Charlie Bukowski

As we all know, Tony’s last day will be Wellington Cup Day, the same day 30 years ago that created his famous one liner ……… “and the dream burst’s into reality”
You can be assured that the WRC will do something really appropriate. I sincerely hope so anyway!
Trackside Premier (channel 64) will be playing that day, so they will certainly have the time, the staff or whatever else is needed to do something really special and broadcast it live.
I guess that will be the test of their “true colours” for the best commentator in NZ, since the great Peter Kelly, the other magical voice of Trentham. 

Shame Trackside never had the respect to cover the presentation...after all no matter what he has dedicated most of his life to the sport.

Exactly what happened with Trackside , used to be based at Avalon, lost some good people when they moved it to Parnell.
For starters should have gone to the Waikato, funny how they ended up in a Nelson Schick owned commercial building in Parnell... eh Chris Bayliss you flog

Chris Wood, very sad.I have Wonderful memories of a champion hard bloke. Brian Collins.
BC was and is a Great Man. Kind and very fair. Staunch.
BC helped me get the Video on course video contract at Counties, along with Haubie and Sir Brian Mollett and that awful bloke Sir Kim Clotworthy.
 
BC taught me, earlier in my life,  how to load thoroughbreds onto planes.With propellers.How to deal with the union rules for off loading thoroughbreds in Aussie.
His TAB account balance will probably go to the " The injured Jockeys fund"
or " The rehabilitation /education of Jockeys who rode my Horses poorly  "
or
Brian Collins book " How to Train Races as an Owner "

Love and thoughts
Rev
 
 
 

And just coincidentally ..
BC has one racing at Mornington tomorrow.
Out that good one you're probably thinking of Woodsy, Cabella.
Wouldn't it be poignant if Redella, by Redwood x Cabella can get the money for BC , he's probably already on and currently $16s.....
 

And just coincidentally ..
BC has one racing at Mornington tomorrow.
Out that good one you're probably thinking of Woodsy, Cabella.
Wouldn't it be poignant if Redella, by Redwood x Cabella can get the money for BC , he's probably already on and currently $16s.....
 

Reckon Senor Pete was a really under rated sire..
 

This is going to be as much fun to watch as when Trump got the presidency . 

Annie get your gun Oakley 😆
Some great memories there.
Graham McLeish a very accomplished rider from Te Awamutu back in the day and Harry and Barry , nothing about those boys , heightwise I mean

One of the most memorable race calls I've ever heard was Tony calling Veandercoss winning when I was still a little kid.  Probably heard better race calls from him and others since, but few stick out as much as that one.
Don't follow CD racing much these days, but caught a couple of his calls yesterday and there was nothing wrong with them.

Top Hurdler Happy Star won his first two races easily when trained by Peter. Had a great family there with a host of top horses including Josephine,Miles and Lord Monty who never had his first start until he was 7 and eventually was a winner of the Winter Cup. Raced and stood at Stud the great horses His Royal Highness and Sculptor. RIP Peter McKenzie.

I spent 15 years in Kentucky where my local track was Keeneland. After I came back here in the 90's they introduced an oncourse commentator for the first time. In the quest to remind myself when that was, I saw a couple of articles which had this to say among other things in 1996 after I'd returned to New Zealand.
"Keeneland President Bill Greeley said the track built a new announcer's booth last summer and is installing a state-of-the-art public address system. But he said the track, which adheres to the motto 'Racing as it was meant to be,' will use the system only sparingly. 'Sound will be limited to program changes and race calls,' Greeley said. 'We do not plan to disturb our patrons with promotional announcements and constant reminders to bet."
 

 

Be much better if it was Tom Wood.  Should have had enough of Hong Kong by then.

The Provincial Challenge is a dated format .It needs to be binned. Trashed.
It worked well for a few years.
Commentators, Punters ,breeders ,jockeys, had to adjust their thinking.
The Racing Colours we knew for  our favourite stables and our  own revered owners colours  transposed to Rugby Unions .
Stupid.
Photos on the wall with Canterbury colours when their   horse won and  was trained in Cambridge. ? 
 The rugby province NPC thing .Is dead.
Look at Yesterday's R7  Inter Winner .
 Winner Shelbyrockin. If you looked  for her previous race colours ( Shane Browns )  brown and white
 
Kerry Hobbs has done an amazing job for New Plymouth and Taranaki racing.
He is a great bloke.
I wish him a wonderful retirement.
Rev

Looked awful at the time. Very lucky jockey  and went to the line best of all of them IMO. 
 
