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I still don't think that the powers that be get this. The evidence is global. It doesn't matter how many ways you take it but punters will still only lose pretty much the same amount. You can have more or less events, more bet types, lotto style bets, in play or in running bets, point of consumption taxes, whatever. You are only collecting the same punter losses in different ways and possibly at a greater cost.

If funding is reduced by 25%, as indicated by Holden, it is imperative that this reduction should be made at the top level. For example, the New Zealand Cup could be run for $150,000 rather than $600,000 and still have the same field. Stakes at the lower level are already way too low. If you win a race you would be lucky if the stake won would cover 2 months training fees. If racing is going to continue there must be incentives at the lower end to at least give owners a chance of covering costs

HELLO ......... NOBODY IS LISTENING. They have sacked all the good ones and left those that should have been sent away BEFORE they started this excercise. How could they do this other than who was prepared to work for the least ??

Exactly , thats why any innovation should be mainly directed at encouraging new blood. I'm not sure thats been done very well here if at all.

Using your 'footy' analogy thats like paying club players more while cutting back on the salaries of International/ Star players. Water down Group races and it may sustain the Industry for another 12-18 months but the breeding side of the Industry would soon collapse as would ownership / betting /stakes and speed up the demise of even more clubs . Your club has been very well represented at the decision-making level for a long time so surely the word got through , the frail nature of the Industry must have been so very obvious ! So who would not listen , who or what clubs insisted on Harness travelling on the road to certain decline ? Answers please. The Earthquakes obviously hurt Christchurch for a while , while the ATC tried their own tragic path to try and future proof their future but what did the rest or the Industry as a whole do ! That's all behind us now .......betting on NZ Harness has been in steep decline in recent years and Aussies bet more on our races than we do ! The big question is what can done to try and sustain the industry and give our young participants some hope for their future !Answers please !

Yes. You get a rebate (5% of your losses) and given you think you will train more winners than Pitman in July I imagine you will have plenty of those.

The track played host to 11 races for the day with full fields and held up well in the winter conditions. The fact that we had so many races demonstrates that many owners and trainers were keen to get back to the races with their horses and see them perform despite the open entry system adopted for the remainder of the season. The track has come through the day well and track manager Emery White is confident it will be back in shape for our next meeting here on Wednesday 15th July.

$93k on course at pukekohe nearly $2m off course

Listen to nomates & Leggy everyone....we have been racing beyond our means for years to the detriment of our grassroots/coalface participants. I believe we need better stakes at the bottom to encourage growth in Ownership, Investment, Sponsorship and Participation. Higher Stakes will again come in time for stakes races with mass involvement. FIRSTLY HOWEVER WE MUST PROTECT OUR PUNTERS! and not by shutting down our shop windows TAB's, Racebooks, Race Media, Marketing, General News, Form & Information! REMOVE ALL OBSTACLES FOR THE PUNTER! Racing can continue at this level here...IMO any horse that is capable of winning a stakes race in NZ... is good enough to race competitively in Australia for better stakes and that is the short term reality!....Be-it the Aussie Bush, Darwin, Tasmania or the Metro City's Like now.... horses with any ability can and will race in places like Australia, Singapore & Hong Kong but maybe with more NZ Owners who re-invest here with their Overseas Dollars??

Winnies racing bill passed through parliament with its 2nd reading yesterday. Fully supported by all parties.

