RaceCafe..#1...Tipsters Thread.... Share Your Fancies For Fun...Lets See Who The Best Tipsters Here Are.

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Showing content with the highest reputation on 08/15/2020 in all areas

  1. @Cubes Welcome back Cubes. I hope life is improving for you and winners are in abundance !
    3 points
  2. Great to see Cambridge creating a meeting for today all in the space of 24 hours. I remember years ago when people were moaning about the industry losing gallops meetings due to wet tracks, etc I questioned why the "power brokers" couldnt transfer meetings a few days out (Hey they did it for one of the Hastings Spring carnival meetings pretty easily - remember Otaki?). With all of our technology and ease of communicating it should be a reality, if not a formality. At the time the usual keyboard warriors bagged the idea.....well hello, look what we have today. Well done to those who created this meeting - great initiative!
    3 points
  3. Huey

    Riccarton races today

    And to be fair there would be more people at those places than at the races in NZ;)
    2 points
  4. jimbob

    Riccarton races today

    You cant turn up to Riccarton to watch your Horse in the outside open spaces But you can head to Riccarton Westfield Mall and Go to the Pictures if you like
    2 points
  5. meomy

    Covid Lockdown and Ruakaka

    @Dissident Auckland has always had water supply problems and more so in recent yrs bc the idiots covered up all the natural water bores that used to supply us with concrete, tarseal & houses without including "consequences". Many a story abt that history & reports dating back to 1800's in The National Library archives. Then along came the Iwi who with the Auckland Volcanic Cones Society who want Unesco World Heritage status of Volcanic cones registered as the birth place of Maori so removed what could have & should have remained back up Water Reservoirs from them. All those involved have been paid handsomely, Watercare, Iwi & Preferred Archaeologists none of whom are held to account. Join the dots why & where there's now surface flooding on roads & around homes, it goes back to endless CONCRETE as there's limited places where water can naturally disperse into soil and be absorbed.
    2 points
  6. What do you like in the Winter Cup?
    2 points
  7. The Fox for me
    2 points
  8. When the industry is travelling as average as we are , there are no excuses to be thinking faster on their feet when situations like this arise . Lazy , uninterested management , incompetent management . Not a big harness follower , but to whoever got cracking to put this together , stand up and take a bow . Showing how things can be done , when there is a will .
    2 points
  9. I personally don't like this overarching theme that still seems to be getting pushed in nz. Lockdown has just made it more obvious too. Many of us prefer to live out of the big cities but then have to commute to and from work, due to a lack of jobs in smaller towns. Also a necessity due to cost of housing eg who can afford to buy a house in Auckland? During lockdown many people worked from home, just as productively, if not more. But lo and behold there is a govt directive that everyone must go back to their inner city offices to support central businesses. Not because it's better for us, or better for LOCAL economies, or better for the environment, but because it supports inner city businesses. Now we can all see clearly the 2 hrs or so daily we waste on commuting backwards and forwards, and what does it gain? In most cases zip. So I agree, Foxton would be a great little hub if investment was directed there. Affordable housing, good for the local economy, jobs for locals or would encourage more to move there. Surely we want to be taking pressure off struggling infrastructure in cities, not adding to it...looking again at Auckland and their water woes as an example.
    2 points
  10. The weekend beckons up here and elsewhere but it's not the busiest. Tomorrow, the feature UK race is the Group 2 Hungerford Stakes at Newbury over 1400m. 10 go to post and with SPACE BLUES the top dog at this distance after his wins in the Lennox and the Maurice de Gheest, this looks a slightly below-par renewal. DREAM OF DREAMS has finished second in the Diamond Jubilee in the past two seasons but last year he never followed up that run and I'm sceptical over the extra 200m. I think he's an Ascot specialist and I'd want to be against him. Both GLORIOUS JOURNEY and THREAT ran down the field in the Lennox but GLORIOUS JOURNEY won this race last year and that's a big plus in my book. The 3-y-o PIERRE LAPIN has flopped on his two runs this year. One of interest is the German raider NAMOS who was eighth in the July Cup but this is more reasonable and he's a tempting e/w bet at 10s but I'm sticking with GLORIOUS JOURNEY. The Group 1 Preis von Europa at Cologne sees BARNEY ROY take on DAME MAILLOT. as well as the third and fourth in this year's German Derby. The problem is BARNEY ROY has never run 2400m and they didn't think he stayed it as a 3-y-o whereas DAME MAILLOT looked good at Newmarket last month and is readily preferred. At Deauville, the Group 2 Gontaut Biron over 2000m is a re-run of the Jockey Club from last month. Convincing winner MISHRIFF faces THE SUMMIT and Poulains winner VICTOR LUDORUM who filled the places. It's hard to see why the result should be difficult but it's a small field and could be tactical which would suit the speed of VICTOR LUDORUM. On to Sunday and seven go in the Jacques Le Marois, which, like many French Group 1 races, is open to colts and fillies but not geldings. It's a quality renewal and a real clash of the generations. Representing the 3-y-o we have the winners of the championship races at the Royal Ascot meeting - PALACE PIER won the St James's Palace with a convincing performance but ALPINE STAR did me a nice favour in the Coronation Stakes. After that, she was touched off by subsequent Nassau winner FANCY BLUE in the Diane. Over this straight 1600m, I think I prefer the filly who we know gets the thick end of 2000m while I just wonder if the way the race was won suited PALACE PIER at Ascot. They are very strong contenders but we have some top older horses in opposition. CIRCUS MAXIMUS won the Queen Anne over the straight 1600m at Ascot and he ran a blinder in defeat to MOHAATHER in the Sussex. We know he lacks for nothing in courage and a straight 1600m plays to his strengths. ROMANISED won this last year before going under by a nose to CIRCUS MAXIMUS in the Moulin. He was impressive on his return albeit in lesser company over 1400m at The Curragh and he's no outsider in this class. Last but by no mean least, we have PERSIAN KING who won the Poulains and was second in the Jockey Club as a 3-y-o and returned to Group 1 winning form last time when winning the Ispahan though that possibly wasn't the strongest renewal. This is another really good race for the division and the equivalent of the Sussex though the Goodwood and Deauville tracks are very different. With only seven runners, the punting angle isn't easy - I like ALPINE STAR but she is up against the boys and that will be tough. I keep coming back to my old mate CIRCUS MAXIMUS who is proven on a straight 1600m and will outbattle any of these if it comes down to a duel in the final 200m. It's a race to which I am really looking forward. Looking ahead to Thursdsy, eight fillies have been entered for the Group 1 Yorkshire Oaks over 2400m. Aidan O'Brien has entered both LOVE and MAGICAL and while I'd love to see him lock horns I don't think it will happen with MAGICAL going for the Juddmonte the previous day. To be honest, LOVE looks a class above these and they are no mugs in opposition.
    2 points
  11. mikenz