BERRY THE CASH (P Matthews) - Slow to begin. Misjudged the fence near the 1700 metres. Stewards questioned the rider regarding a perceived lack of vigour rounding the final bend. P Matthews explained that after improving into restricted room inside of BEAU GESTE she had elected to steady her mount and shift outside that runner to obtain a clear run. She conceded that this decision could have been made sooner. P Matthews’ comments were noted by Stewards

This is our Grandson, the actual spelling of his name is Ngakau Hailey. He is passionate about what he is doing, and really loving it. He has only just turned 16 and as his Grandparents, we are Super Proud of him.

Equestriad Charm was by Todman out of Affectionate who was by Alcimedes out of Kalamira. Kalamira was raced by MR Godfery and trained at Takanini by Ray Wallace. She raced 64 times for 10 wins. At 2 she won 3 from 14 starts. Matamata 6f 31/1/59 John Grylls (her 10th start). Te Aroha 6f 21/2/59 Grenville Hughes. Tauranga 6f 21/3/59 Ian Galvin. At 3 she won 3 races from 14 starts. Ellerslie 1m 31/10/59 Brian Andrews. Te Aroha 28/11/59 1m Brian Andrews. Waipa 12/12/59 1m Brian Andrews. At 4 she won 3 races from 17 starts. Ellerslie 5/11/60 1m Brian Andrews. Ellerslie 26/12/60 1m Brian Andrews. Ellerslie 30/1/61 1m Brian Andrews. At 5 she won 1 race from 19 starts. Avondale 13/1/62 11f Brian Andrews. Her dam Time Teller was owned by Les Haworth of Cambridge and trained at Te Rapa by Ray Cotter. She won 2 races from 10 starts. She won her second start at Thames on the 10/1/53 ridden by Trevor McKee over 6f. Her other win was at Te Rapa on the 14/2/53 ridden by Johnny Anderson over 6f.

Clang and Angelayre go boldly at Te Awamutu.
Clang on the plough and Angelayre and Full of Scotch on the inside grass, were the best trialists yesterday in preparation for Waipa tomorrow. 
On the plough Clang (Smith) with an advantage in the weights was shading Career Girl (J Riordan) after running the last 1000 in 1.2 and 600 in 36.6
Gallery (Warren Collett) and Lobtop (Miss Prime) ran 1200 in 1.12 and the last 600 in 37.
 

Warren Collett riding gallops, , sure Gallery was trained by Trevor Temm, I won a few on Trevor’s horse called Abusive, by Sugar Apple.
Warren trained Rongonui, 3 time winner of the Winter Cup, son of Laurie Collett.

Later  Diane Knowles..
Early on she used to work for the Hendersons who ran a car wreckers yard  as well as a pie cart and trained a few horses.Designate and Investigate come to mind.
 
 

Trackside is stale and outdated , it is time for a major overhaul of it's whole presentation .

They need to make sure that a large chunk of all the monies they have received from both this windfall and the Entain money is directed at targeted track upgrades . That means identifying a track in the north outside of Ellerslie , the CD and the SI for complete relaying of the track surface to Syrathayr . 
This will future proof the industry more than any A/W tracks will .

In that story most of the pub and club punters said they would NOT open TAB accts , nor knew how or wanted to bet online , so my question is how is the TAB going to recover that lost revenue ?  Because if that is replicated throughout the country that is a lump of lost revenue . 
I see they have found a solution for one of the locations , why not look at finding solves rather than just closing these locations .
I know I have been banging on about this for a number of years but the TAB went down this route a number of years ago , just cutting punters off at the knees , and they are still trying to recover from the lost revenue from back then . We all know the biggest battle is that the large proportion of existing punters are older so why would you deliberately stifle one of your existing revenue streams . 
The smuggest line for me was " people have available betting outlets in nearby towns " . This to me shows why the industry will never recover , and Entain won't last . 
Always look after the client you have because you never know if you can replace them .

Is it normal for the inside running rail to go from red and then back to white again before the winning post as it does in Oamaru?  The end of the red strip appears to be where he stops riding as if he thinks its the finish line.
Call me a skeptic, but pulling the cramp card seems very convenient to save face?

Good on you High Sparrow - it looks like the trophy has been withdrawn from the auction!