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It says a lot for her tenacity and overall character/spirit to come back from that horrendous fall and horrendous spinal injuries. Not many do with spinal injuries like she had. Champion effort from her and I wish her best with her life whatever that holds. I also hope she decides not to race ride again (as that must be a temptation for one with such a strong and competitive nature as Maija) as the exponential risks to her future, associated with a secondary fall, don't bear thinking about. All the best Maija. I am hoping we may see this amazing young lady training horses one day as Mum and Dad are dab hands at it.

I still remember Alexander Fieldes and his effort to pronounce "Titian".....ended up as Titty Anne.

No I think he has personal issues ...lets let him have the time to sort those out rather than speculating...I wish him well and hope he gets back riding shortly.

Please .... No more talk of all weather tracks for gallops. Turf is best. Only excepts are Picnics Beach Races occasionally. Riccarton wasted $ on a wood.bark chip training track years ago. Now they have a track where there is a coarse base done by a roadworks company who sold off all the top soil. The grass on the surface does not have great roots going down, so is very hard. Horses now jar up racing on this road like surface. Look at the numbers racing on it today.

This is the sort of shit Trump and his cronies come up with on a daily basis......this prick couldn’t lie straight in bed.... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51730185

Great day at the Te Teko Trials yesterday. Track had been well watered and presented a great surface. First trial was delayed because a patron was stung by a wasp and had to be ferried to Whakatane Hospital. Luckily the club had two ambulances on course. A group of about 20 Canadians were on course and an enterprising club official organised the equivalent of the old time equalisator for them. Good to see a bit of opposition to the TAB! Another official located nine wasp nests in the public stand and fumigated them! A new on course experience for me! Hoofnote : The two horses I have shares in both won. All power to these small clubs like Te Teko!

Hi Ponderosa I remember the owner took the horse home and had it in his back yard and was going to train it himself .Which was a great idea except he didn't have a clue what was the front of a horse from the back .He had a big party to celebrate his new vocation as a trainer and the beer flowed which was great, But the trainer had put in a complaint and the racing bosses banned him for 10 years or something like that .He moved to Brisbane and actually trained a few horses over there . He was a great bloke and we had a lot of laughs loved those times Cheers BH

At TeTeko years ago it was a wet Sunday ,pouring down a mates horse was racing that we all went over to see . When his race came around the trainer said he had scratched the horse as it hated wet tracks , our mate said he wanted to run him and go and get him reinstated ,trainer said he can't do that so owner [being a mild mannered man] then punched trainer who intern punched back and an almighty brawl between them insured and I mean some good punches ,ah don't you love the good old days ,Cheers BH

It was a number of years ago now, that Te Teko was burnt to a crisp after a very long dry spell. Then some idiot dropped a cigarette stub over the fence. Racing was delayed because, and I kid you not, the course proper was on fire!!!

Looks like someone with the correct information not bothering to reply. So I'll speculate. He got the shove off Sherwood Forest so as a protest has gone bush. Must be hard for a jockey turning up day by day to #### house NZ meetings in the hope of being on a good chance in a major then see some owner reckon an overseas rider deserves the spoils.

I was just cruising through the site, and found your comments. You're quite right about the hard pan underneath, a matter that concerns me all the time. I'm sure some of my owners wonder what I am on about when they see other horses race and apparently suffer no ill-effects....mine, at the moment, all require a bit of 'cut' and we are just sitting out the dry weather. The bark chip had the potential to be good....but the installation was sloppy and poorly done. The ground upon which the bark was to be laid was not prepared in any way, and the material was just dumped on top of an undulating surface. Result being, that some portions were deep - and broke down at a different rate to the more shallow areas. We did a heap of work on it and never had a problem, but were always careful to not let the horses off the bridle. The reconstruction done in 1998 was carried out by Laing's....not sure whether you are right about them 'flogging off' the topsoil....seems likely someone did, but can't point the finger at them. I rang Duncan Laing some time after, when there was a bit of controversy about the track. He was very approachable, athough by then he had sold his company and was doing consultancy work. He told me that the track was re-laid according to the scope of work given to them by the [ then ] RIB. After talking to him, I reckoned that the depth of topsoil laid according to the plan wouldn't have grown decent carrots! It has not been completely satisfactory, but I think it is a little unfair to blame the company. It is not their job to question the scope given to them. The underlying clay/scoria layers - cambered - were supposed [ as I understand ] to create a means to channel water from the subsurface and to the drains on the inner. They don't work as they were intended, and subsequent work on the track with vertidrainers, etc, has brought the clay up where it becomes like Yaldhurst road when dry, and a bog when wet. There has been sanding/coring done, but, although my knowledge of such matters is sketchy at best, it seems to me that sanding should be done way more often. Up the road at Rangiora, sanding/coring is done very regularly and the surface, once the subject of criticism [ flawed reconstruction also ] is now very good indeed - even when firm.

I think the reason Bernard did not want to use skype instead of going to South Africa was that he didn’t fancy the 3 am start. Pity because then he might have been able to relate to the racing industry coal face workers who rise at that hour.