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Barrier attendants get $160 net for the days work and most have to take a days annual leave from their real job....its an industry problem !!! How can you introduce younger ones with the above conditions ?

Week 5 - Final Results Alan with a pretty ordinary score this week by his lofty standards , but still retains a very healthy 100 point lead over Ohokaman. Pottsie, the only entrant above 300 points, rounds out the top 3. Foxmerts recorded the top score for week 5 - 167 points including a very nice Joker play on Tutukaka. Four entrants eliminated this week - Say No More, Basil Brush, Pegasus and Southland. 27 entrants left to fight out the final three rounds. Please let me know if I've got your score wrong.

Well thats me out but got the obvious Quinella with my cousin Cunning Fox

National are experts in scoring own goals

Well wasn’t that a shambles …starting ten minutes over time …three late scratchings

Yonkers today there's a whole lotta ex-Kiwis racing, and it kicks off with DinaBolt and GlengarryKnight in race 2. then there's steady stream with the likes OnTheCards, AmericanDealer, BelmontMajor, CommanderCathy, JacksLegend etc etc with JesseDuke in the last, and Pure mate there's few Ozzies in too Cheers Iraklis

I'll get to reviewing the weekend's action in due time but it's a very busy week with both jumps action in Ireland at Punchestown and all roads on the flat scene heading to the Newmarket Guineas Festival starting on Friday. I'll start with the Flat racing first. Wednesday sees the opening card of the season at Ascot where the continued dry spell has left the ground Good to Firm. It's billed as "Trials Day" for the Royal meeting which is just seven weeks away (!). Three of the big races from June do have vaguely recognisable trials - the Sagaro over 3200m is the Gold Cup trial albeit the big race is of course over 800m further. Seven go to post and the top rated is TASHKHAN who chased home TRUESHAN in the Stayers race on Champions Day. The problem is all his form is on a slow surface and this is going to be quick ground for the time of year. That's less of an issue for PRINCESS ZOE who chased home the ill-fated Subjectivist in last year's Gold Cup. You'd think she's want every inch of 4000m and this might surprisingly be on the sharp side. I quite like WORDSWORTH from the Aidan O'Brien stable. He was second to KEMARI in the Queen's Vase over 2800m last June and chased home HURRICANE LANE in both the Irish Derby and the Grand Prix de Paris. Later efforts were more moderate but he returned with a nice win at Gowran Park a couple of weeks ago and that race fitness will be a big help. Just five go in the Group 3 Commonwealth Cup Trial over 1200m. GO BEARS GO was a seriously good juvenile running third in the Phoenix, runner up in the Norfolk and the Flying Childers and winning the Railway. If he's kept that form, he'll go close but he faces the first and second from the Mill Reef, WINGS OF WAR and HIERARCHY (the former has to carry a 4 lb penalty) as well as the useful Hannon type EHRAZ. It'll be a race to watch closely. The Paradise over the straight 1600m is billed as a Queen Anne Trial but I suspect none of the four will see which way BAAEED goes in June. VALIANT PRINCE represents Charlie Appleby and Godolphin and looked good in a couple of Meydan handicaps. Friday sees the first day of the Guineas Festival at Newmarket - the ground is Good, Good to Firm in places on the Rowley Mile. The opening day feature is the Jockey Club Stakes, a Group 2 over 2400m. YIBIR is 1/2 favourite and he ran a fine race in defeat in the Sheema Classic on World Cup night. He's well ahead of the others on the figures and should win this. Saturday has the Palace House for the sprinters over 1000m and of course the first classic of the season, the 2000 Guineas over the 1600m. 19 have been entered and NATIVE TRAIL is currently around Evens. Sunday has the Group 2 Dahlia for the fillies and mares and the 1000 Guineas also over the straight 1600m. 16 have been entered but the huge news yesterday was the scratching of long time ante post favourite INSPIRAL Aidan O'Brien's TENEBRISM is now 11/4 favourite with DISCOVERIES 11/2 and impressive Naas maiden winner TUESDAY at 8s. More on these races later in the week.

Crikey. Some real dead wood in there team right now.

Good training performance to get Aegron up...been up since the spring...well done to James Cummings...I am hanging on now 1 life gone .....

Yep....they should always be educated to a point where barriers shouldn't be a problem but on the odd occasion, a horse will let you down...it happens. What should happen then is that competent professionals should bridge that eventuation by understanding what to do and when. You blokes who aren't prepared to call it as it was....that being uneducated people hoping that 2 yo's will load themselves......obviously haven't had any experience in loading horses into barriers. This is meant to be a professionally well run process and not some la de da picnic parade. Stop being PC. I speak from experience. It was abysmal. I don't know of any race EVER that had 4 late scratchings because they wouldn't load into the barriers. Makes me begin to understand why we're having problems with 5-7 year olds not being able to read or write when they get to school. Call it as it is and get it right.