    Cambridge Breached

    You think that's bad,planeloads of dorklanders flew south in last few days,keep them effing bugs to themselves.
    2 points
  12. The people on the TV seem to promote horses for people to back and that seems to make those horses short priced The people on TV seem very biased towards certain donkeys The people on TV sometimes get it write and sometimes they don't Believe it or not..........some people in the South Island are smarter than people in the Mouth Island Riccarton fields are strong and good We should cut the cable Cubes was not allowed to go to Riccarton due to Covidness and 100 people being allowedness That's about it......good punting everybodyness
    1 point
  13. Archer

    Bank depo

    How long for a credit card transaction to go thru ? If I put it in my account tonight, will it be available for tomorrow afternoon ? Obviously never done this shite before, but when to the local and they closed ... ... Strange because if you just close the pokies, then its likely only 8 people including staff in the Tab.
    1 point
  14. lamour

    HRNZ News Desk

    Looking at the jobs vacancy Page on the HRNZ website I see they are advertising for someone to take over this roll. I assume From that that Dave DiSomma must be leaving. That would be unfortunate as he has been good at getting Harness Racing stories onto the mainstream media, particularly TVNZ. I only looked at the job vacancy website to see if they had the CEO job advertised yet.
    1 point
  15. Refer NZTR News 20March: Jockey welfare (6) Any jockey who has concerns regarding their health status must contact NZTR Medical Adviser Dr Margaret Parle immediately. (7) No licensed jockey may travel between the North Island and the South Island or vice versa without the prior written permission of NZTR, and a jockey who does so without NZTR’s permission shall be ineligible to ride in any race, trial, trackwork or jumpout while these Regulations remain in force.
    1 point
  16. rdytdy

