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If BS (nice initials!) is asking for advice then why is he in the job? Imagine the new CEO of Air NZ coming in and after 2 years asking the pilots what he should do! Hopeless! He should lead or FO.

Possibly be doing this at the behest of MIA. BS a serial under performer, sound familiar with Ozzie CEOs arriving here. Greg

The British Horseracing Authority (BHA) will stand down the majority of its 260 staff during the coronavirus pandemic. More than 200 people will benefit from the government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme at British horse racing's governing body, In addition, all remaining staff - including board members - are taking pay cuts. The BHA says the move will save the industry about £1m per month - a third of its usual operating costs. And still nothing from Bernard

Hopeless indeed , but I think he has gathered all the facts ,looked at the numbers , gathered the Messara report and all opinions re that , seen the negativity from the country especially the Politicians toward racing , realised the money is gone and the dripping tap to replenish it is almost closed off and there is nothing left.........except us passionate NZ racing folk ,many of whom rely on it to make a living. He is coming to us for some collaboration ! Surely he knows some of the stuff he needs to do , things to implement which may have faced time wasting distractions like court cases . I think he just looking at getting the OK to charge ahead...to make racing great again haha....maybe just to save it, create a new future. Now that Aussie has dumped staff , slashed stakes etc the precedents close to home have been established . NZ Racing has been trying to close courses etc since the 1980's without success. Governrment has owned and run racing.....maybe they want to set it free. Remember BS is only NZTR , their are 2 x other codes and Sports now want a bigger slice of monetary pie thru RITA and TAB. Things are at rock bottom and its a clean sheet. CREATE .....dont CRY about the past !

dueWatched the announcement today of only 58 new cases today. Surprised to hear the Doctor say that the low numbers was possibly due to the lower number of tests carried out on the week end. Thank god the virus takes the weekends off.

Huey , we have REAL racing people already in places of position to ask the hard questions and have some input into the future of NZ racing but they continually lack the spine to fight for the majority , the trainers assn for one , has got to be the weakest leadership group in sports . All i've heard from the president was him saying that he thought Cambridge should be kept open , who's interest was that in . Has not come out and said one word of encouragement to all the smaller and struggling trainers who were forced to pay to join the trainers assn . I stand to be corrected .The silence from all is deafening . Years of this crap has got us into the position we find NZ racing in .

Hey triple i wonder how many have died in NZ during the last week, youd expect that figure to be the only positive, but it sounded like that poor woman was doomed anyway. Carry on as per usual except for those over retirement age and /or immunicompromised was the right move. The antibodies from Sars are still detectable in those recovered 17 years ago according to Science , if we do this everytime a new bug comes along were f%#ked anyway. Relying on Big Pharma IS NOT the way forward involving viruses,they have killed and harmed untold people with their experiments and its only a matter of time before their ‘bungling ‘ creates another Disaster. Most if not all drugs today have a plant based origin, and two of the big four surrounding Heart function were discovered by ordinary people hundreds of years ago. Follow the money trail, they want you sick, theres no money in it for them otherwise

Change will be huge , those in power will have a free hand to restructure the industry and there will be no choice but to go along with it . It might have been different if we had followed Ausse and remained open . The economy will struggle no matter what . We have lost a huge amount of overseas income , Education $5.1 billion , Forestry $5.8 and Tourism $16.3 billion , TOTAL $27.1 BILLION , gone for the time being . The only bright spot is farming , in 2019 Dairy $18.1 Billion , sheep and beef $4 billion and horticulture $6.1 billion , total $28.2 Billion . The bottom line is we will be around $28/38 billion short amongst the major exporters so financial troubles are ahead and race horse owners will be very hard to find . Restructuring seemed to be floundering but from now on it will be full steam ahead , there will be no other choice . Now a reality check , was the destruction of our economy worth it ? , remember Ausse , Sweden , Holland are still operating using a different strategy . Every WEEK in NZ an AVERAGE (2018) 641 die from every day events/life meaning since this event started around 2000 NZers have died . ONE , 1 , YES ONE 70 year old has died from the virus .

RITA, or whatever they are called this week, have invested heavily in an intangible asset called information technology. That is accounting jargon for; "They are broke". As another poster here noted; they have invested heavily in boosting the number of TAB betting accounts. Whoopty do!! The huge investment in boosting the number of new TAB accounts comes with inadequate accounting systems to monitor the efficacy of those new accounts. When I was about 8 years old our stud groom chopped off a chook's head. I was astonished to see that headless chook run about. It seemed cruel to me, at that age. The RITA management brought that childhood memory to mind.

