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It was also a vehicle for comment and discussion on topics relevant to the NZ Racing Industry WD.....an outlet for opinions to be expressed without the usual arse covering/kissing restraints most journalists/presenters labour under.... Ironically, that seems to be exactly the reason for its demise......criticism tends not to go down well.....

Of course Allen must go, he should have been sacked after the Race Fields Legislation debacle, would have saved the industry $50 million plus they have blown on the disastrous new platform. Also Gormless Glenda, she has been an absolute disgrace, she has the opposite of the Midas touch in that everything she touches turns to ...... It honestly doesn't matter what they do from now on, the new website is sooo bad all hope is lost. Sadly. There is no bright side, needed people with experience in the betting industry but 20 years ago not now.

The TAB are looking at charging people to use its app and website. As they have become aware that people are using the app and website form to punt on the TAB.

Leo What a croc! Adamson got the heave from Fletchers for obvious losses, Allen has proportionately generated bigger losses from a no competition monopoly. The guy got the flick by McCully after his fiasco at MFAT, and palmed him off to his ding dong cabinet mate from Foxton to look after Racing. Spare me, if you think he shouldn’t be given the heave for bad management, then you clearly know little about what happens in Wellington. NZRB paid $265K for the Best Bets masthead, check the Balance Sheet. News Media, owners of BB could not believe their luck. A form guide that was going down the drain and the NZRB paid the dough. The man at the centre of that is now a consultant to NZRB, there is your answer. J Allen has a history of failures in business, this will be yet another because he excessively spends money and creates turnover losses unprecedented by any monopoly business NZ has known.....and it is not his responsibility? Does this not sink in to your thinking? cheers John

Congrats to James McDonald on riding 100 Sydney Winners so far this season. He is the first jockey to achieve this since D. Beadman. 2006/2007 season.

Exactly. It is woeful.

Take today for instance Tony Pike and Nigel Tiley had winners at a midweek meeting one was a $50,000 dollar race and the other was for $25,000 ...OZ $$$$$...at the Sunshine Coast!!! Why wouldn't they not be looking to set up permanently over there....its a no brainer!!!!

Lee the non believers are going to still be non believers.flat earth society

U May Collect, I hope like fury he stays sound, and keeps on his winnin ways, and maybe just maybe hullo NZ Cup reckon the guns will have their work cutout, and at very least he could prove a fricken headache for em all, it's like right now he's runnin for the fun of it, come Nov they'll know he's in it for sure, fingers crossed for him.....to his connections, enjoy enjoy enjoy guys he's doin yuhs proud.... Cheers Iraklis

I might be going against all of the prevailing sentiment on here, and I don't mean to offend anyone by any means, but what was so special about the Informant? As I live in the countryside I have never actually seen a copy, so I may well be missing something. I get all of my form online, which is where I presume most serious punters access their form these days. In the days before computers I used to rush out religiously to buy the Friday Flash as soon as it came out, and read all of the trackwork, form and editorial content, but surely these days things have moved on from that style of publication, especially in NZ with such a small market and crippling production and distribution costs.. In an ideal world this website right here could perhaps carry more editorial and information content. I quite enjoy the snippets currently carried in the news section. With some of the "train wreck" threads recently there is a danger of losing some of the die hard racing contributors, so I think a mix with more editorial content would work well and keep this site even more relevant. Do people miss the Informant because it caters to the needs of serious punters, because it might somehow attract new punters who see it in a shop, or because it retains older punters who don't have access to a computer? I must admit I do very little betting in NZ these days, and one of the main reasons for that is the lack of trackwork, which from some centres was always very valuable information.

Some couldn't wait NTB(that's not no to brains) Gazza who is very silly and must live in WA. and Taku. This segment was done to dispel the inane stories about ACS. I look forward to reading the posts after box seat.

I see these members of another site going to town...FU Des from Browns Bay, and Hunterthepunter...Peter Boag about the AS team website and blood spinning...they seem so consumed with the AS team...sad really. They love to hide behind the keyboard i believe. They also seem keen to throw the dirt around but seem not to be able to take when its directed at them...funny that.

Would like to know peoples thoughts on the hospitality prices for Jewels day. I was told last week that Spectators is $125 pp which only includes entry and some food! Last year I was in the Clubhouse Bar at Cambridge and the package was $100 including beer and wine and food. I have come to think Addington Raceway is very greedy and it is a rip off so I wont be going at this stage. As a side note the beer prices at Addington in spectators are a disgrace too. $16 for a jug!!! that is one place I wont be having a beer in! Regards AC (first time poster on this forum)

The term "preaching to he converted" comes to mind! Were they actually filming a new sales video for the company website?