    Jacinda Ardern

    Wild Goose Chases and the Blame Game Used to Hide the True Picture By CS Have a care for Chris Hipkins. He’s in the hot seat at the moment because the ‘COVID Queen’ Jacinda Ardern can’t ever be seen to deliver bad news, so it’s up to poor old ‘Chippy’. And there has been plenty of bad news of late. The virus has got loose in the community and the genome sequencing suggests it hasn’t been here before. That’s what they keep saying. But what they won’t say out loud is that the only way it could have got here is via what is increasingly seen as a lax and porous border system. Which is why we are now seeing a blame game in play. While poor old Chris Hipkins takes the flak as he stands in for Jacinda Ardern, he is seeking to distract from the obvious by blaming it all on frozen chooks or some other product bringing it in; rather than the bleeding obvious, that it transited with people arriving from Australia. The Australian New Zealand Food Standards organisation says that’s rubbish that the virus could catch a lift in a chill-tainer on a slow boat from whereever. Even the owner of the cool store says it’s rubbish: The managing director of Americold international says he can “completely rule out” any suggestion that Auckland’s Covid-19 cluster was caused by freight from his Melbourne factory. Americold managing director Richard Winnall said the company’s Melbourne site – which had two workers test positive for Covid-19 last month – has not shipped anything to Auckland for “months and months”. The government needs someone to blame, because if it isn’t via freight then that means it’s through the border with people, and they’ve been at great pains to tell us all they’ve done a grand job at the border. We now know that they haven’t of course. Which is why Chris Hipkins is throwing shade at his officials for the lack of testing. Health Minister Chris Hipkins says he is frustrated and disappointed the Government was misled about the level of Covid-19 testing of frontline border staff. But he says he is working quickly to mitigate the issue and yesterday signed an order making it compulsory for all staff working at the border to be tested. This comes after Hipkins admitted that just 60 per cent of all frontline border working at the Jet Park hotel – the country’s main Covid-19 quarantine centre – are being tested at least once a week. “Obviously I’m very disappointed by that,” he told the Nation this morning. “It has been frustrating – things have not moved as quickly as I would like.” He’s frustrated and disappointed? What about the third of the population now under lockdown and travel controls who are the ones actually suffering for a failure of the very people who told us that they had this under control. Little wonder there is a seething sentiment of anger bubbling away under the surface. Hipkins himself was issuing press statements about how grand it all was at the border just a few weeks earlier: Hipkins said this morning testing at the border had not been happening at the rate the Government had been asking for, or at the level the Government was told was happening. “We were told several weeks ago that testing of all staff at the Jet Park were being tested every week.” So sure of that advice was Hipkins that he put it in a June 23 press release, headlined: “New Covid-19 testing strategy to keep New Zealand safe”. Clearly the ‘one source of truth’ wasn’t telling anything like the truth back then. I’m not sure why we should believe anything he or Jacinda Ardern has to say on the matter, quite frankly. Clearly the ‘one source of truth’ wasn’t telling anything like the truth back then. I’m not sure why we should believe anything he or Jacinda Ardern has to say on the matter, quite frankly. So we have freight being blamed, and officials being blamed, while Aucklanders pay the price for utter failure at the border, of which the government is in sole control. This is why they need these distractions from what Occam’s Razor tells us must be the case. That the breach of our border protection from the virus has come as a result of human to human contact – the most likely vector for this virus. Further, that it can only have have happened as a result of a failed strategy that Jacinda Ardern led. That’s why Fran O’Sullivan is pointing the finger at the real problem: But if Covid is to be the defining issue for the September 19 election as the Prime Minister has intimated, Ardern’s management of the response to ensure her elimination strategy works must be tested. The Prime Minister’s superb communication skills have oft papered over the major weakness of her Government — the ability to execute. The failed “Year of Delivery” proved that. She is an acknowledged master of political spin. We see that at the 1pm daily press conferences where, ever alert to Ashley Bloomfield saying a word out of line, she steps across him with an explanation, checks him with a direct look, and even proffers her own advice on issues like personal protection when the health chief ventures into tricky political territory. He should be doing that himself. But while she is vested in the day-to-day fray, she has been caught short when it comes to ensuring that what she promotes at the press conferences is actually delivered. That was obvious with the inept failures at the border earlier this year. Ardern relied on the bureaucrats’ words. But until Cabinet Minister Megan Woods was parachuted in as the Prime Minister’s point person, the checking was woeful. It was Woods who got out and inspected isolation facilities to see if potentially infected people were being appropriately monitored. Ardern is trusting. But this is basic. And the Government still dropped the ball. Until this week there was no compulsion to virus test those working at the border or in managed isolation facilities. Nor has there been comprehensive batch testing to check for community transmission. Even when Auckland went into alert level 3 lockdown this week, there was no compulsion on citizens to wear masks when out and about. But the timing could not be more fortuitous for the purposes of holding an election which does canvass the important issues. What it has done is to create the environment for a deep debate on New Zealand’s approach to dealing with the coronavirus. Jacinda Ardern wanted an election based on her response to the Chinese plague. Well, she’s got one now, and the evidence being presented is one of abject failure on her part. Far from ‘saving us’, she’s actually let the virus back in and they are spinning like a top to blame anyone but themselves. Which is why we’ve seen the language change from claiming to be world beaters and eliminating the virus, complete with a happy dance, to now saying that it was inevitable that the virus would come back in. Clearly the gains weren’t locked in and, contrary to her claims that we’d avoid yo-yoing in and out of levels, that is exactly what we have now got. Whenever a politician says “We have always said…” what you are about to hear next is a lie. They haven’t always said that; in fact, they said the opposite. So, tell me again why we should trust anything these spinners say? Could we please have some honesty from the podium, rather than the spin we are being fed.
    1 point
  17. Keneperu

    HRNZ News Desk

    As well as a new starter for Canterbury area. Now that would be a positive move for the sport. Friday night there were some shocking starts both mobile and stands and the current starter answers to nobody it seems!
    1 point
  18. jimbob