Gallops..... . Yes well all no the tab is in trouble but it’s there own doing so that can’t have anyone else to blame bar themselves. Now they are in real trouble as shit has hit the fan and the nz product along with sport is amiss. But they were in trouble long before this some investigations are needed ....

They have the power to shut down any track and in the case of any dispute override ie Auckland vs Waikato. You forget they have a preference for centralisation and will push for the tri-code set up in the Waikato. Frankly, I agree with them as that is where the trainer numbers are, south of the Bombays.

For starters free racing for the foreseeable future (should have been happening for years) to get as many horses back in work and product out as possible.

Obviously the cost of licences(Trainers,Jockeys,Stablehands,Trackwork riders etc) will be reduced for the new season as well as a refund for time out, through no fault of their own,for the balance of this season.If there is no racing for the rest of the season,which seems likely, then a 33.3% (4 months) refund would be in order to licenceholders.Hopefully the staff at NZTR will be paid according to what they will be doing, which is not much,same as all other NZers who have been told to bite the bullet in these tough times.

If they couldn't manage NZ racing before Covid what chance are they during and after Covid . I thought we couldn't get worse governance than the last bloke but this guy Saundry is feckin clueless . Has shown no real leadership and has not promoted 1 idea to benefit NZ racing , sitting waiting for the Messara report to be the saviour . There should be daily updates on the NZTR site to update the participants and let them know what things they are looking to do to mitigate the present situation and give some information on how they are looking to manage racing going forward once racing resumes but NADA , 4 days since the last update . When we need really strong leadership we've got feckin BAMBI . Best decision i ever made deciding to retire from racing horses in NZ this time last year , and i'm still struggling not having a horse in my paddocks , but watching this clueless lot keep directing the ship at the rocks just reinforces it . My hat comes off and my heart goes out to those people still invested in racing .

One page of A4 typing. 1. These are our plans if Level Four is lifted on 20th April. 2. These are our plans if Level Four continues after 20th April. Put the industry participants in the picture.

Time to remodel the industry based on those that can survive of their own accord and take it from there. I fear (in fact it's almost guaranteed the way nzracing is run) this will be yet another excuse to kick the small guys fair in the gonads but this time with haste and certainty given the dire situation the industry is in. When in reality it should be an opportunity to see which clubs ,stables, etc have the ability to rebuild without industry subsidy,let the freeloaders fall to the way side they'll find something else to do.

Once again if the representative to the board is running around asking these question of a few why have the rest of us been kept in the dark. Every person concerned has to be kept up to date firstly so they can plan for the future and secondly to stop the impending doom cloud settling over the participants The way I see it is if either track finishes that will be it for the North . Signals have been out for ages but both clubs either have pulled the blinkers down or are completely bereft of any idea's of how to right the ship that is starting to founder. The latter seems the most likely to me. I feel sorry for the young trainers brave enough to give it a go

Throughout the world and here we are constantly hearing about companies large and small that are either laying off employees or working reduced hours and being paid less. Sporting organisations that are cutting costs so the sport will survive and be there for the fans etc when this is over. Why have we heard nothing from our Racing codes on their measures to cut costs. Staff wages are any business biggest costs. Go through the NZTR staff list and ask yourself what are these people doing when there is no racing? The communication team, have heard nothing from them as they have nothing to communicate. This must be the same in the Greyhounds and Harness. Surely 1 person could cover the 3 codes communication and still have time to look at Pornhub. The RIU no racing no need for this organisation to have a full complement of staff. There must be a lot of people who have lost their incomes with no racing but do the 3 codes heirachy care? Obviously not. Remember Bernard etc without those at the bottom working their arse off for minimum wages there is no gravy train for you in the future. There are still plenty of fruit picking jobs for the underworked employees of NZ Racing.

Read this earlier but didn't click to the date. I certainly got fooled.

Yes and the Breeders Association went there, built a brand new building at the cost of $600,000 on the Auckland Racing Club land - leased. Then about 6 years ago Auckland said piss off we want to develop that land so they (NZTBA) were forced to walk away and leave behind a building worth $600,000. Some of you people gave some wonderful ideas sometimes!

