation and the number of so called races some clubs card. 6. Increase the number of lowgrade meetings held at least until the situation resolves it's self. I hope some of the owners/trainers out there can add some constructive comments to my thoughts, and be brave enough to sign their real name.

Should we be calling for Mr Foskett, Casper - where is he while we are having theses abandonments and why is he still employed, isn't it his job to make sure our tracks are up to scratch and what of all these reports that have been called for?

Will do Pete. If we keep playing like we are, we can beat anybody.......

good on you for sticking up for this bloke, however this response did you actually send this? The silly thing here and as admin has pointed out, the domain is not co.nz, however I believe you can still set a domain as .com even if you are a New Zealand website/company (stand corrected) however agree with Shane's point. TAB are dogs to deal with, crap odds, getting your money back is a pain in the arse, and quality of information is substandard compared to its overseas competitors

Well said. Strange as it may seem, and it does go against most logic, but one of the strengths of NZ racing is our range of diverse regional tracks.

Once again the reducing the tracks crowd crow on about this like its the silver bullet that will save nz racing? How exactly does reducing the number of tracks in this country make racing any better? Unless you mean sell up assets that are owned by communities , run ,operated and paid for by communities and then give those powers that be the sales proceeds to build a flash new track ? Is that what you mean? Why would anyone in their right mind trust those that are running nz racing with sales proceeds to be able to do an effective job of this anyway? If thats what you mean? You'll have less racing in this country that there currently is if you reduce the number of tracks, what needs to happen imho in NZ is there needs to be better more effective use of existing assets like the tracks and not the total bias that has existed here for the past 30 years in favoring certain tracks/clubs, that's where someone needs to stand up and make the tough calls on!

Well how come the Matamata track was so good just two days earlier. They beat 1m 25secs for 1400 metres. These excuses for Te Aroha have the same sound as a party political broadcast. They are full of excrement.

Like Purdon and Roberts need the money....he has won them over $2.5m but it was "a tough decision to let him go"...?? No, it wasn't. They couldn't be arsed looking after him so flogged him off for the Yanks to drain him dry. The horse deserved a bit more respect....

A lot of mistakes made in this case. He should never have put himself in this position in the first place Midge Snr. End of story - albeit a sad one

Gordy, were you not "brave enough to put your real name"

Sorry, I missed that. Did you say something??

Suann conveniently and mischievously used a bottle of OTC multi vitamins as his example, Brennan was using compounded prescription vitamins.......they're a gulf apart

leggy i see you worked it to be about $50 a drip but as stated by the nsw vet, Racing NSW chief veterinarian, Dr Craig Suann, told the Sam Kavanagh hearing a typical bottle of injectable vitamins would normally cost $20 or less." far call from $3000

Why don't you sit down and read the decision before you shoot off again CT. There is absolutely no evidence that Kav paid anyone anything, aside from the incredible testimony of Brennan. No bank transfers, no withdrawals, no nothing. The trainers didn't get caught doing anything wrong either. Where do you come up with so much rubbish. You should stick to what you are good at and that's stopping odds on certainties.

Strong mail is Joao Moirera will be the new stable rider for Godolphin from this Spring. J Mac will be kicking himself for his err of judgement but I'm sure he'll be back. Still very young and talented. Jimmy came back a lot older than he was and won a Cox Plate and Melbourne Cup. No reason why he can't do similar.

Every cloud has a silver lining,can't wait to see what he does on the rebound

The science of performance ehancing substances is an evolving one for both equine and human. Just ask Lance Armstrong or Maria Sharapova. In my opinion if I pay a trainer to train my horse and the horse is detected to have illegal levels of cobalt in it's system, then this is the responsibility of the trainer. I don't pay a vet to train my horse. I pay a trainer who organises a vet and is responsible for every aspect associated with getting the horse onto the racetrack or am I missing something here? Short stuff (a qualified vet who could directly be affected by this ruling in future) and his clueless lap dog Newmarket beg to differ but only when it suits their particular cause. They are clearly in the minority though and rightly so.

And why do many of us have to put up with your constant abuse? Sometimes it may be witty and entertainment for some but for others its just plain vicious and devious. You talk about nutters but what can be so nutty as setting up an abuse factory. (Edited) What person in their right mind would persist in this absurd charade for as you have admitted "I get amusement out of doing it". Surely there is better things to do. We don't have the finances to take you to court and then you don't care you've got....(edited)

I think you are right along with the courier delivery. The mail branch was always too labour intensive so was never going to make money. Good company to work for with good working conditions and an above average pay .Trouble was a lot of the workers were below average workers.

So with that opinion ,what would you say about the Deans who sold Cardigan Bay to the States ? He was great before he went there so why wouldn't you be "loyal" and keep him at home. I could name others. You have already condemned the poor horse to a fate worse than death without any evidence to the contrary. That's my opinion.

I saw John Allan in the weekend and he appeared to be walking with a limp - so much so i thought it was Herr Flick!

before NZRB he was at NZ Post - “Gary Woodham heads a division tasked with making sure New Zealand Post Group is delivering the products and services that people want. sounds like his role there was making sure the posties put the right mail in the right letterbox

Varro, you are correct re having a .com website from nz. However this .com website is Australian based. The recipient of this letter was also asked could he give some of his hard work to nzracing for free as they would like to use. He said no obviously as thought a minimum reimbursement should be entitled. And now they do this and behave like a bully!! It is amazing that the government spend millions on anti bulling campaigns and they let they own department behave like this. Beggars belief.