    Riccarton races today

    Yes and you could have gone to the pub and played Pokies with a room of people with a piece of Cardboard between machines
    1 point
  19. Yep crazy. And kind of weird how on Friday night I could get into Addington as an owner and have a beer and wander round the stables etc etc .....????
    1 point
  20. It is an exceptional skill. Although to give you some credit you did get it largely right: "Look for her to settle towards the rear half of the field before making her run out wide from the 600."
    1 point
  21. Coronavirus: Why Everyone Was Wrong The Immune Response to the Virus Is Stronger Than Everyone Thought This article has been translated from German and was originally published in the Swiss magazine Weltwoche (World Week) on June 10th. The author, Beda M Stadler is the former director of the Institute for Immunology at the University of Bern, a biologist and professor emeritus. Why everyone was wrong The coronavirus is slowly retreating. What actually happened in the past few weeks? The experts have missed basic connections. The immune response against the virus is much stronger than we thought. Beda M Stadler medium.com This is not an accusation, but a ruthless taking stock [of the current situation]. I could slap myself because I looked at Sars-CoV2- way too long with panic. I am also somewhat annoyed with many of my immunology colleagues who so far have left the discussion about COVID-19 to virologist and epidemiologist. I feel it is time to criticise some of the main and completely wrong public statements about this virus. Firstly, it was wrong to claim that this virus was novel. Secondly, it was even more wrong to claim that the population would not already have some immunity against this virus. Thirdly, it was the crowning of stupidity to claim that someone could have COVID-19 without any symptoms at all or even to pass the disease along without showing any symptoms whatsoever. But let’s look at this one by one. 1. A new virus? At the end of 2019 a coronavirus, which was considered novel, was detected in China. When the gene sequence, i.e. the blueprint of this virus, was identified and was given a similar name to the 2002 identified Sars, i.e. Sars-CoV-2, we should have already asked ourselves then how far [this virus] is related to other coronaviruses, which can make human beings sick. But no, instead we discussed from which animal as part of a Chinese menu the virus might have sprung. In the meantime, however, many more people believe the Chinese were so stupid as to release this virus upon themselves in their own country. Now that we’re talking about developing a vaccine against the virus, we suddenly see studies which show that this so-called novel virus is very strongly related to Sars-1 as well as other beta-coronaviruses which make us suffer every year in the form of colds. Apart from the pure homologies in the sequence between the various coronaviruses which can make people sick, [scientists] currently work on identifying a number of areas on the virus in the same way as human immune cells identify them. This is no longer about the genetic relationship, but about how our immune system sees this virus, i.e. which parts of other coronaviruses could potentially be used in a vaccine. So: Sars-Cov-2 isn’t all that new, but merely a seasonal cold virus that mutated and disappears in summer, as all cold viruses do — which is what we’re observing globally right now. Flu viruses mutate significantly more, by the way, and nobody would ever claim that a new flu virus strain was completely novel. Many veterinary doctors were therefore annoyed by this claim of novelty, as they have been vaccinating cats, dogs, pigs, and cows for years against coronaviruses. 2. The fairy tale of no immunity From the World Health Organisation (WHO) to every Facebook-virologist, everyone claimed this virus was particularly dangerous, because there was no immunity against it, because it was a novel virus. Even Anthony Fauci, the most important advisor to the Trump administration noted at the beginning at every public appearance that the danger of the virus lay in the fact that there was no immunity against it. Tony and I often sat next to each other at immunology seminars at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda in the US, because we worked in related fields back then. So for a while, I was pretty uncritical of his statements since he was a respected colleague of mine. The penny dropped only when I realised that the first commercially available antibody test [for Sars-CoV-2] was put together from an old antibody test that was meant to detect Sars-1. This kind of test evaluates if there are antibodies in someone’s blood and if they came about through an early fight against the virus. [Scientists] even extracted antibodies from a llama that would detect Sars-1, Sars-CoV-2, and even the Mers virus. It also became known that Sars-CoV-2 had a less significant impact in areas in China where Sars-1 had previously raged. This is clear evidence urgently suggesting that our immune system considers Sars-1 and Sars-Cov-2 at least partially identical and that one virus could probably protect us from the other. That’s when I realised that the entire world simply claimed that there was no immunity, but in reality, nobody had a test ready to prove such a statement. That wasn’t science, but pure speculation based on a gut feeling that was then parroted by everyone. To this day there isn’t a single antibody test that can describe all possible immunological situations, such as: if someone is immune, since when, what the neutralising antibodies are targeting and how many structures exist on other coronaviruses that can equally lead to immunity. In mid-April, work was published by the group of Andreas Thiel at the Charité Berlin. A paper with 30 authors, amongst them the virologist Christian Drosten. It showed that in 34% of people in Berlin who had never been in contact with the Sars-CoV-2 virus showed nonetheless T-cell immunity against it (T-cell immunity is a different kind of immune reaction, see below). This means that our T-cells, i.e. white blood cells, detect common structures appearing on Sars-CoV-2 and regular cold viruses and therefore combat both of them. A study by John P A Ioannidis of Stanford University — according to the Einstein Foundation in Berlin one of the world’s ten most cited scientists — showed that immunity against Sars-Cov-2, measured in the form of antibodies, is much higher than previously thought. Ioannidis is certainly not a conspiracy theorist who just wants to swim against the stream; nonetheless, he is now being criticised because the antibody tests used were not extremely precise. With that, his critics admit that they do not have such tests yet. And as an aside, John P A Ioannidis is such a scientific heavy-weight that all German virologists combined are light-weights in comparison. 3. The failure of modellers Epidemiologists also fell for the myth that there was no immunity in the population. They also didn’t want to believe that coronaviruses were seasonal cold viruses that would disappear in summer. Otherwise their curve models would have looked differently. When the initial worst case scenarios didn’t come true anywhere, some now still cling to models predicting a second wave. Let’s leave them their hopes — I’ve never seen a scientific branch that manoeuvred itself so much into the offside. I have also not yet understood why epidemiologists were so much more interested in the number of deaths, rather than in the numbers that could be saved. 