High Sparrow

Many a true word spoken in jest Barry! I couldn't pick my nose at present.

Yes it is Skoota. Apologies to the TAB on this occasion. My damn computer cache had defaulted to last week's meeting and even though I'd refreshed it today it kept showing fields with no form. My fault entirely. I've been down south at a funeral and hadn't looked at a field for a week. Might have to remember to clear the cache a bit more often!

I thought I'd have a look at the form for Avondale today so went to the TAB website. There does not appear to be any PDF for the meeting for starters. So I went to the individual fields and clicked on the "Expand All" button for each race and there isn't any there either - just a line for each horse saying "No performance history available".

It's a dangerous occupation all right. Such injuries end careers but Lance O'Sullivan came back from horrendous compound fracture injuries which most would have thought would be impossible to come back from and so hopefully we haven't seen the last of Mickey either. He's a tough and resilient bloke and very talented horsemen and I wish him all the best for a full recovery, even in the knowledge that it's a long road back. Patience is also a form of action Mickey.

If it looks like a dog and barks like a dog it's probably the TAB website is the lesson we've all learned week in and a week out with the Clayton's website. Some meetings have just the numbers and names of horses or dogs or whatever - no form at all. Basically a contemptible approach to customers then but that's nothing new - it was there long before the website bulls-up. Trackside 3 is yet another example of promising and not delivering - anything as it turns out. Like Boss Hogg I was once a serious student and enjoyed having a decent punt occasionally but no longer - I refuse to give my hard-earned to people who don't treat the lifeblood of the industry (punters) with any form of respect at all.

Is this what it's come to? They will be offering betting on two flies crawling up a wall next. Palm Beach dogs today - 5 races. No form supplied by the TAB. And they want people to bet on this rubbish. There was so little interest that in only one of the races were three dividends declared. Quinellas paying 70 cents for $1. 15 possible dividends but only seven paid out for win and place. What a joke.

About says it...

Thanks Ohokaman. Yes they were (true gentlemen) - I still hanker for those days with seeing where we are now.

And here was me thinking my car radio had thrown a tizzy - because it could get all the other stations and not 711 a.m. any more. Just shot on straight past it no matter how hard I tried. Then a few days later I discovered the truth. Has no one in management got the faintest clue how to offer the customer some service any more? Let's not have any betting operators at tracks, form guides for the punters (the lifeblood of racing then) and now we won't let you listen to the races you are supposedly being "enticed" to bet on either. I didn't think it could get worse but somehow they've managed it...

No face-to-face on-course terminal operators. Wow. Just another nail in the coffin no matter which 'undertaker' made this ill-thought out decision. Those self-bet machines are a nightmare. Imagine what it's going to be like on a busy cup day (many once in a year punters) and someone using it starts having troubles with it (or it has an error) and there's a long queue waiting to get on. That's going to turn potential newcomers off racing in droves. Add to that the vagaries of the TAB app and/or website and well....would the last person to leave please turn the light out because the TAB won't be able to afford the last day's electric bill by then.

The threads on what I thought was a racing forum (maybe that should be "raving" forum in some instances) seem to be descending down the rabbit hole into politics a lot more these days. Conspiracy theories, people interviewing their computers and not bothering with fact checking is rife it seems. Personally, I am not interested in your politics whether you are left, right, in the middle or somewhere else because I come here to read about racing - something I've been involved in and passionate about for 55 years. Maybe the political tangent is a sign of uncertain times and people looking for someone to blame and resorting to their factional 'default' positions or biases. As far as the blame for racing's demise goes that's clearly at the feet of several incompetent administrators over some decades who collectively squandered hundreds of millions and bled the industry dry. The bitter centralisation pill should have been swallowed 20-25 years ago and now its being forced upon the industry in its death throes. Maybe the answer now could be to follow up the $72 million bail out money with a government buy out of the excess racing land (provided it is put into stakes) and then put all those out-of-work tradesman laid off by Fletcher Building and others to work on building houses for the 15,000 people on the housing waiting list. I know it won't be palatable with dyed-in-the-wool racing enthusiasts but we shouldn't be looking back even though at times that looks like the way we are going. (e.g. the nonsensical decision not to have betting operators on course anymore).

Some great names is there but for my two cents worth Peter Kelly was the doyen of them all - but that's probably because he was the voice that was so familiar to me on 2ZB back in the day. He was an astute judge of a horse (bloodstock auctioneer), had a great patter and rhythm to his calls and was a professional in every sense of the word. He raced several good gallopers including Fun On The Run, Greene Street and Meralini. Here's a trip down memory lane for those old enough to remember. His last words in the video ring so true...unfortunately he didn't get his wish.

That is such shocking news. My deepest sympathies to Cubes and his family at this very sad time. We are all thinking of you and the wonderful support you and Mrs Cubes have offered this community. Kindest regards, HS.

True what you say Jape and that lifeblood you speak of comes from the every day punter and the big wigs seem to have forgotten that along the way somewhere with their inferior offerings in terms of information a punter might use to increase the turnover part of that revenue equation. Punters don't like being taken for granted and treated like they are just mugs (hence the old saying "mug punter" I guess). If they don't offer a good service alongside the product then they can't expect support from us no matter how much we love the sport itself. You're dead right about the comments being time-consuming too. I am sad to see racing dying a death by a thousands cuts due to mismanagement by the bean counters and so-called CEOs.

Don't bother with the jockeys' and drivers' challenges is my advice. They get way too many deadheats, triple deadheats and quadruple deadheats because the 3-2-1 points system heavily favours the TAB. So your $1.80 divvy at the start of the day suddenly becomes way less than money back in some of these instances.