HRNZ have commissioned an independent report in to this treatment. Hopefully the report's investigators will explore why the process is banned Europe. As noted, a fundamental of journalism is to present both sides of the fence and differing opinions. Not the case here - merely a interview with the All Stars' current and previous vet and the companies' owner, who is an All Stars owner. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with the treatment, I am no scientist, but the tv pieces were cunningly one-sided. Was GOC ever going to put anything on the show that drew criticism towards the All Stars? no, no he was not.

then one wonders if these decisions made by the NZRB are political and are done as to close racing down completely!

We should've been all over this today Swoopy!

Kool Rusty mate, tah fricken heaps for that Cheers Iraklis

Not many horses unraced as juveniles win Derby , not sure numbers who have ..Likes of Oath and Golden Horn had blow outs in backend maidens and got run under belt .Ballydoyle had Ruler of World in 2013 maiden win, Chester Vase then Derby , 2019 Sir Dragonet maiden win , Chester Vase maybe Derby ?. With Persian King looking dominant in France maybe they go all in and attack Epsom with even bigger numbers this year.

Personally Huey,I think he is a very exciting prospect.Ballydoyle have used Chester over the years as one of their lead up races for Epsom.Winners and placegetters in the Vase have feared well enough in The Derby but the Dante is the usual yard stick. By all accounts(and this shows in the odds for each start)he was and is still pretty green and hadn't shown much on the gallop at Ballydoyle.He still needs to be supplemented for The Derby and am guessing that decision won't be made until after the Dante on Thursday. I think they (Ballydoyle)have 3 or 4 strong contenders ,I'm still not convinced the fav will get to The Derby,it will be interesting to see how the Gosden runner pulls up after the Dante.Outside the Ballydoyle runners,I only see 3 other runners with chances

Oh bugga it! I loved their site it was informative, and at least I knew where to go to if I wanted to get my dose of AllStars guns racin and the photos of their AllStar racers were bloody magic.....mind you I don't blame em given the amount of rubbish they get from those naysayers etc.....NUTS!!!! Cheers Iraklis

Ms Ardern says she may consider blocking Facebook should it be used to stream extremist views. What was the beheadings of hostages shown on.That was actually on the MSM,not a peep out of her then.

Totally agree. It was done with Frankel in depth with the racetrack ratings of each mare and it has now showed he has not done as well as his initial start.

You'd have to say he is struggling though Berri, is it one Stakeswinner all season? for a stallion that had the start and stood at the fee he has it'd be a helluva risk to send a mare to him. His 3yos don't appear to have done a lot either this season and there hasn't been any standouts despite the supposed better mares.

Mz Ardern says that she is bewildered by US gun laws. Just add that to CGT,student loans and how to build houses that she is bewildered with.Many other things to be added to that list.

That will leave the peanuts for us battlers trying to win a race or to.

Am curious if one should look at the quality of mares a stallion is mated to, when trying to access a stallions performance?

WHY the silence from the board. If it was a listed company they would be required to make a statement and if they expect or can see benefits starting to accrue from the new platform why can't they say so.

It truly is sad when at the touted meetings with John Allen last week he was indignant that the Informant would reappear and would be supported by the industry ! Pfft !! More lies !! RIP

NZRB/TAB over time have made one major mistake. Ignored their client base. Rule 101 in sales. Sure online investing was/is the future but never forget the loyal customer. Now they have options. Should we blame the CEO, yes but not just the current but previous 2 or 3.

Watch part 2 box seat Wed.

MS and the Board at the time got told by the techs very early on that Typhoon would not integrate with Jetbet, but they still preceded. Much like the Triple Trio disaster, CEO’s without racing knowledge seem to like spending money that isn’t their own, and everyone suffers. Greyhounds are just pokies on legs, they are ideal for fulfilling the needs of the addicted gambler. And agree with you both, it’s a hard ship to turnaround, seems to be to far gone because of the ineptitude of the at the top. Sunset industry? Well, they have the right team, they’ve all come from NZ Post.

Believe me, I know about horses. Horses have been all around me for a long time now, they are great, they are brilliant, they are truly the best animal to carry a jockey around a racetrack. What I have done for horses is truly amazing. Alot of people are saying they wanted me to go on the RITA board. That's what people are saying. That's what I have heard. On two occasions I heard it myself. It's true. Very true. And y'know. I considered it. Yeah I considered it. I did. The phonies that run racing at the moment are not doing a good job. In fact they are doing a very bad job. They shouldn't have a job. And y'know what I would say if I did go on that RITA board... You're fired! Let's make racing great again.

