TARANTULA

Thanks Scooby. I never realised how much I would miss Race Cafe until the outage.
Even at 4:20 am (now) I was still checking to see if you were back up.
Yahoo!

Our hosting service had a major outage for about 10hrs in Singapore so it caused a major technical issue throughout the South Pacific and caused us to be involved too. So sorry for any inconvenience caused and glad to be back up and running again...unfortunately it was totally out of our hands....so once again sorry for that.

On the PP site this morning there is a reprint of a Garrick Knight article in the Harness Xpress dated 8th May.
" According to ATC President, Jamie MacKinnon, club officials expect to sit down with Colliers reps within the next week and assess what interest or offers are on the table. MacKinnon also says rumours of a high mark offer of $67 million are, to his knowledge incorrect"
" We haven't got to the point where we sit down with Colliers and hear what the best options are, so I don't know where that rumour has come from"
"We are close to locking in a deal, but not that close"
" The best and most suitable offer will be accepted with no further delays, even if that means the club remains in debt to it's lenders"
" If we are left with debt following a sale, well it's not the end of the line, the club still has other assets to fall back on"
I think that it is ridiculous to suggest that he has not been in contact with Colliers through out negotiations since the close of the deadline sale on the 17th April, he must know the numbers being talked about. The statement that the deal will be accepted with no further delay, does rather suggest that the bank has said Sell  Sell  Sell!!
 

All about what websites you use to view harness racing.
How about asking the Hard Questions
Standing starts
Horses being driven for next weeks race
Weak stipes
Team driving
Drivers half carting in almost every race
Unfair handicapping system
Loss of owners and breeders
Handouts to ATC
and I have only scratched the surface

He would never have gone past RP who ran his last 800 in .54.5, a second faster than Moana.  I think RP doesn’t always get the credit he deserves. Mo’unga & RP have met 9 times the score is 7 to 2 in terms of RP finishing in front of Mo’unga. Mo’unga is extra good though and it’s only a matter of time until he gets some group 1’s. 

$119.80 is correct according to aceodds bet calculator - Bet Calculator - Quickly Work Out Your Sports Bet Return

 

Thanks Guys - I'll be fair to myself and say a bit going on at the moment so couldn't see the error of my ways 🙏🙏
I can go and spend it happily now🙂

Hi ALF.  PLEASE CHECK LINE 1 . 2.3 x 1.45 x 2.15 x 5.18 =37.15 rounding.  DIFFERENCE $14.85.     134.65 -14.85 =119.80.
HOPE THAT HELPS.REGARDS TARANTULA.

Hi ALF. ANYONE WHO TAKES A 4 LEG MULTI, 2 VENUES,AND GETS THEM IS RIGHT UP THERE WITH SHARPNESS.REGARDS.

The most important part of Next gen is Increasing ownership numbers.  Increase ownership participation & you increase demand for horses & increase punting revenue.  For the policy to work we need new owners to be successful.  No fun in investing in horses that  don’t race or can’t win a race.  We want them to become repeat customers & encouraging them to buy stock from unproven stallions decreases their chance-of success, Therefore the incentive to promote new stallions runs contradictory to the goal of increasing ownership. 

There is normally a built in incentive to support new stallions in that they are most often a lot less expensive to breed to.  It doesn’t seem to work well however as most people want stock from stallions that give them a much better chance of success, especially at the top level. For that reason I suspect this new scheme may not be very effective.  We should not be using new owners we attract to the sport as the Guinea Pigs to find out if a new stallion will be successful or not.  Getting them to invest at all is an achievement. Let’s look after them. 

I sincerely hope it’s a raging success & I’m proven wrong but it seems a bit complicated & contrived to me. That’s just my opinion. Something needs to be done to attract new owners for sure but I would prefer a stand alone scheme.  Maybe if someone takes a share in a horse that hadn’t owned one in the past 10 years they get a bonus if the horse wins. It could be restricted to horses from the yearling sales but no restriction on its breeding. 
 

Have only glanced over this initiative, but agree with your opinion.
HRNZ have no right to push certain sires with financial incentives, at the expense of others, those sires are not at the top of our winners lists or sales results, so they want to attract new people entering the industry to start with less chance of success? 

I have always been dead set against selling Alex Park but honestly I don’t see any alternative unless a miracle happens & the property deal goes through.  If not the bank will have to force a sale of Alex Park.  

Yes, disappointing mate but she will keep. Class is permanent and she has plenty of it. 

Is that "easy" or "soft" 
They'd have lost the penetrometer. A "heavy 57" ?? 

Call me an old fossil or whatever but I pine for the glory days of this place. Just looking at tonights fields (and no disrespect to those owners who have horses entered) whats going on. Years ago I would look forward to Friday nights at the park and having a punt. Now, to be honest I barely bother to look. Someone tell me it's all going to change and good times back at the park are coming. 

Next week HRNZ have allowed 7 races to be programmed at Cambridge for a total of 47 horses, less than 7 average per race, so even less attractive for betting than the Tuesday just gone where at least there were two 10 horse fields. Yes its early days in this exercise and the betting revenue results will tell the story over time. But what is the basis/ reasoning for splitting 12 or 13 horse fileds into 6's and 7's? This has two negative outcomes overall- it puts up even more examples of a less attractive betting product for Australasian punters, and requires the harness racing industry overall to pay even more $ in stakes subsidies for 7 x$8,000 races instead of 6. Would it be unreasonable for next weeks exercise (and its cost) to be explained?
Am starting to wonder if HRNZ recognises what damage can be done by putting on more and more of the product (<10 horse fields) that punters demonstrably don't like. Addington vs Alexandra Park tonight is going to be a very bad watch and result for the latter. Yes it's still early days with FNL. But can we deal with reality here- the issue all comes back to the reality expressed so many timea already on this forum- the North Island horse population is highly unlikely to support two meetings a week, now or in the future. Could we please plan accordingly?       