No, I don't think so re the judge's placings, although I certainly do remember Froth, Caliente and a number of others that Derek Copland had. In the very early days at QEII, it seemed to be a case of "Who's judging the next race? Better hurry up". It would be one of the Committee members I believe. I took my turn when I became a Committee member in 1995, having been an assistant steward before that. Initially, the racing at QEII was perhaps not far removed from the racing at the Marshland Domain but gradually, with an increasing number of totalisator race meeting dates, a more professional approach developed. So, when the CGRC went to Addington in 1997, the Club appointed the harness racing judge, Ernie Fuchs, as its greyhound judge. When Ernie died from cancer in 2003 I took over., having been his assistant for a few years, sharing that with Mike Cross Froth certainly was a very good bitch and I well remember her winning the 1993 edition of the Canterbury Futurity at QEII for Derek and part-owner Barry Moran, a well-known hotelier and greyhound enthusiast. By Worth Doing, Froth was whelped in July 1990 and she left Caliente, 8 wins, to Farloe Melody in 1995.

When the Racing Board sold the Petone buliding they cheekily made sure to put in a 10 year lease agreement to stop any shift. Then setting up Trackside studios in Parnell occurred with not a bleep from racing bigwigs. Having a racetrack as the backdrop to TV presentation would have been a marketing plus. Rob McAnulty when he was involved with Auckland Racing club had the idea of creating a Racing city at Ellerslie with everything there e.g. breeders, TAB, NZTR , trackside, museum, cafes etc a place overseas visitors would treat as first stop. Closeness to airport being big plus.

I went to the local wildlife park , had only one animal in it , it was a shih tzu . Boris Becker one more stride it's home , unlucky , we'll done on Tri though.

They could go to Awapuni ,Te Rapa or Hastings for that matter. It hasn't helped any having them in the main city centres. Not only that but there should be some serious consideration taken to consolidating services at club level also, what do all these people in these clubs do in between race days?

Why haven't we heard suggestions like that from the owners federation in the past? Why does it require a crisis to get some sensible thought going? Many have been advocating this for years, the rest of your suggestions have been active in the industry for sometime. Trainers Fed, Owners Fed, NZTBA all the same as NZTR.

The silence is eerie and incredible.

For twenty years on Racecafe I've been advocating for Racing Head Offices to be moved to Ellerslie racecourse from Petone. The reasons are a no brainer yet little support instead abuse such as from Nerula in a recent thread.

If people want to jump on one piece of information as gospel they do have 1/2 Brain Hokesy, there are people with reputations and self respect out there...unlike that guy

If we suggest a fix or fixes what happens re the messara report? Is this a sign they wont proceed with rationalisation/ track closures etc or anything else ? This bunch of losers dont deserve our help so dump them all and start afresh!!!

Nor Dean McKenzie

They are only asking the plebs now cause they have nothing , absolutely feck all , clueless . Saundry hasn't come up with 1 initiative to progress NZ racing in 2 years . Says it all . My money is on him working harder on his exit strategy .

Our lot are immune to reality, I think they should slash their salaries by 40%, just like most other sports But our lot nothing but stoney silence - and they want our support - just arrogantly incredible

Please take your stupid conspiracy shit back to Main Street...thanks. This thread is not for you to pollute.

When are NZTR going to come out with some sort of announcement re the immediate future of Racing. Are you planning for a return to racing once we drop back to a Level 3, or a you sitting on your hands waiting? Surely, we are advanced enough to keep Racing going on a Level 3, they are doing it in Hong Kong, Japan, Australia and parts of the USA. Have you contacted Trainers to see how many they have kept in work and what rating band they are, so you can prep meetings to suit? Not everyone has tipped their horses out for a spell. If we are not planning on continuing, our good horses and top-level jockeys can make plans to be racing in Aus, their racing will continue in some form. Even if they can’t use the big cities, they don’t have to have it at flash track now that they have no public. They have plenty of space to keep people apart, top-class provincial tracks, and public that want to bet on racing. Even their reduced stake money looks juicy. Level 3 could be here in a number of weeks. Do we stay or do we go? Please keep us informed of your plans, and please issue a statement so we do not have to listen to a bloody boring Blog. Not everyone is going to die, and you can only keep people cooped up for so long.

Ask yourselves these questions based on what is known: 1. Safety. 2. Trainer numbers. 3. Lease longevity. 4. Maintenance and upkeep. 5. Financial viability. 6. Travel. CD & South Island Racing. The decision to close a track won't be made by the GRNZ. My best guess is Auckland's days are numbered.