hahahaha

Hi Leo I am not going to inflate the fire by annoying you with detail, but......whilst I share some similar concerns with NZTR, the industry is a bulk funded platform as per the 2003 Act. So each code gets their apportioned share of the available spare from the NZRB to operate their business. Your ex mate from the Eastern suburbs spent $22 mil on Typhoon that was chucked in the tip. At 14.5% of turnover, work out the numbers as to the turnover that fired against the porcelain. J Allen has no idea of the value of a dollar. J Allen is an flee economically. Sold the granite, the purpose built Perone building, and drained the $20 mil of reserves he had when he took up the role. The guy has absolutely no idea what he is doing running a business. He never has run a successful business. Whilst verbose and interesting to listen to, he is humorous as he no knowledge of what he is talking about. He has spent the borrowed $25 mil and RITA get the hospital pass to extend the credit line. He is responsible, no question. You have been there with regards spend versus debt and you have learned, this codger has not learned a skerret from his underwhelming performances at NZ Post or MFAT and we, the industry, are paying the price. Unless the credit line is extended from August 1st, with turnover dropping as a result of an inferior website performance, the thoroughbred distribution to NZTR to operate the code drops dramatically and so racing has a reduction both in stakes and horse volume. They are all interconnected as a result of a CEO not knowing what the hell he is doing, on any front!! Turnover drives any industry, yours, mine and racing, when it drops so does the scope of that business performance within any industry. Pure economics 101 my friend. Cheers John

That comment was about the new kid on the block Wild West. He has "excitement machine" written all over him too. Apparently some big offers were on the table well before he raced. I'd imagine they'll be in a bidding frenzy after the weekends performance! As for U May Collect, don't worry about him being hard to sell. He simply isn't for sale!

Right so big boys don't need to get personal. So the question is .. How much do John Allens symptoms of spending at a bar for himself or employees cause opinions of the bar owner ???

sorry iraklis .dont know how that got there,theres no edit so i will ask scobby to delete or shift under my name

Not sure if you are in jest, I hope so If not how is it pointless, I would have thought every victory anywhere by any horse is worth cheering for by the connections. In this case the more wins UMC has the quicker he goes thru the grades the sooner he can take on the best at Adders Hardly pointless in fact the opposite.

Website has been down since Thursday evening... hopefully it gets renewed as it is/was a good source of free information. For all the All Stars haters out there; the blue army do, or at least did, an excellent job on their website, with updates on their horses, plans for upcoming features and also sharing Nat's, Mark's and Tim's thoughts on their charges. No Purdon website, TAB and HRNZ websites, both worse than useless, no informant, the nails keep going in to the coffin.

Welcome to the discussion Lee. I must say I'm a tad disappointed in your response. I expected you come out strongly in defense of ACS and tell us what a great breakthrough it is in animal welfare. But no, not even a denial that it's just another pain killing anti-inflammatory treatment, albeit one that won't as yet trigger an irregularity. Instead you play the age old "you must be an All Stars hater" card, although I must commend you on the introduction of the term "All Stars Derangement Syndrome" which at least brings something slightly less boring to the debate. Appreciate if you could point out where I singled out the All Stars for any special mention, or even alluded to them. It's not surprising that you should try and re-focus attention on to my identity or the so called All Stars haters. After all, anything is better than opening the controversial ACS treatment up to public scrutiny isn't it? Kudos on the Box Seat "expose". You'd have to be pleased with that as a PR exercise. The average punter eg Iraklis, watched it and still had no idea afterwards that ACS is even a pain killing anti-inflammatory treatment. By the way, would be interested to hear ... 1. What legitimate ie. non-performance enhancing, reason could a trainer have for giving a horse this treatment in the days leading up to a race? 2. If there is no reason, or it "doesn't happen", then why should ACS not have a significant withholding period as do other pain killing anti-inflammatory treatments.

I see in Bernard's blog on NZTR he reports on the Hawkes Bay conversation highlighting the move to digital with the reduction in on course and phonebetting as a % of the total. No mention what the overall trends are and the impact of the FOB platform generally. Phonebet has gone from 8.9 % 3.4 % . On course from 2.8 % to 1.8 % Floating these sort of stats around in isolation is dangerous. Surely a proper analysis of the total trends and impacts of the new platform and phonebet systems would be more helpful.