So its business as usual then lol

It means the fun will really begin around the Asset Theft, it means you'll probably have some of the most under performing leadership not only wasting industry resources but local community resources in the future, it means you'll see decisions made that benefit about 20% of the industry with the rest forgotten about. It means fools from the Trainers Assoc to trackside presenters to stud farms to large stables believe it will resolve all of racings problems in this country.

http://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2019/0138/latest/LMS201154.html

That sounds logical

Just a few final reflections from me on Royal Ascot 2020. An extraordinary event bereft of crowd and atmosphere if I'm honest but the racing was high quality though perhaps a notch down on normal years. Credit to all who made it happen but the stark truth was Ascot and British racing had too much to lose by it not happening in terms of worldwide exposure (especially for the bloodstock industry) and money coming in to the world pools operating on the main races. Juveniles: Ascot normally takes place 10 weeks into the season and some form lines are established. With just two weeks since the resumption, it was guesswork. As I said above, QAADER and SACRED ran very well in defeat but the Albany winner DANDALLA looked special for all she relished the soft ground. 3-y-o: Again, very early days. GOLDEN HORDE won the Commonwealth Cup but whether he's ready to go against the older sprinters at Newmarket I'm not sure. Among the classic milers, both PALACE PIER and ALPINE STAR had swerved Newmarket and The Curragh and this possibly paid dividends. Both look very nice prospects and I hope we get a clash later in the year. The Newmarket Guineas form looks a little shaky after Ascot though in all fairness KAMEKO and LOVE were always going elsewhere. MOLATHAM and MONARCH OF EGYPT dominated the Jersey and both look viable Group 1 contenders in the future. SANTIAGO looks a nice staying prospect though not a Derby horse to my eye. FRANKLY DARLING was impressive in the Ribblesdale and is on course for a clash with LOVE at Epsom early next month and while it may be heresy at this point I do think the Oaks is a more interesting race at this stage. The King Edward VII told us nothing and it may be the 3-y-o middle distance colts are nothing special (probably should give KAMEKO and ENGLISH KING a chance before writing them off). Older Horses: BATTAASH dominated the King's Stand and I can't see one to bother him at Goodwood over 1000m or in the Nunthorpe (unless Wesley Ward runs CAMPANELLE). TEREBELLUM gave a good account in the Queen Anne but CIRCUS MAXIMUS is a wonderfully tough horse and while I'm not convinced the sharper Goodwood track will suit, he'll lack nothing in courage. MOUNTAIN ANGEL emerged as a nice prospect when taking the Wolferton which is often a key form race for the season. The strength of the Gosden team in the older horse ranks was evident all week (Sir Michael Stoute was shut out). In FANNY LOGAN and LORD NORTH he was two wonderful prospects. LORD NORTH's plans are unclear but I'd love to see him in the Irish Champion or the Juddmonte while FANNY LOGAN's impressive win in the Hardwicke adds yet another layer to a potentially crowded Arc pack for Mr Gosden. Another element of that might be STRADIVARIUS who produced the performance of the week routing the Gold Cup field by 10 lengths. The Coronation Cup run, which drew some criticism at the time, was the perfect prep race and he ran here at the top of his form. Owner Bjorn Nielsen has long expressed his desire to have a tilt at the Arc even if that means taking on ENABLE and John Gosden is diplomatic enough to know the Owner pays the bills but it may be a harder call for Frankie Dettori. The circus rolls on as the more normal calendar starts to re-assert but it will be a busy early July with the Derby/Oaks and the Eclipse over the first weekend swiftly followed by the three day July Meeting at Newmarket.

The figure quoted was turnover not amount lost. Gambling outlets whatever they are work on the principle that money turned over many times is eventually lost, How many times have you heard punters say that I am betting there money?. They find shitloads more bets all of a sudden during the day in the hope of turning a small win into a big one, to in the vast majority of cases end up losing by days end. Pokies work really well by players starting small, get a nice win and they up bet size to eventually lose most of the winning if not the lot. Racing is no different, just takes longer to happen.

Mikie does have an extensive knowledge of the industry, but has not been invoved for some time. I agree that my background would be similar to yours but I believe mine would be a greater and more current vested interest

Another filly win now 5.

Absolutely, don't see a reason why it wont be. Fighting over dunny paper in lockdown is one thing, but all of a sudden a doubling of punting investment is just not happening.