4. Immunology of common sense As an immunologist I trust a biological model, namely that of the human organism, which has built a tried and tested, adaptive immune system. At the end of February, driving home from the recording of [a Swiss political TV debate show], I mentioned to Daniel Koch [former head of the Swiss federal section “Communicable Diseases” of the Federal Office of Public Health] that I suspected there was a general immunity in the population against Sars-Cov-2. He argued against my view. I later defended him anyway, when he said that children were not a driving factor in the spread of the pandemic. He suspected that children didn’t have a receptor for the virus, which is of course nonsense. Still, we had to admit that his observations were correct. But the fact that every scientist attacked him afterwards and asked for studies to prove his point, was somewhat ironic. Nobody asked for studies to prove that people in certain at-risk groups were dying. When the first statistics from China and later worldwide data showed the same trend, that is to say that almost no children under ten years old got sick, everyone should have made the argument that children clearly have to be immune. For every other disease that doesn’t afflict a certain group of people, we would come to the conclusion that that group is immune. When people are sadly dying in a retirement home, but in the same place other pensioners with the same risk factors are left entirely unharmed, we should also conclude that they were presumably immune. But this common-sense seems to have eluded many, let’s call them “immunity deniers” just for fun. This new breed of deniers had to observe that the majority of people who tested positive for this virus, i.e. the virus was present in their throats, did not get sick. The term “silent carriers” was conjured out of a hat and it was claimed that one could be sick without having symptoms. Wouldn’t that be something! If this principle from now on gets naturalised into the realm of medicine, health insurers would really have a problem, but also teachers whose students could now claim to have whatever disease to skip school, if at the end of the day one didn’t need symptoms anymore to be sick. The next joke that some virologists shared was the claim that those who were sick without symptoms could still spread the virus to other people. The “healthy” sick would have so much of the virus in their throats that a normal conversation between two people would be enough for the “healthy one” to infect the other healthy one. At this point we have to dissect what is happening here: If a virus is growing anywhere in the body, also in the throat, it means that human cells decease. When [human] cells decease, the immune system is alerted immediately and an infection is caused. One of the five cardinal symptoms of an infection is pain. It is understandable that those afflicted by COVID-19 might not remember that initial scratchy throat and then go on to claim that they didn’t have any symptoms just a few days ago. But for doctors and virologists to twist this into a story of “healthy” sick people, which stokes panic and was often given as a reason for stricter lockdown measures, just shows how bad the joke really is. At least the WHO didn’t accept the claim of asymptomatic infections and even challenges this claim on its website. Here a succinct and brief summary, especially for the immunity deniers, of how humans are attacked by germs and how we react to them: If there are pathogenic viruses in our environment, then all humans — whether immune or not — are attacked by this virus. If someone is immune, the battle with the virus begins. First we try to prevent the virus from binding to our own cells with the help of antibodies. This normally works only partially, not all are blocked and some viruses will attach to the appropriate cells. That doesn’t need to lead to symptoms, but it’s also not a disease. Because the second guard of the immune system is now called into action. That’s the above mentioned T-cells, white blood cells, which can determine from the outside in which other cells the virus is now hiding to multiply. These cells, which are now incubating the virus, are searched throughout the entire body and killed by the T-cells until the last virus is dead. So if we do a PCR corona test on an immune person, it is not a virus that is detected, but a small shattered part of the viral genome. The test comes back positive for as long as there are tiny shattered parts of the virus left. Correct: Even if the infectious viruses are long dead, a corona test can come back positive, because the PCR method multiplies even a tiny fraction of the viral genetic material enough [to be detected]. That’s exactly what happened when there was the global news, even shared by the WHO, that 200 Koreans who already went through COVID-19 were infected a second time and that there was therefore probably no immunity against this virus. The explanation of what really happened and an apology came only later, when it was clear that the immune Koreans were perfectly healthy and only had a short battle with the virus. The crux was that the virus debris registered with the overly sensitive test and therefore came back as “positive”. It is likely that a large number of the daily reported infection numbers are purely due to viral debris. The PCR test with its extreme sensitivity was initially perfect to find out where the virus could be. But this test can not identify whether the virus is still alive, i.e. still infectous. Unfortunately, this also led some virologists to equate the strength of a test result with viral load, i.e. the amount of virus someone can breathe out. Luckily, our day care centres stayed open nontheless. Since German virologist missed that part, because, out of principle, they do not look at what other countries are doing, even if other countries’ case numbers are falling more rapidly. 5. The problem with corona immunity What does this all mean in real life? The extremely long incubation time of two to 14 days — and reports of 22 to 27 days — should wake up any immunologist. As well as the claim that most patients would no longer secrete the virus after five days. Both [claims] in turn actually lead to the conclusion that there is — sort of in the background — a base immunity that contorts the events, compared to an expected cycle [of a viral infection] — i.e. leads to a long incubation period and quick immunity. This immunity also seems to be the problem for patients with a severe course of the disease. Our antibody titre, i.e. the accuracy of our defence system, is reduced the older we get. But also people with a bad diet or who are malnourished may have a weakened immune system, which is why this virus does not only reveal the medical problems of a country, but also social issues. If an infected person does not have enough antibodies, i.e. a weak immune response, the virus slowly spreads out across the entire body. Now that there are not enough antibodies, there is only the second, supporting leg of our immune response left: The T-cells begin to attack the virus-infested cells all over the body. This can lead to an exaggerated immune response, basically to a massive slaughter; this is called a Cytokine Storm. Very rarely this can also happen in small children, in that case called Kawasaki Syndrome. This very rare occurrence in children was also used in our country to stoke panic. It’s interesting, however, that this syndrome is very easily cured. The [affected] children get antibodies from healthy blood donors, i.e. people who went through coronavirus colds. This means that the hushed-up [supposedly non-existent] immunity in the population is in fact used therapeutically. What now? The virus is gone for now. It will probably come back in winter, but it won’t be a second wave, but just a cold. Those young and healthy people who currently walk around with a mask on their faces would be better off wearing a helmet instead, because the risk of something falling on their head is greater than that of getting a serious case of COVID-19. If we observe a significant rise in infections in 14 days [after the Swiss relaxed the lockdown], we’d at least know that one of the measures was useful. Other than that I recommend reading John P A Ioannidis’ latest work in which he describes the global situation based on data on May 1st 2020: People below 65 years old make up only 0.6 to 2.6 % of all fatal Covid cases. To get on top of the pandemic, we need a strategy merely concentrating on the protection of at-risk people over 65. If that’s the opinion of a top expert, a second lockdown is simply a no-go. On our way back to normal, it would be good for us citizens if a few scaremongers apologised. Such as doctors who wanted a triage of over 80-year-old COVID patients in order to stop ventilating them. Also media that kept showing alarmist videos of Italian hospitals to illustrate a situation that as such didn’t exist. All politicians calling for “testing, testing, testing” without even knowing what the test actually measures. And the federal government for an app they’ll never get to work and will warn me if someone near me is positive, even if they’re not infectious. In winter, when the flu and other colds make the rounds again, we can then go back to kissing each other a little less, and we should wash our hands even without a virus present. And people who’ll get sick nonetheless can then don their masks to show others what they have learned from this pandemic. And if we still haven’t learned to protect our at-risk groups, we’ll have to wait for a vaccine that will hopefully also be effective in at-risk people. Medinside.ch, Beda M Stadler
    1 point
  22. Sobeit

