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Thank you Leigh Cheers John Thanks muchly to Ponderosa ... thanks to everyone that has made this year for us all on RaceCafe, enjoyable.. whether we agree, disagree, have a poke at each other, or have a laugh, it's what a forum is all about and we'd be so much sadder without it Have a safe festive season all and may the new year bring you so many things that you are hoping for

Slim to none, I fear. I agree 100% with what you say, and I know a fella who has offered to do just that. And as well I know two very able people who would, probably, be co-opted to help. But the offer was spurned and that is as far as your idea will get. Too much self-interest, lack of vision and factional squabbling. To my oft-voiced dissatisfaction, the response is something like, well if you know so much do it yourself. To which I freely admit I have neither the ability nor the time. But with the right personnel it would be very do-able.

Merry Xmas to everyone and especially you Scooby. Your efforts in providing a forum which gives us all a great deal of pleasure is to be commended, robust discussion is healthy and to be encouraged. Thanks again, All the best for Xmas and the coming year.

I just happened to note the Timaru noms for later this week. 33 noms for the maiden 1,200m, and NZTR are actually considering splitting it. No suggestion of splitting the fields with 25 and 23 noms though. A couple of weeks ago we had Ashburton with 26 noms for a lower grade race, but that wasn't split. No scratchings out of that field so 12 horses missed a start. That Ashburton meeting was the first Canty meeting for a month, apart from a bizarre AWT track meeting in mid summer. Contrast that with the absolute rubbish fields that will go around at Taranaki. Otaki and Wanganui over the next few days. Also interesting to compare Timaru with Wingatui, which is already a heavy 10 and likely to remain so. You do wonder about the incredible sums of money that get poured into Wingatui while the rest of the South misses out. Interesting also that no mention at all of any intention to try and make up for the 5 races lost at Tapanui. If a meeting was abandoned in the North they would be falling over themselves to add extra races anywhere possible. Tapanui already had numerous ballots that were going to miss a start. As it turned out five whole fields missed a start. i only really have one question. Do trainers in Canterbury actually notice that they are severely disadvantaged in the way the dates and programmes are organised? And if so do they make any effort to complain to the appropriate authorities? I have never seen any mention of them noticing it or complaining about it. One trainer was obviously so frustrated by the absence of southern 2yo racing ( no races for two months mid summer) that he had to head north to run in a 5 horse 2yo group 2 at Trentham. One of numerous 5 and 6 horse 2yo races in the CD. Does anyone know if NZTR notices the obvious discrepancy in opportunities and field sizes in the CD and SI?

The South Canterbury Racing Club have a great Facebook Page. Love the way they highlight local trainers. Without doubt they and other clubs south of Riccarton should be allocated more dates.

Insert NZ for SI , our whole calendar and programing is a shambles and doesn't make the most of our product . This is why the above won't happen . Be prepared for it to become worse , heritage and history is a dirty word in our industry now . We have become an industry of candy floss racing .

Interesting reading everyone's comments etc. It seems to me that like how this thread reads, there appears to be no systems every abandonment can differ yes, but if you don't have any semblance of systems with rules and regulations then it becomes a shambles. And I think we can safely say it's a shambles.

Thanks for all the support from everyone this past year wishing everyone here and your loved ones a very Merry Christmas and a very prosperous 2025 for all...

The Black Caviar story lives on. Her 7th foal wins on debut at Wangaratta, her first to do so. Looked good too.

Just WTF are they doing with the money from all these land sales ???? In 10 years the Telegraph will be an 800mtr sprint because they have sold another chunk of the shute , and fields will be a maximum of 6 because the track is now only 8 mtrs wide for the circumference as the club has continued to sell strips of the outside of the course proper . Be very careful Insider , stand in one position for any length of time on WRC land and you will be considered surplus and sold to a sex trafficking gang from South America .

Trainers there certainly notice Doomed, and complain but not in a way that has much effect. They are stuck with sustaining viable businesses and tend to take the approach that this is the horse we have and the programming we have to make the best of. As Insider notes, Tim drives the SI programming committee. At the moment what they basically do is take last year's programme, shift a couple of meetings around in consultation with those clubs and tweak a few races. Imo what needs to happen is for a panel to sit down for a week and design a SI orogramme starting with a blank sheet of paper. That sort of initiative needs to come from NZTR and be supported by a survey of trainers. Ideally the Trainers' Association would be lobbying NZTR to do that from their national office. Entain could also be pushing for that because significant improvements in field sizes and attractiveness of races to punters would result. Chances of anything like that happening?