Maguire’s not driving now is he ?

Under inquiry, 4th horse galloping but I see the second horse went rough and interfered with Barrytown down the home straight. Driver of Barry town took evasive action. Good on Pillippa getting her horse home for the win after the bad luck with Ready I Am. I have the TFA but not thinking it will stay as it crossed the line.

Stayed as they crossed the line. Simple Fisrt Four really. Today the two horse above quinelled the first race at Ashburton. Rush winning and Barrytown 2nd.

They need to bring back Hail Christian for stud duties when he finished.

Hi from the comp last week can I please have the $20 put on Avondale race 7 number 12 verstappen to win please

Flemington R3-10 Foreign Raider Avondale R9- 12 Gallivanter Good luck all.

Kensington R3. #7 ToesontheNose Kensington R7 #9 Lekvarte Pic is from Cambridge Town Square this morning. Poppy shaped hot Air Balloon. Fortunately the old timers with the rifle salute missed it.

A few thoughts... The starting staff on racedays are there to load horses safely, not to educate them. That's one of the reasons we have jumpouts & trials. Barrier staff on those occasions may well put the final touches on young horses getting their barrier education, but they shouldn't be expected to educate from the start either. Stipes shouldn't be issuing barrier certs until they are confident that a horse is educated enough and mature enough to cope with the starting gate procedure on raceday. A decent breaker or a trainer who is a real horseman/woman usually produces horses that are willing to load & jump out of the stalls at their debut. In my time, I also found that having a stable old-timer or retired horse or two who know all the ropes can be useful when you are only educating one or two babies at a time at the barriers.

Gee that was a nice performance lst up today ,lst start since last October and we’ll done to Dennis Ryan

They shouldn't be going to trials or races until they are happy to be loaded & to stand in the stalls. The outfit where the majority of the horses I have owned a share in taught them from day one on driving reins to walk through the barriers, then to stand in them for a period of time (a longer period each day). We had three open wooden barriers near the trotting track that were used to educate horses. They repeated this process once they graduated to being ridden. Once they were bullet proof doing this, they went to the real stalls learning to stand in them, to walk out, then jump when the gates opened. They were also taught to stand still when there was lots of yelling & banging & crashing around them. In a couple of decades, I only remember one horse from this stable being reluctant to load at the races on a regular basis (but always did so quite quickly & was never dirty about it) & one occasion when a feisty little mare refused to go in at the first time of asking (just digging her toes in & having a pig root). She then loaded willingly & won the Group 1 race The starter & barrier attendants were always happy to see horses from this fairly large stable at the jumpouts, trials or races as they could be loaded in any order & behaved well. Educate horses properly & you'll rarely have problems on raceday.

Back in the day when I was starting horses down south, they all walked in the gates and stood there and were shut in and walked out before they went home. That was in a 4-8 week process or however long it took. Not my job to teach them to jump out, that was for the trainer or pre-trainer to do. That was a one man operation. No one required behind them with a buggy whip or anything. Basic education. Sometimes walked through the gates on day 1 or 2 of being ridden. It's not rocket science. That debacle showing uneducated horses getting to the races needs addressing.

Very good point Bobbit I didn’t want to point the finger ( Berri Fruit did it for me though !! ) but yes, there’s clearly a horse education related issue here I suspect we’re spending our industry money in the wrong places, 14 million on the RIB now, flash new offices for them, people are telling me the industry is funding equipment purchases for the privately owned racing laboratory … but the basics are being neglected and we’re all paying a high price Yesterdays fiasco was a symptom, the cause is arguably a scarcity of competent professionals running the actual day to day racing component of the industry

To be honest nothing wrong with a flick behind the fetlocks with the old buggy stick....works on the majority of horses and often requested by the trainers that if you do this it will walk straight in. I would be more concerned about the number of uneducated horses turning up on race day and others being made the scapegoat....that being the starter or their assistants or jockey etc...how many horses sold on Gavelhouse or the likes are barrier rouges or unsound ?......Was an unusually big field of 2yr olds down south today but if you spend 30 seconds or more for example getting one problem horse in then the next problem one needs the same amount of time to be fair. The industry is in trouble when it comes to educating young horses.....JMO

Your own judgment as good or better than the next person, I didn't have a bet, but should have stuck with a few of mine that I took around the coast, Nelson, and blenheim circuit, president pat,, Kansas city Jim, also had backed frosty reign last start, gosaki another that won a month or so back, mind you in saying that they had quite a few starts since, and president pat probably should have paid double that price on form.

You always resort to personal criticism and consistently forget to comment on the subject matter. The point being is this article of an acceptable standard ? Should we accept this rubbish or drown in mediocrity.