The recipient of the letter is well connected. He should return serve by contacting a good investigative journalist and ask them to look at exactly how many NZRB employees are "friends & family" of Gary Woodhams. There's a story there, and I can help out with names and numbers. All my immaculate sources say this Gary Woodham bloke treats the NZRB as though he owns it, and that allegedly includes how he spends our money and who he surrounds himself with by way of employee. Where's the RIU when you need them and there's a real rort going on ?

Two good classic stallions - Makfi & Mastercraftsman. Shame they will be no longer coming here.

You are right there Swoops, the Championship is a bloody tough league, and arguably a more interesting one than the Prem. Very good win by our boys at Fulham, Lambert is slowly getting it right. Next season we will have a real go once a few injured players come back and we get a few more experienced lads in. We shouldn't be so far down the table - beating Stoke and Liverpool and giving Chelsea a game showed that. Consistency the name of the game in this division and Newcastle ( who we also beat up there ) and Brighton have been the best. You have to come to our place Friday April 14th.....

Why are they Greedy.Just because they make the most of earning out of the horse what they can..Its only a horse ,no reason it should be treated any different to a maiden that will never win a race or do you think people should be treated differently as well,sorted by classes.

The current board are incompetent. They need to resign. I will elaborate later.

I would put it a bit different than being a bit quiet!, he has been awful so far. 48 so far to race for only 11 winners and 1 stakeswinner, has nearly been a month since he has had a winner anywhere. Family got a nice pedigree update on the weekend though with his half sister winning the G3 Cuddle Stakes.

Might last a week (provided it is in the height of summer that is - forget about it if it is between April and November esp in the north) I think Mr Big Stuff might need to be renamed Mr Good Stuff cos it sounds like that is what he is on. The difference between Hong Kong and here is simple - population. If we have 1% of our population interested in racing it is 42,000 people. If Hong Kong or Singapore do it is a million or more. Simple maths with a small dose of economics

Interesting discussion, and HK racing is great, but do people really think NZ racing would boom if we were to suddenly reduce down to three tracks; probably Ellerslie, Trentham and Riccarton?

Where is the idoit pogo now bagging kiwi 3 yo slugs,n0? boris and I have barred monte Carlos and only serve ginger nuts nz dose it again

Hi Ohokaman as was the case in the past you make perfect sense . The difference between a poor horse here with a sale perhaps of 3 to 10000 dollars is that you have lost money andasale will pos, keep your marriage together. However with certain horses eg. Cardigan Bay,Young Quinn,Terror To Love, Christen Me to see them brought down after stellar careers worth millions is simply heartbreaking.we recently found a good retirement for Branch Rickey at some cost because we thought he deserved it and he only struggled to get25000 dollars.A friend has two old horses in their 20s nearby and he still feeds them oats as they were reasonable earners and he believed in a good retirement. If Christen Me cant be respected it is a dismal state of affairs. shame on the 2 owners.

Just stunning to watch. As someone said the fact she takes on all comers on all tracks is very special.

I'm going to stick my neck out and say she's the best I've seen race. That includes Might & Power, Sunline, Lonhro, So You Think and Black Caviar who I all saw on track in the flesh. 4 Group ones away from equalling Black Caviar's record of 15.

Rough habit went alright on all surfaces.

She was absolutely sensational again. Amazingly, yet another mare, Sunline, Black Caviar and now Winx.

She is amazing. I can say what would my dad would have said: 'they couldn't blow wind up her arse love" That was my dad!!! and true!!

Hard luck today Gordy close match Good luck next week and at least you have your Joker up your sleeve I doubt you will even need it see you in the finals Team Chiefs nice scoring today Cat Ghost Jack 300 plus Semi final spot secured sit back and relax NO training this week

Hi everyone, this topic makes me sad and angry. lets not jazz this up .This a disgrace to the Industry. There are 2.47 million reasons why a good retirement was due an outstanding icon. A few extra dollars to race in the USA lets down all of us. I think he should have been able to retire with dignity and not be subject to the worn out excuse (he loves racing and would hate just being in a paddock !111)I am sure The trainer could have found a spot for him and he could even put in guest appearances at various Clubs etc. .The 2 owners bare full responsibility

My moral compass must be a little awry. I know there are rules in place but betting on your own mount - I really don't have a problem with that. Let them bet through a/cs which they can monitor.

I think D Oliver should have been given a 10 year ban minimum. His ban was even a joke, they wanted till after the cup before suspending him and ensured he would be back for the following cup. J McDonald was stupid that he let himself get caught. As a punter myself I do find it hard to believe he only ever had one bet.....however in my opinion he has conducted himself brilliantly through this whole caper. Not once have I heard "poor me, its not fair". Well done James.

It would be one of the worst decisions in racing I've seen for a long time. I don't care what the rule states. The circumstances are such that it's not really a big deal if a deal at all. The severity of the punishment totally outweighs the crime. Oliver should've got life under the old rules, what would he get under the new ones? death by firing squad? There has always been that underlying theory that the Stewards love Oliver however. If they don't want jockeys betting on horses, then they should amend the rule from a mandatory 2 year ban. Too a rule where a sufficient ban is handed down determined by the circumstances. That way there can be a bit of wriggle room for situations like this. It's just a farce at the moment.