Merry Christmas to all and a Happy, Safe and Prosperous 2025. Thank you Scooby and Say No More and all who contributed to the fun comps here.

Merry Christmas to you all, i hope owners horses win and punter take Entain to the cleaners. Thanks to the owner of the site , cant be easy at times but he makes it look s that way

I sometimes wonder what the response would be if a Canterbury trainer said to any trainer in the NI "do you realise we have no feature meetings anywhere in Canterbury for 10 weeks mid summer, other than one AWT meeting with enhanced stakes but no open class or age group races." I'm sure northern trainers would be staggered. We also have a weird thing at Wingatui this Thursday. A random listed race for 3yo fillies over 1,400m has just popped up. Obviously transferred from March. The weird thing about it is that there has been no lead up races to it and it doesn't lead into any other races for 3yo fillies. The last 3yo fillies race in the SI was the 1,000 Guineas, which only had one SI starter, and that horse isn't in this week. The next 3yo fillies race in the whole SI is, wait for it, almost four months away. I'm assuming they haven't slipped anything else in that I haven't noticed. Some of us can remember when the Show Gate Stakes was raced at Timaru over Xmas, when Oamaru had a 3yo fillies race, and there were several others. These days there appears to be no pattern at all. I don't recall seeing any explanation why that race was transferred so dramatically. I imagine there must be something somewhere as surely they have to get approval to move a listed race. Surely its not a desperate attempt to get a SI horse into the sweepstake race? It can't be an attempt to get a SI horse into the slot as the SI slot was given to a minor northern horse, which is probably a subject for another day.

Paul Nairn usually gets a winner over the Coast circuit.....Waterloo Station in the first at Westport for me

I suggest that you go and pay Tim Mills a visit as he’s go nearly all the day down there. I agree, the Canterbury race programming and date planning is a nightmare and all wrong.

I'm afraid that like most NI owners, if racing stopped at ATC I'd be out of the game. I like to physically see my horses from the time they are foals, through their early preps, be on the track when they race and visit them when broodmares. Yes, we raced two of our top horses in partnerships with a couple of southern owners and gone down when they were in major Group races, but it's definitely not the same.

And the same to you Leigh. NM

New Years Day used to be Auckland Cup Day, following the Auckland Trotting Cup at Alexandra Park on New Years Eve. Ingrained in the calendar, people came from all over NZ for that week as part of their holiday break. Completely stuffed up by some bright sods who thought March would be better. And they wondered why crowds dropped off…..

I watched a couple of races from Trentham last weekend and I thought it looked different. Then I realised the public grandstand was gone. Bit sad really. So I suppose they will now save the costs of cleaning that stand, although I imagine it cost a bit to pull it down. For Cup Day is it intended that the public will stand on top of the shingle piles?

Good stable, and has bought some very good trotters to the coast over the years, to start their career, so always a chance.

JOHANNES BRAHMS was second to LAKE FOREST in the 2023 Gimcrack at York - a race starting to look very good. He’s bred to get a mile - there’s a filly half called TATTYCORAM (ex Camelot) who was a very promising third on debut at Ascot in September to subsequent Fillies Mile third BALLET SLIPPERS. She’s in my notebook as a middle distance prospect for next year and as she’s trained by Arc winning handler Ralph Beckett, she’s very much in the “could be anything” folder. I hope we see JMac at Ascot next summer.

Wow so close

dalgety 64; S Thornley 62; W House 58. Close contest!

Makes you wonder why these guys get paid letting Alex Park crash like it has

Perhaps you are right in a black and white rule sense however if the responsibility for the safety of the track on raceday resides with the Stewards then surely it is in their best interests to ensure that the track is galloped on prior to the first race. Other wise Race One is even more of a Crash Test Dummy exercise. In saying that it seems it is the Jockey's who make the descision to ride or not ride and thus abandon or not abandon the meeting.

I'm off to support my local club Hastings.... oh hang on a minute!!