    Bank depo

    Guess you're unlucky enough to have visited one of the 4 branches that closed during lockdown. New Plymouth's Richmond Centre was one of them, not sure where the others are. With respect to your deposit using a credit/debit card it depends on the card issuing bank. It is usually available within a few hours, however the ANZ have been known to take longer than 24 hours at times.
    1 point
  23. Covid,Whinge and Pullurheadin
    1 point
  24. 2 cubed ? you are 1 short as that is only 7 observations
    1 point
  25. "Horses that travel to meeting outside the area would need to be looked after by a stable worker or trainer based in Waikato or further south and then return back to the Auckland region with any gear which travels with the horse to be disinfected" Didn't happen.
    1 point
  26. Good on you cubes, nice run by your horse, win not to far away, just wondered if this was the horse that won a trial quite a while back and you posted that the jockey was impressed with the run.
    1 point
  27. Shad

    Winter cup,Riccarton

    Wild Jack abit stiff but 26s fixed the place very good, was 126 for win, had to get off the rail for a run may been the difference in the end.
    1 point
  28. Blossom Lady

    Race Form

    Where and when is Race Form on sale ???
    1 point
  29. Leggy

    Riccarton races today

    You may have heard that New Zealand is at COVID level 2 nationwide? I would think that the other 99.9% of NZers would know that. You have to be taking the piss?
    1 point
  30. Yes, I did read an article on the endless concrete recently. All of the above certainly provides a very logical explanation. Also I go there for work on occasion and the local perception around the end of June was certainly that plenty of rain had fallen recently and yet the reserviors were no fuller. The engineer I work with there had also been talking to a watercare engineer, who said when they get water from the Waikato river it has to be treated 10-12 times, and it is still dirtier than what comes out of the sewage treatment plant
    1 point
  31. Seriously? There is a virus going around the world, putting stop to a few things. Could be something to do with it....
    1 point
  32. Good run by your horse in race 4
    1 point
  33. meomy

    Covid Lockdown and Ruakaka

    @Boss Hogg and billions of debt to the World Bank that those who created this nightmare can be held to account for obtaining in the first place. Jacinda relied on her "friends" in Italy & other places overseas reme ber for her information. She has "friends" also working in Govt internationally from PRIOR to becoming Gvt as is mentioned in earlier articles abt her becoming a representative of Mt Albert & then PM Who are those "friends"? They are likely to have Social Media accounts & follow each other. Timelines of the chain of events should be easy to find that out. They to need to be held to account.
    1 point
  34. A glorious Winter’s day in Melbourne today after some over night rain. Track will be nice and loose to suit Betty perfectly where she is unbeaten on soft tracks (2 from 2). They’ve pushed her out slightly to $4.20 Fixed. Look for her to settle towards the rear half of the field before making her run out wide from the 600. Welcome back Mystic Journey!! Go you good thing!!
    1 point
  35. tasman man 11

    Bugger!