All the best to Lisa and so very sad for the beautiful chestnut filly Pretending out of the lovely old girl Masquerade.  Thoughts with everyone involved.

Her mother posted this on Facebook.
Hi , Lisa’s mum here, yes, Lisa had a fall after the post race 2 when unfortunately Pretending broke down.
She has been taken to hospital for scans on her back/shoulder. She has full movement of her limbs and recall of everything. 
We thank you for your concerns for Lisa, it never gets easier for me watching the races !!
Our thoughts are also with Terri Rae on the loss of her horse Pretending, it’s a heartbreaking game at times.

Aidan's report has added a further dimension to this very unfortunate happening. Lisa has been at the top of her game recently and she is always a fine ambassadress for all jockeys with her personal presentation at the races and her ability to communicate when being interviewed. Our very, very best wishes.

The Auckland centric HRNZ are a joke, unfortunately not a funny one, with breeding numbers going down each year and high numbers of exports, it was glaringly obvious that the horse population would not support their plans for significant increases in North Island races.
ATC  last week,    8 races, 64 horses, average 8 per race,    2 six horse races
ADD  last week    10          99                              9.9
ATC  tomorrow      7          51                              7.3                 3 six horse races & 1 seven horse          4 of the 7 races will have no third dividend & probably no punters.
ADD  tomorrow    10          90                               9                   1 six and 1 seven
Auckland were programmed to have 9 races at these meetings, from the 30th August they have planned 10 races per meeting.
Nominations for next Tuesdays Cambridge meeting will only support 5 races, unless they get more with nominations extended. 
We are in the second year of Entain splashing the cash, to have maiden winners only getting $4400 this season compared to $6600 last season is insulting, how is this encouraging breeding? the winners were 3 and 4 years old, they were born in 2019 and 2020, obviously the result of the mares being served in 2018 and 2019, breeding is a long game, and to get $4400 in 2024 is disgusting!

The Cheap Tuesdays will do absolutely nothing to rescue harness racing in the north!
Much like the idiot who asked to have his pizza cut into 6 pieces because he didn't think that he could eat 8 pieces, hrnz seem to think that cutting the pizza (horse pool) into a different number of pieces (fields) will change the amount of pizza (horse numbers) available for consumption.
On the contrary, it will further reduce field sizes as the available pool of horses is spread more thinly - as we're already seeing - consequently driving more punters away due to a tasteless product being offered.
Dwindling horse numbers are the problem, and have been for more than a decade. Ignoring that fact for another decade, and daydreaming about increased stakemoney, and more races curing the problem, will simply oversee the closure of harness racing in the north island.
The falling breeding numbers started 20 years ago, and has gradually translated into the shortage of racing stock we have today. The core problem of breeding numbers will take at least 15-20 years to turn around, unfortunately northern harness racing doesn't have a 20 year life expectancy.

And even worse than this, the fields themselves are even smaller than last year, and thus even less attractive as a betting product. This week last year we just had a Cambrdige meeting on Thursday, 9 races , 89 starters, 9 per race.Cambridge permanently shunted to Tuesday this year still has approximately the same number of horses per race, but Alexandra Park on Friday will deliver less per race than Cambridge, 8 per field on average. So together this year vs last the 2 North Island meetings have 13 races vs 9 from one meeting last year and only 8.4 starters on average. Cost to fund these extra races yoy will be substantailly up year on year, but will there be any betting revenue uplift to follow. This will be a recurring question as the months go by. 
By comparison Addington and Ashburton have 10 more starters in total vs last year and an average of 10 per race, getting far closer to optimal for betting returns for the industry. As is usual they will be the much more attractive betting product for punters across Australasia compared to Alexandra Park.
The proof of whether the additional cost of all these extra races in the North Island, subsidised from betting returns n South Island racing, will take time to be clear. But there is a really good argument to be made up front that if you offer more and more of a lesser product, and that product becomes worse over time because
a. (Cambridge) you offer it at a time when no one buys it or
b.(Alexandra Park) you offer it at a time when it is directly comparable to a better product available at the same price, then
1.The additonal cost (stakes subsidies and cost of people and production) of offering more and more of that same lesser product will exceed the additional revenue generated from that increased product. In economics this is the principle / law of diminishing returns, and its been that way for centuries!
2. Perhaps even more worrying, if you keep taking so much money to fund the lesser product away from the profitable better product (Crusaders country racing) that in time the better product suffers exactly the same fate that the North Island faces now, as off course punters keep drifting off into the sunset because even the best product stops being attractive as owners don't get a fair return for their investment. 
There is only so much money to go around, it isn't enough to fund stakes at top and botom end, it isn't enough to fund all the venues. HRNZ already acknowledge this project is spending money that is not going to be available to them without betting uplift in 4 more years. Let's hope they keep critically evaluating the incremental betting returns if any they get from this project relative to its costs in the months ahead, and keep telling us how it is going! If it isn't shifting the dial substantially, then shunting Cambridge to Tuesdays permanently in favour of Alexandra Park, and even more excessively subsidising Alexandra Park over and above the whole of the industry should be the first two things they modify. The numbers will tell the story.   
 

Bloody hell, I wonder if he was feeling that during the run. So sorry for all the connections and the champ, still had heaps to offer. Hope he recovers well and has a wonderful retirement