Not necessarily my path ! Trying to get the answers/solutions out of Mikie who agreed the lower end needs more incentives. NZ Racing has for some time had one of ,if not the lowest , return to owners on the globe. Something ,well below 30 cents in $. I read somewhere that since payments made to all starters , 30% of horses earn over $10k in a season. Do the Math......training fees vary a lot especially South/North. Yet the licensed participants number has had little change in recent times ...NZ owners and trainers very resilient. Mikie has many strings to his bows...breeder , owner,trainer , driver , club secretary , funder , sponsor , great experience of the workings of many of NZ clubs and tracks and ties with the Industries leaders and decision makers. His views are of interest. I gather that you like me are an enthusiastic but amateur participant who makes the odd inane post on social media !

Tasman Man, the breeding side of the industry is already stuffed. If racing takes your path the whole industry will be gone

No need to Leggy, on a normal Saturday that would be spilt across 2-3 meetings, this was a 1 meeting Saturday with 11 races. Good figures for 1 meeting for sure, very soon we are 2 meetings Saturday July and then lets see how the results look.

That's a shame because I was thinking of nominating you for the RITA board if you knew. You would have been just what the doctor ordered.

And it is also time to ban acceptance fees On group races so owners don’t get fleeced For gst for the sake of artificially inflating the race stakes.

Couldn't agree more and have said the same for years Mikie

Idiot Biden corruption in Ukraine is REAL You chose the wrong side of looters, criminals and pedophiles Go burn down some more cities and pull down some statues and defund the police and pull some more fake hate crimes and donate to BLM Whos gunna replace Biden? Michael Obama?

This was 10-15 years ago Mikie when things were much different. When quality qualified staff leave and are replaced with people who have no bloody idea what they are doing, the result is the chaos you see now. It sickens me and many others what has happened at the ATC.

None that I know did and they certainly don't now. Where did you get that information? Maybe a few decades ago that happened, I don't know.

https://youtu.be/XvuM3DjvYf0

I can't agree with you at all in respect of NZMTC. They have made redundancies. Now they need to have 1 additional person after being allocated 77 race days (which I guess will go down to 75 or less) in order to cope. I don't think that's unrealistic. What would happen at the moment if Brian Rabbit was sick on a Monday morning? In respect of HRNZ they cannot be compared to the excesses at RITA for example. I had to work with them for a number of years and everyone I dealt with seemed to be gainfully employed. However what will happen now is that Holden will slash and burn without having a clue in the world what he is doing, or what anyone else does, then he will bugger off and leave a mess behind as he did at the Greyhounds. He was also not well regarded in the Class IV gambling industry. His modus operandi seems to be to ingratiate himself with Chairmen, get a well paid post, spend 2 or 3 days a week in the office, make everyone miserable, fire a few people., pad out his CV, then leave when he can pick up more governance positions that don't even require the 2 or 3 days a week Mikie

The problem is that elite punters were once small time punters who maybe got into it through channel surfing the radio dial or reading form in the herald or tuning into Action TV on free to view ...

Have you ever seen a TAB race sheet. If you had a 14 field maiden race would often pull in more income rather than a 10 field or even 14 field rating race. Secondly are you saying that only the good horses are entitled to race and that if a person doesnt oen a good horse they are not entitled to race. Think it's time you woke up a bit. A hugh part of NZ Racing is getting horses to win trials or races to sell so therefor you need the other horses for us to have a racing industry. Everyone dreams of a good horse but the reality is not everyone is lucky. If you want people to participate in the Industry you need to change your point if view that you have to be with a bug trainer ti have a good horse. Before covid the races that had the full fields or big nominations were Madison races and rating 65. As you went up the grades the numbers dropped off

I think that is really an unfair statement. At the first trial meeting at Te Rapa there were nearly 300 horses go round and then some eliminated. There was not a lot of the above named trainers horses at the first trials so why should they get priority at the first Te Rapa meeting. I am speaking as an owner and as far as I am concerned I pay money to have my horses trained with a non prominent trainer but surely I am entitled to a start too. Why should the big trainers get priority over anyone else. As owners we are all pay training fees so we are all entitled to a fair go. If the class of race is inferior then it is inferior. It was fairly evident that they needed to programme another meeting when around 50 horses missed out at Counties. If originally they had surveyed all trainers then they would have realised there were a lot more horses around than they anticipated. If you take the 50 left out of counties add 150 to 200 from first trial meeting at Te Rapa then 100 odd from todays trials you are looking a 300 odd horse that could nominate for Te Rapa. Thats 18 races with fields of 16. Impossible really.

