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And the rules are different for the 3 codes. Someone spits on the track and thoroughbreds are scratched. A shower of rain, a horse slips on a bend and a gallops meeting is canceled. Track to firm, horse scratched because of potential jarring. We go out in torrential rain and are expected to do so. Thunder and lightning no problem. Example: A dog carded to race may have had a past injury that could be aggravated by a track surface that has been compromised by unexpected adverse weather conditions. Can the dog be scratched on welfare grounds without penalty, no? Why the double standards? Why is the welfare of a dog treated differently? The trainer knows their hounds intimately, if they have welfare concerns then they should be taken seriously.

Sounds to me to be a bit like the internet, initially a fantastic system which revolutionised communication and then problems started such as viruses and hackers which now makes it a potentially dangerous place to be. Who operates this system and what access to information does the controller and the users have. Is information confidential to the horse owners or is it accessible to any one. Who is able to add information and what controls are there on the accuracy of data added?

The great open and transparent government by Christie Photoshopped image credit: Luke *Satire. What a fabulous first year for the country’s first ever Open and Transparent Government. I trust that no one will ever want to go back to a government being closed and opaque again! As it is that time of year, let us recap on all the achievements of this wonderful open government, so that we can congratulate ourselves on how fabulous it has all been! Labour Youth Camp Honestly, I’ll never understand what all the fuss was about. So a few teenagers got pissed and started fooling around with each other. It has happened at every youth camp I’ve ever been on – nothing unusual at all. Obviously, we had to make it go away by setting up an inquiry and advising one or two people to look for alternative employment. Then, when the report came out, it accidentally went through the shredder. No big deal. Honestly, people get worked up about nothing these days. Photoshopped image credit: Luke Oil and Gas I really don’t know why anyone was worried about the destruction of the oil and gas industries when everyone knows that we will all survive perfectly well on solar and wind power. I mean, power will basically be free in Wellington with all the wind power generated there. Anyway, Jacinda needed to impress her new friends, Justin in Canada and Emmanuel in Europe. Why did everyone complain about the submissions process being cut down so drastically? Everyone knows that when Jacinda makes a ‘captain’s call’, nothing is going to stop it. Why waste everyone’s time? Photoshopped image credit: Pixy Clare Curran Clare was the actual Minister of Open and Transparent Government, and what a minister she turned out to be! Okay, so she may have forgotten to write down in her diary a few meetings with important people, such as Carol Hirschfeld, but hey – ministers are busy, you know. And then, when the silly opposition insisted on the release of documents pertaining to the meetings, her secretary had to get the black felt pens out. Honestly, this government’s stationary bill is quite extraordinary! Photoshopped image credit: Pixy Derek Handley We created a special job for Jacinda’s friend, Derek, who wanted to come back to New Zealand, but someone found out about it and we had to make it look as if it was all above board. Jacinda was asked some difficult questions and had to talk really fast to avoid them. It was a good job she had the baby to fall back on. Journalists are all very clucky people, it seems! Anyway, Jacinda decided that she didn’t want to employ Derek after all, and he was paid out some compensation. I think he would have been great in the role – after all, he has only been responsible for two companies going to the wall, and neither of those was his fault. Meka Waitiri Gosh, this was a tough one. Jacinda didn’t want to fire her, of course, and had to set up an enquiry into her behaviour to dampen down the media interest. Trouble was, the report came out too soon, and Jacinda had no choice. Shame about that one. Meka was a really good minister, and very skilled at handling workplace conflict. Meka cracking Photoshopped image credit: Luke Iain Lees-Galloway The way the opposition expects you to keep firing ministers is shameful. We’ll have no one left at this rate, except the ‘silver fox’ Kelvin Davis. (Wasn’t that a smart move on Jacinda’s part to come up with something to award him for?). Anyway, Iain Lees-Galloway did nothing wrong when he gave Karel Sroubek residency, even if he is a drug dealer. He just did what Jacinda told him, and he can’t be fired for that. Photoshopped image credit: Boondecker Richie Hardcore Richie is Clarke’s dearest friend and they apparently do some business together. It is totally wrong to say that Richie tried to influence Jacinda over the Karel Sroubek decision. She had already told him she would take care of it, so obviously he had no need to text her about that. The opposition really do make mountains out of molehills, don’t they? Anyone would think that this is as bad as Judith Collins drinking a glass of milk, or something. It really bothers me when the opposition ask so many questions. It becomes quite tedious. Honestly, anyone would think they had nothing better to do than to try to catch out the government! Wally Haumaha Poor Wally. Another friend of Jacinda and she trusted him to do a great job in the police. Okay, he can be a bit intimidating at times, but he’s a pussycat really. Jacinda was right to stand by him and let him keep his job. He is a friend of NZ First MPs after all. Anyway, if someone can’t put up with a bit of humiliation when Wally is having a bad day, they should go and look for another job. Snowflakes. UN Migration compact The world is full of lovely people who are just dying to come and live here. I don’t know why everyone is so worried. We need to find people to put into all the Kiwibuild houses that are not being sold, and so migrants off boats will be perfect for that. I have no idea why so many people seem to think that we should have discussed the signing of the compact with the public. There was no need to do that, but as a result, we had to pretend that we hadn’t made up our minds yet. Nothing to see here, folks. We were open and transparent in the end after it had been signed for over a week… Coalition agreement Someone mentioned the Coalition agreement the other day. I thought we had long buried that. We told everyone that there were problems with the font. Did we really say we would share it with the public? Oh yes, I think we did. No problem though. We could share it with the public anytime. Three dozen Sharpies went into that document. That was what caused the national shortage of black felt pens late last year. Well, what a great year it was! Can’t wait for 2019 to see how much more stuff we can bury, on the grounds of it not being ‘in the public interest’. I am really not sure who decides what is in the public interest and what is not, but it sounds like a great excuse to me. I expect it is Winston who makes those decisions. He certainly seems to make all the others. But then, so he should. He’s been in politics a very long time, and anyone with that level of experience must have got something right. At some point…

Common sense decision made regarding the Otago scratching fiasco. Animal welfare activists would have had a field day should the ban be enforced. Unreal to think the four trainers had to prove that the safety of dog was important to them.

People in charge don't know what they are doing. They make rules up as they go along. If a dog is down 1.8kg and the trainer believes the dog should not have lost that weight, than clealy something is not right.