Merry Christmas Leigh and to all Racecafe members. Been another great year of superbly run competitions, good banter ( mostly ), humour and debate. Hope you all have a happy holiday season with your families, and if you get the chance, go and support your local club on course and experience NZ racing up close and personal…nothing like it….. And may 2025 bring many more winners to you all….

And it was remiss of me not to thank all the contributors to all the comps throughout the year...all donations and contributions are greatly appreciated as this is not an inexpensive exercise keeping the lights on here...and also thanks to Pondy and others for helping out on the rare occasion Saynomore is unavailable....hope that covers everything now....cheers.

The Stewards take over control of the meeting from the Club as per the rules of racing. Which begs the question why aren't Stewards insisting on horses being galloped prior to racing on the morning of the races? Didn't happen at Hawkes Bay and possibly the Te Rapa abandonments.

He was "shooting from the hip" alright. He plum done forgot to withdraw his gun from its holster before squeezing the trigger, resulting in shooting himself in the foot.

I dont think administration is for you scooby doooo - God knows how you stumbled into it - But keep the boys club secure from any criticism

Thanks Scooby , have a good one too and Merry Christmas to you and yours, Happy New Year and beyond

Monday It didn’t take a crystal ball or complicated algorithms to predict that Coolmore sire Wootton Bassett would be in the news with his two-year-olds this season. This was the crop bred immediately after the operation had paid a small fortune to prise him from the hands of the shareholders who stood him at Haras d’Etreham, where he had performed miracles with minuscule books of modest mares. The son of Iffraaj covered a Who’s Who of top-class racemares and producers in his first season at Coolmore’s headquarters in Fethard in 2021. Just as a taster, they included Group/Grade 1 winners Albigna, Alexandrova, Awesome Maria, Bracelet, Clemmie, Curvy, Deirdre, Fancy Blue, Found, Immortal Verse, Mabs Cross, Miss Yoda, Nickname, Peeping Fawn, Proviso, The Fugue and Was. That star-studded introductory book in Ireland also contained the dams of elite winners Audarya, Channel, Golden Horde, Harry Angel, Limato, Mukhadram, Line Of Duty, One Master, Sioux Nation, Snowfall, Technician, Tepin and Zoustar. Wootton Bassett’s principal appeal to Coolmore was that he was not only a proven source of high-class stock, but also one who could act as an outcross to mares by Galileo. He duly covered 58 daughters of the multiple champion sire, who died after that year’s breeding season. It was always on the cards that Wootton Bassett (pictured below) would make hay with the 213 foals who resulted from those matings, then. But few could have guessed how phenomenal his achievements with those horses in their juvenile season alone would be. Camille Pissarro, the half-brother to Golden Horde, dropped a clue as to what was to come when bolting up at Navan on debut in April. He didn’t immediately live up to expectations for himself or his sire when beaten into second at long odds-on in the Marble Hill Stakes and finishing midfield as favourite in the Coventry Stakes, but he ran honestly all season and finally came good in the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere this month. The fact that the Aidan O’Brien-trained colt started once every month from April to October speaks to the toughness that the stallion often imparts. Henri Matisse was another artistically named Ballydoyle colt by Wootton Bassett who showed his hand early, winning a Curragh maiden in May and adding the Railway Stakes and Futurity Stakes to his tally by the end of the summer. The colt out of Immortal Verse has blotted his copybook a little on his last two outings, wandering around before finishing second in the National Stakes and failing to land a blow in the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere in first-time blinkers, but it’s easy to see him redeeming himself in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf on Friday, with the tight turn at Del Mar helping to focus his mind. Wootton Bassett’s ability to throw an early season two-year-old is not exactly without precedent or ancient history, with River Tiber and Bucanero Fuerte, from his final French crop, finishing first and third in the Coventry Stakes only last year. Camille Pissarro and Henri Matisse’s exploits were nonetheless a useful reminder of the trait, especially when the sire’s Coolmore-conceived crops have taken on a different complexion, generally being more classically-bred and therefore likelier to bloom later in the year than had previously