My pleasure to give you my thoughts on racing here in the US. You already know how I feel about DQ rules. Because of my worldwide travels, I think we could learn a lot concerning how racing is conducted around the world. Santa Anita - Maybe they were damn unlucky. They worked and re-worked the tracks. They have some of the best out there. Lots thought that the foundation was never addressed when they removed the polytrack a few years ago and that may have been the problem when they had an excessive amount of rain this past winter. Now that the rains have let up, they haven't quite had the problem/deaths they were having. Drug Rules - I wish we followed the rest of the world's standard. Get rid of race day meds, re. Lasix. I had a horse (stakes winner) ran better without it. The sport did fine before it was permitted. Track closures - We haven't had many, mostly the smaller venues/fair track. We lost the two in South Dakota due to their state funding. The stink of that is that their government "stole" around 2 million dollars (I think it was in the early 2000's). Now when the are struggling a bit, they don't want to support racing. Lots of good local people/volunteers at the local level trying to effect change and re-boot in 2020. We will lose Suffolk Downs (Boston) after this year due to commercial development (Avondale watch out-residential), but there is talk that one of their defunct tracks, Great Barrington Fair, is considering renovation and will pick up their dates. We lost racing in Portland Meadows earlier in the year for commercial redevelopment, but another Oregon track, Grants Pass, is looking to pick up their dates and there is talk of building a replacement just outside Portland. We lost Hazel Park (Detroit), last year, but racing in Michigan just isn't well supported. They had a number of closures (Great Lakes Downs, Mount Pleasant Meadows, and Pinnacle) over the past ten years or so. But we got one back this year in Arizona. Yavapai Downs is re-opening/re-branded as Arizona Downs in the Prescott Valley (lovely little place). The really good news is that none of our "major" tracks haven't closed lately, less Hollywood Park a few years ago. With the Preakness running a week from Saturday, you may here that Pimlico (Baltimore) should be closed and the race moved to Laurel (midway between Baltimore and Washington DC). I've been to Pimlico (ran there a couple of times) and yes, it's in "the hood" and is in drastic need of investment to improve the grounds/stands, but Pimlico (to me) is a national treasure. It was built in another time and has so much history attached to it. I hope the powers that be in Maryland will do what's necessary to keep it in place. Racinos - I think they are great! The track that I "cut my racing teeth on", Penn National (Pennsylvania) is a now a racino (I now make my home in Orlando, Florida). Racing was in great shape before state and national lotteries; and other stand-alone casinos came on line around the mid-1980s. Racinos have kept so many tracks afloat/succeed. For me, it was a way to level the field when the revenue that was going into racing was taken from them by other forms of legalized gambling. The states that were willing to work with the racing industry, by placing a full-service casino/slots/card room, and funneling a percentage of profits back to racing are either doing alright or thriving. This is one model that the rest of world could model from the US. Co-Mingling of National Pari-Mutual Wagering Pools - I know you didn't ask about this, but I am compelled to offer you my thoughts on it. I LOVE racing in the UK, Ireland, France, Australia, and of course, New Zealand. The problem is that I cannot wager directly into their national Tote/PMU/TAB pools. When I bet on races in these countries here, my bets go to a wagering hub (I think it is located at Woodbine/Canada) and these pools are small and sometimes not worth betting in to. Many people here in the US are turning to punting on racing in Hong Kong because they allow us to wager directly into their pools, which day-to-day, are the biggest in the world. Top Meetings - It seems they are doing as well as ever. Probably the biggest success story is Oaklawn (Arkansas). For their location, the purse structure is on steroids. The triple crown races and preps; the graded races and Breeders Cup are doing well; though the TC and BC only get national network television coverage. World's Best Tracks - Yes, we have some of the best and when I say this you might think "this guy is full of ****". I've been racing in 17 countries (to correct what I wrote in my first post) and have visited 376 thoroughbred racecourses/12 in New Zealand (I was in/am retired from the US Navy, living in Scotland, Australia, and Belgium; tried really hard to get posted in Christchurch when we had a unit there) and I've seen many of the best in world, less UAE, Hong Kong, and Japan (though I know there are still a few out there in countries that I have visited, example Ellerslie, Flemington). In the US, I would put these at the top of my list: 1) Del Mar, So. Cal, 2) Arlington Park, Chicago, 3) Saratoga, New York, 4) Santa Anita, So Cal, and 5) Keeneland, Kentucky. These would easily fall into my top 5% of racecourses visited. Racing in New Zealand - I made a long overdue visit in Feb/Mar 2018. My visit was awesome and my hosts are each racecourse extended exemplary hospitality (much better than I get here at home). I even had a look at Taupo and Thames, who were not racing. Sad to hear that Thames will be closing. For me, it is disgusting decision, lovely little track and town. My favorite was Te Aroha, but I greatly enjoyed my visit at each of the other 11. Can't wait to get back there. Someday, I will get around to write a post concerning my visit and the track closure decision there that was announced a few months ago. Crikey, that got long, but I hope you will find my response interesting and illuminating.

But you will continue to morph into another name to go along with your many others and abuse the privilege elsewhere. Joe Kidd being the latest on the sewer site For those of you who wanted to know what happened to this character

And it’s not Ted. Sadly it’s official. The current owner (Matthew Frances) has definitely pulled the pin so unless someone else picks it up it’s gone. I am gutted along with many others.

Someones telling Porkies.

I offered to invest...they never even bothered to call back...so how serious were they really.???

I am now reliably informed that The Informant is no longer and won't be published again. Yesterday all those employed with The Informant were told that they are no longer employed. Not good and a sad indictment of where things are at present in the industry.

The Informant. Sad as the Best bets is a disgrace to the industry. Tried it for a couple of weeks but gave up. Now spend less so more money in my pocket and less in TAB.