    Just back from fact finding trip of South Island ,my second such trip this year ,touring one of the most amazing places on earth .....the province of Otago and in particular Central Otago. Have you ever been there ? And what exactly do you want from me to support my arguments ,which I view as my personal opinions from an enthusiastic participant. Last time I looked I put my trousers on the same way as most others on here. I'm always willing to comment on things I have have personally experienced over the years and support them with relevant facts. If anyone doesn't like my posts ,then I'd politely ask they don't read em. Tell me what you want my opinion on and I'll do my best if I think it worth wasting time on ......tell me what your area of expertise is ,what your pedigree is. There are a lot of 'weird' people out there .....keyboard warriors , educated direlects ! Got things to do today.
    1 point
  36. rdytdy

    Jacinda Ardern

    The team of five million is splintering Tim Murphy 4 hrs ago Broadcaster Ryan Bridge will write a weekly column for Newsroom during the election campaign. Today, is the Prime Minister's lockdown strategy worth the price? The team of five million is splintering and there are early signs Jacinda Ardern’s campaign that wasn’t a campaign for re-election is wobbling. It’s becoming abundantly clear the Prime Minister’s sworn mission of stamping Covid-19 out of New Zealand is neither sustainable nor the right thing, morally, to do. I’ve had business owners call me this week in tears at the fact their enterprise is again on skid row. Queenstown Mayor Jim Boult told me businesses there will fold because the resort town’s largest source of domestic tourists, Aucklanders, can’t leave the house let alone attempt a day’s skiing. A call from Kaikoura confirmed people were chanting “f**k the lockdown” in unison and spontaneously while queuing in a local store following Ardern’s Tuesday press conference. The evidence has been just as damning. Level Four was a body blow for business. The Productivity Commission found the extra five days we spent at Level Four the first time came with a net cost of around $750 million, which translates to 22,500, quality-adjusted, life years. That was just five days’ worth. Even at Level Three in Auckland, ASB says Ardern’s approach is costing us half a billion bucks a week. That’s $100 per week per household. Worse still is the uncertainty it creates for business. Uncertainty is like cancer to free enterprise and it can spread rapidly. Firms stop investing, stop hiring, stop planning and start acting with caution to preserve their arteries. Those small and medium sized businesses able to hang on with the help of government subsidies for the first round are now asking themselves how long this can go on. It’s not just commerce that takes a whack, either. Some 30,000 elective surgeries were delayed because of the first lockdown and some have still not caught up. The Southern District Health Board estimated it would take up to six months to clear, and require the help of the private sector. The economic and social costs are too high. Her supporters argue Ardern’s approach doesn’t necessarily need endless lockdowns… in theory we can keep our borders secure, contact trace and test, remember? Reality Check We need look no further than our own backyard to see that Covid will regularly slip through our precarious border controls again and again. We have 18 isolation and quarantine facilities in Auckland with thousands of staff marching in each day to work and marching out each night to a city of 1.5 million. It’s just a matter of time before there’s another slip up and, no matter how competent our dear leaders have been in ordering a lockdown, we can’t trust them to keep Covid out. Despite being lauded for her fine communication skills, somehow the Prime Minister forgot to tell the boffins that regular testing of all border and quarantine staff should have been happening. Not until Newshub’s Michael Morrah informed the nation on Thursday night that just a third of those working the borders had been tested at all did we realise just how loose this goose had been flying. There have also been question marks over our so-called gold standard contact tracing abilities. As recently as July 7, five days into his new job, the health minister told me he was yet to be convinced we had the gold standard the Director General of Health said we had, and there was particular concern about our surge capacity. Overseas, Vietnam and Australia should serve as warnings that no country can keep Covid out. The dream of a vaccine arriving soon is just that. The World Health Organisation has changed its tune on the timing of a vaccine. It’s now telling countries they need to learn to live with Covid in their communities and for a long time yet. The world record in terms of vaccine development is four years for the mumps vaccine and most take about 10 years. Dr Simon Thornley, a senior lecturer of epidemiology at the University of Auckland, puts it this way: “In New Zealand we’ve talked ourselves into a corner that we’re going to be able to do this. A long-term strategy that is predicated on a vaccine coming and seeing New Zealand isolated from the rest of the world is unrealistic and detrimental to the health of our population.” What about the death toll? Every option comes with a cost. But it seems the cost to lives was initially overstated by the Prime Minister. Death tolls of between 8,500 and 27,600 were predicted and used as justification for the harsh measures imposed. The then Health Minister David Clark told me he didn’t even know where some of those modeled numbers had come from and was unsure of others the Prime Minister had stated publicly. Whatever the case, they need revisiting. I spoke to a Swedish journalist a few weeks back to get a sense of how our two, polar-opposite approaches are working and learned their death rate is far lower than had been predicted. And that’s without any lockdowns (although there are low-level restrictions) and children still able to attend school. Most interesting is recent news that Sweden's percentage change in new cases over the past fortnight has dropped by a third. This, as neighbouring lockdown countries endure the rise of second waves. Moreover, the WHO says the death rate is now estimated at between 0.5 and 1 percent. So the cost to life is not what it was but the burden on our businesses, workers and families is all too real. The political problem "Stay home, Save lives. We will take a health first approach. We will follow the health advice from officials. We believe in science, not conspiracy. We can beat this again. We are the envy of the world in the way we’re handling Covid." Ardern has made very clear how she will deal with Covid and it involves a lot of pain for kiwis. It’s an entrenched position and a change of course risks undermining her decision in the first instance. But she must ask herself whether the health risks of perpetual lockdowns are worth the economic price. Ardern’s ability to clearly communicate decisions has never been in doubt, but increasingly her ability to make them is. We can’t insulate ourselves from Covid’s impact on the global economy, but can make sure we don’t exacerbate the problem by shooting our own in the foot.
    1 point
  37. nomates

    Bugger!