been the case. Wootton Bassett’s two-year-old results have indeed warmed up as the season has progressed. Angeal, out of Ribblesdale and EP Taylor Stakes winner Curvy, won the Prix Six Perfections in July; Ides Of March, out of Frizette Stakes scorer Nickname, took the Round Tower Stakes in August; and Houquetot, out of Happen, a Group 3-winning daughter of War Front and Alexandrova, and Green Impact, out of a middle distance-placed daughter of Galileo, scored in the Prix La Rochette and KPMG Champion Juvenile Stakes respectively in September. Things have reached boiling point this month. Maranoa Charlie, out of a winning Galileo half-sister to Tiggy Wiggy, landed the Prix Thomas Bryon to become Wootton Bassett’s record-equalling seventh Group winner at two from a single crop, and Whirl, out of a winning Galileo sister to Hermosa and Hydrangea, won the Staffordstown Stud Stakes last Tuesday to give her sire the record outright. Wootton Bassett ventured even further into uncharted territory yesterday when Tennessee Stud, out of a Sadler’s Wells half-sister to Rock Of Gibraltar, and Twain, out of Montjeu’s Rockfel Stakes-winning daughter Wading, made it a terrific ten Group-winning two-year-olds in one season. For good measure, they did it at the highest level, in the Criterium de Saint-Cloud and Criterium International respectively, with Twain in particular marking himself down as a credible Classic contender for next year. Wootton Bassett’s record-smashing haul of Group winners is actually only scratching the surface of his upgraded two-year-old crop. It contains another three Listed scorers, namely Apples And Bananas (third to Twain and one place ahead of Maranoa Charlie yesterday), Benevento and Chantez, and seven more stakes-placed horses, including Dewhurst runner-up Expanded and Middle Park third Dash Dizzy. There have also been several impressive new winners this month: Tangapour, who benefited from a lay-off to make all and score by four lengths at Killarney; Jettie’s Run, who won a shade cosily at Kempton; and Serious Contender, who battled to victory at Leopardstown. Wootton Bassett has always been known for his versatility as a sire ‒ his earlier Group 1 winners conceived in France ranged from a Prix de l’Abbaye winner in Wooded to middle-distance stars like Almanzor and King Of Steel ‒ and that is the hallmark of his first Coolmore two-year-olds: some were out early, some have appeared later, and they have excelled from six furlongs to ten furlongs, on all sorts of going, with many appearing to enjoy their racing as they are out often. In that respect, Wootton Bassett is truly a Danehill for our times. It would be no surprise to see him crowned champion sire in Britain and Ireland and forge an effective sire line like his predecessor at Coolmore before long too. Crucially, when Wootton Bassett’s two-year-old generation is significantly larger than in previous years, his statistics hold up as well. His black-type winners to runners strike-rate is around 14 per cent, an excellent figure and the sort that Galileo was achieving with his juveniles in his pomp. There really isn’t much not to like about Wootton Bassett. There will no doubt be some howls of protest that those exploits with his two-year-olds have been boosted by mare power; and of course there would be some truth in that, as those runners are clearly displaying some of the talent of their mothers and other distaff siblings and ancestors. But it would be churlish in the extreme to mark the sire down on that score, when he earned the right to cover such glittering books by delivering European champion Almanzor among a first crop of 13 foals conceived at a fee of €6,000, and top-notchers Audarya and Wooded from similarly inexpensive matings. That is all a dim and distant memory now, as the recently published Weatherbys Return of Mares shows that he received 223 mares at Coolmore this year with a high concentration of quality again. Among the highlights were top-level winners Alpha Centauri, Bateel, Coronet, Hermosa, Homeless Songs, Miss Yoda, Mutamakina, No Speak Alexander, Quadrilateral, Romantic Proposal, Savethelastdance, Siyarafina, Snow Lantern, Taghrooda, Tarnawa, The Fugue and Treve. The book also featured the dams of celebrities Al Husn, Anthony Van Dyck, Capri, Ezeliya, Palace Pier, Tribalist and Unquestionable, as well as two very special mares: Alpha Lupi, who has produced three individual Group 1 winners in Alpha Centauri, Alpine Star and Discoveries, and Frida La Blonde, who clicked with the sire to produce Bucanero Fuerte and Wooded. The crystal ball can remain in storage; no need to furrow the brow trying to work out intricate sums: it’s plain to see that Wootton Bassett is going to be a sire of enormous consequence for years to come.