The other thing that has to be seriously looked at is our G1's , i believe we only genuinely have one in the Derby , could be run for a stake of 250k , we would still get the same stake . so working along those lines i would be looking in the short to medium term having a goal of moving everything up a step , G2 100k , G3 75k , listed 50k , other 25k . I think those can be doable i 2/3 years , if people are realistic about our level of racing , that will be the hard bit .

GROUP 1: $100,000 GROUP 2: $ 75,000 GROUP 3: $ 50,000 LISTED: $ 25,000 OTHERS $ 15,000 I'd be happy with this stakes structure above while in the re-building stage over the next 2 years. I'd also be happy with John Allen, Glenda Hughes & the rest of the useless board to contribute $50,000,000 upfront plus $17,000,000 per annum to the NZ Racing Industry !

I'm not so confident about them maintaining the 15k min , i think , hope , that they will at least stay with the 10k but have no confidence they will , or can . For me the 15k was a sweetner to get people to put their horses back into work after the lockdown , so that they had a reasonable number of horses to start back with . I also think they have been caught by the numbers wanting to race so quickly and they have failed the owners who cannot get a run because of that . There is a race a Wanganui where there are 8 emergencies , disgraceful , they could have split it and rewarded the owners who went to bat for the industry . Wait till Te Rapa noms , it's could be a shit fest , they should be programming another northern meeting this week or next to give everybody a run . Nothing has changed in regards their disrespect towards industry participants , and until this changes they are always going to struggle .

Forget what the stake is , size of stake doesn't determine group status , quality does , and simply put we don't have the quality regularly racing here to say any of or G1 races stand up to international quality , bar the derby , and even then as with this years edition it can be suspect . The only people benefiting from and pushing for the maintaining of our G1 races are the big studs . Our black type races from listed thru to G1 need to be completely overhauled , as does all of the NZ racing structure . Start cutting our cloth to fit .

I've always maintained that if you can win a $50k race, you have enough in the tin to go and have a crack at good money over the ditch. But don't assume that it will be easy. Leggy is quite correct. For far too long, our 'elite' races have been staked at a level way out of all proportion to the revenue earned on those races, and NZTR have been complicit in this. What would be a bigger insult is if the lower-rated horses are obliged to run for 5k to maintain even the 100k grp stakes. That would cause a huge drop-off in ownership. Most of those horses will not be heading to Aus, but to other pursuits - or the doggers. Destabilise the bottom of the pyramid at your peril. If achoolboy and club/provincial rugby struggle, we will very soon have fewer players for the franchises or All Blacks. Simple really.

I'm mildly excited to hear this news if it's true. A decade or so late in coming but it seems that NZTR are finally tackling a few key issues. This is one. Aligning stakes with the revenue the events earn. Also, trialling a new programming model with the open entry thig. Trying to focus racing in proximity to the horse populations. And looking at getting more suitable and competitive track surfaces in action. You can always still go to Oz for the big money whenever you want but getting things here on a sustainable and growing basis has to happen. They probably don't/won't have it all right but it seems like a hopeful start to me.

Yep for certain - it's novel, it's new, it's the likes of which we've never seen before. The world is scrambling. Cases appear on the rise again in countries that appeared to have it contained a month ago. Which country is doing Ok right now?........why that would be New Zealand wouldn't it? Someone's done something right in good old Aotearoa, that's for sure.