    Great , your back on board , so you'll be coming up with those facts and figures to be backing up your argument from the other day . Looking forward to perusing them .
    1 point
  38. rdytdy

    Covid Lockdown and Ruakaka

    Probably due to riding Northern horses in the Winter Cup, as per every other year.
    1 point
  39. Trump

    Covid Lockdown and Ruakaka

    Be fair you guys. Queenstown rents are very high, one of the reasons prices are high. They cater for high end tourists! If you don’t like it, go and ski Ruapehu and do your shopping in friggin Raetihi!
    1 point
  40. Getting back to Avondale....just thought I would share this from the secretary.... c, d interesting. RACING INDUSTRY BILL - This has been fast tracked by Parliament and is now law - The Racing Industry Act 2020. Comments on the law as it relates to industry renovation and potential venue confiscation, from our Treasurer: The Government justifies the taking of racing club land it deems “surplus”, without full compensation, on the basis that privately owned racing club assets are in fact “industry assets”. An assumption that underlies this justification is that clubs have relied on industry funding to prop up club operations and capital spending. It is widely considered that Avondale JC’s venue – 30 plus hectares of inner-city open space - is the primary target of this expropriation, because it is the only ‘industry day’ club whose wealth is significant (north of $280 million). The Government’s justification is undermined completely by the facts: (a) NZTR’s policy that drives racing activity, applying to all racetracks in New Zealand, is a “command model” designed so that the governing body controls the financial outcomes for all weekday meetings. Thoroughbred clubs hosting weekday events (“industry days”) should break even on those days. (i.e. generate no income and suffer no losses). Commissions for the club from the level of on-course or off-course betting are non-existent. All industry day clubs get the same level of race day funding from NZTR so there can be no argument that some clubs are more of a drain on the industry than others, unless additional funding is given to struggling clubs that cannot operate within the NZTR rules. (b) Funding operates in a monopoly environment in which NZTR’s funding is simply part of a “money-go-round”: the bulk of the costs of holding races are passed through the host club by NZTR and industry day clubs have neither business interest in betting nor on-course patronage. c) Avondale Jockey Club has not and does not receive racing-related funding additional to the NZTR funding policy. (d) As far as capital funding is concerned, the racing industry has not – and does not currently - provide financial support to Avondale. As members know, we introduced night racing in 1987 and by 1989 the club was in financial trouble as a result. Ultimately the club’s financial woes were resolved with an interest-free loan from the New Zealand Racing Board. Avondale JC repaid principal at the rate of $150,000 p.a. and fully repaid the loan in October 2008. Other clubs got into financial difficulties in the 1990s as well. A number had debt forgiven as a bailout – Ellerslie, Riccarton, Alexandra Park and Addington to name some. Considerable debt was forgiven. Avondale was deprived of equal treatment in the aftermath of night racing and was the city track that missed out on capital funding or bailout money.
    1 point
  41. Trump

    Bugger!

    This is what happens when people don’t work together.
    1 point
  42. barryb

    Covid Lockdown and Ruakaka

    Average comment, in fact I thought the Queenstown business owners were the arseholes, been milking tourists and Kiwis for yrs & absolutely flogging the price and now the shits hit the fan they want Kiwi support in droves, but apparently not when theres a tiny risk of Covid. Can they please make up there mind. PS: Be kind, mikenz
    1 point
  43. Red Rum

    Covid Lockdown and Ruakaka

    Do you honestry think we going to go level 4 anywhere , Id be surprised , we will truly be stuffed if this happens with relatively minor numbers .
    1 point
  44. They were massive on him pre race , I had only just turned TV on and he was evens, 7s plus bar , Toyed with idea of doubling my meagre account balance at evens but time I logged on it was 1.80 fixed which I thought nah bit short now , but never in doubt , brained them wished I'd got on . Good to see Sublime Diva won the next as well .
    1 point
  45. Indeed Red Rum. The whole of Australia was on that horse from $6 into odds on. There was a very strong word early on the street for him and he delivered justifying that support. Rulership should also win tomorrow. He has strong form from last campaign and has trialled brilliantly. Hydro Star the spruik horse won impressively on debut but the time was not overly flash. Frosty should get the lead easy from a soft draw and dictate to them. Currently paying $3.10 Fixed. Other horses to keep an eye on are Russian Camelot who would have to be a massive chance in the Caulfield Cup and Surprise Baby who with any given luck this year should win the Melbourne Cup. Jennifer Eccles is paid up for the Cox Plate and she trialled reasonably well at Ruakaka recently. Look forward to seeing her debut this campaign at Hastings.
    1 point
  46. Memphis2

    Race Form

    Just got mine from 4 Square Whanganui. Bloody great. I love it. Worth $7.50. To me
    1 point
  47. Insider

    Race Form

    Got mine from the Porirua TAB at 11:00. A great read. Well done all.
    1 point
  48. ADM

    Race Form

    Mine delivered today, fantastic to have it back.
    1 point
  49. Bestbetbazza

    Race Form

    Brought mine from Johnsonville TAB at 11.00 This morning
    1 point