Agree Leo, quite incredible we have been ignored for years and now we are important - unbelievable Tell me Bernard what costs have been reduced since we went to level 4, what's the number - what % of annual wages have management slashed - I assume 40%, but please confirm - let's have some transparency please

Its not much Tassie but helps relieve stress on people and its my job to do so as a Craftsman Plumber, i dont expect others to do my job for me

Maybe it's a time for real racing people to step up as a group and direct the ship or demand some answers, not just the usual suspects either who can't see past their own front gate or realise the involvement and participation of all matters in this industry.

This was probably a while back when Racing Board [TAB] were really into 'smoke and mirrors'. Among the major KPI's for management was to create NEW accounts and increase the number of monthly active accounts.The free bets often increased toward the end of month ! All that was 'sizzle'...good news and allowed them to show graphs with upward trends. But sadly the sausage.....revenues and cash flow, was heading South along with equity. The RITA [NZRB] accounts are on line. A lot of the issues e.g. too many racetracks ,many not up to scratch have been around since the 1980's and before but read 2016 report where it says the current business model was not sustainable etc and needed urgent change. Well no one has acted ...its gone from bad to worse. Time for a clean sheet ,start again and remodel the Industry on what should be a smaller scale.

My missus saw an ad on Facebook saying if she opened an account with the TAB and put $20 in they would give her $80 in free bets. In 40 years of marriage she had never shown any interest in having a tab account, and regularly accused me of wasting lots of time and money on mine! So she gets her account and asked my opinion on what to do and bet on, totally disregarded my advice and made 4 $20 place bets on names of horses and dogs! Three came in and her account jumped to about $150 odd. She didn't use it for a while but the good old tab recognised this and offered another $10 free bet that she put $5 each way on a winner. And yes, she reminds me of this

If you need some direction Bernard, read this.... https://www.racenet.com.au/news/racing-victoria-cuts-prizemoney--staff-20200330

Nobody believes the Chinese numbers? Surely not? A bit like Robert Mugabe saying he wouldn’t hurt anybody!

..unless of course you are bored at home on a Monday night and fancy a gavelhouse flutter.

OK but i'll rephrase as per value to discussion which includes past tense. Breeder-yes, owner-yes, owner-trainer-yes, rider-yes (rode own trackwork), publisher-yes, racing website-yes probably some more can't remember. Oh yes punter. Don't worry about yours I couldn't really care.

So why are the hands still out Jack.....are you incapable of looking after your own ?? That’s everyone, not just a select few who seem to control things. Amazes me that Maori constantly harp on about “doing their own thing, being independent, own State yada yada....” then when it suits “we are all one as New Zealanders” and the whining starts about not being looked after. Which is it ??

One of the many good buys for Gerry Ryan by John Foote (Fifty Stars etc). I didn’t think the ride was that bad really. He wasn’t presented with any opportunity to “get in” at any stage of the race, so JA did what a good jockey would do and gave his mount a uninterrupted run - as they do a lot in the UK. This horse probably won’t race now until the early Spring and based on its first prep, he’s one to keep an eye on, especially with John Foote being in the horse.

I loved the headline given the worlds current predicament "You picked a fine time to leave us Kenny"

What a grand mare she is just ran away with her Gr1 today. I note she is from a Danroad mare one of which there are very few breeding in NZ.It seems there are only fourteen which are being bred from at present,with very few progeny having raced. From what I can see in the NZ stud book two have left stakes winners and two stakes placed.Of those progeny that have raced most have either won or placed yet there are many unnamed or unraced. It seems Danroad mares may have slipped under the guard of breeders in NZ and most don't seem to have gone to the top stallions. I hope my stats are correct as this is what doodling on the computer does to one when in lock down from the virus.

Agree with your assessment Nearco. It is all about the potent females in her pedigree. Eight Carat seems be showing up now she is getting back in the pedigrees. Many believe it is the fourth line in the pedigree that is the key and that is the area she is showing up in now. Also another great day for James Macdonald. He really knows how to pick his rides and turn up with the A game on these days.

A nice bit of linebreeding. 'Giving the sire' his dam line is one of the 'guaranteed to work' ideas in breeding. You will note that Zed's third dam is Cotehele House, and is also the third dam of Opulence, by Danroad. Cotehele House is out of the great Eight Carat, who has played a part in many famous winners of late. To add strength to the mating, we see two lines of Special, via Nureyev and Sadlers Wells. That's enough to set the pedigree alight. Whether Danroad contributes much, I'll leave others to judge Nearco