soliloquy

Your post which I quoted was about deaths after vaccination, which were lower than the natural rate, indicating that they're fine. Your own post and evidence you chose to provide said this. This reply you have sent is about something unrelated, the death rate of the disease itself. I understand that covid is not that deadly. The vaccine is far less so.

Your post which I quoted was about deaths after vaccination, which were lower than the natural rate, indicating that they're fine. Your own post and evidence you chose to provide said this. This reply you have sent is about something unrelated, the death rate of the disease itself. I understand that covid is not that deadly. The vaccine is far less so.

"To date, the observed number of deaths reported after vaccination is less than the expected number of natural deaths" - the 2nd screenshot

They stay and are run on the turf track https://racing.riccartonpark.nz/news/synthetic-track-milestone.html

What makes you think that the amount of posters on a topic is an accurate representation of the people interested in it? Plenty of us read (1,500 views!) but give the doom and gloom reply a miss - I'm pretty sure you know these things but prefer to be as provocative as possible. Why's that? Why don't you apply for any positions in the governance of the industry? (Or, am I mistaken and you have in the past?). You seem to have an eye for detail with some of the things you notice, and seem to think you have identified the cause of the issue in most cases. As has previously been said, the pay isn't bad and it can't be hard to do better than some of the previous administrators, right?

Trentham Race 1: 5 & 8 Trentham Race 2: 1 & 16 Trentham Race 4: 1 & 3 Trentham Race 5: 1 & 3 Trentham Race 6: 7 & 9 Trentham Race 7: 3 & 6 Trentham Race 8: 1 & 2 Thanks!

Non black type SW+P races are done differently to black type ones. Looks like they start on 54 and get 1kg per win up to 4. It's not a very often used one for older horses, I think WFA would have been simpler and just as (if not more) likely to see the race get an upgrade to listed, which I'd guess is the clubs goal - but that's another topic anyhow. So yeah it doesn't do Melarita any favours but there's winners and losers under literally any weight scale. The connections had the option to have her in the Rating 74 (carrying only 0.5kg more) over the same distance earlier on the card

That will be because there are no dead tracks in Australia. Their scale goes from Good to Soft to Heavy. If you go to Racing Australia and most likely any Aussie form website, it will also list all of Aegon's runs as on soft tracks

Ascot Park Race 6: 1, 6, 8, 9 (BB) Ellerslie Race 7: 1, 3, 4, 13 Ellerslie Race 8: 1, 6, 7, 14 Caulfield Race 5: 1, 3, 10, 11 Caulfield Race 6: 1, 7, 8, 9 Rosehill Race 6 4, 9, 11, 12 Caulfield Race 7: 2, 5, 13, 14 Rosehill Race 7: 1, 3, 4, 7 Caulfield Race 8: 1, 2, 7, 15 Thanks!

R1. 4 The Lost Boys R2. 3 Festivity R3. 4 Torque Time R4. 13 Zee Falls R5. 3 Gold Watch R6. 7 Avantage R7. 3 Il Affare R8. 9 Melody Belle R9. 3 Les Crayeres Thanks!

The weights are not done bottom up at all. If they were, Hurry Cane would carry 73kg (Hypatia being a R55 mare*, placing the effective bottom benchmark at 51, HC is 38 points above that, 0.5 for each point is 19 and then add to 54). Indeed, if you looked for more than half a second, you might have spotted the other three horses with higher ratings in that race carded 54kg as well which would not happen if the handicap was bottom up. If you wanted to look for maybe 10 seconds, you would find that every topweight in a non-black type open handicap for the last ~4 months has carried at least 62kg. Say what you want about the overall system, good or (more likely) bad, but this is not an extreme or unusual example.

Having been there and seen it, doubt it's a protestor. The druken dare seems more likely imo. For one, I'd have thought a protestor would take a sign or wear a t-shirt ie. broadcast their opinion while everyone is watching. I think they usually bugger off anyway once people stop coming anyway and this was near the end of the day. When the cops got him to the ground, a beer dropped and spilled everywhere and it definitely could've been his though it looked like some bystanders were half-pie taken out as well. He's a 100% fuckwit either way and of course we'll know more shortly.

At the time of weight declaration (a couple of weeks ago), Beauden was rated 100 which gave him 60kg under those rules - but he has since dropped out.

Solesefei, Gorbachev and Magic Chai I believe. Before them, Savaria and Mister Impatience (who nosed out Penthathlon and cost me a bit). Graphic and Blood Brotha were also earlier in the decade but the exact order escapes me without looking. There's no real need for gatekeeping over who can or can't remember them. Some people just want to enjoy themselves and get on the piss and it's one of the few days where it happens on a racecourse and earns a club a bit of money. The cup field is indeed pretty shit quality wise but at least it's still a good betting race and a good spectacle

They're in niggly places on the calendar. This coming up one should be 1400 to become more attractive for milers that skipped Hastings or have had a freshen since then. They can use it as a lead up for the Captain Cook and then maybe the Zabeel. The up and running lot can use the Couplands if they really need a mile. Currently the two clash too much imo. The NZ Japan trophy is in no man's land being shortly after the G1 WFA season through summer and the best horses are tired. The switch to SW+P for that race while the Easter (the most convenient target race after it) has been changed back to handicap simultaneously means that smart trainers with lower rated horses don't want to risk the large rating penalty that inherently comes with SW+P racing. The South Island black type races probably have bigger fields because of their scarcity. They are almost all handicaps so many have a go with a lighter weight, while the highly rated horses have no other option but to run unless they want to go up north. The concept of scarcity, in my opinion, should be employed all over the country. Fewer really big races mean that everyone has to converge for them and it creates more depth which we are sorely lacking. But, organising a downgrading and better flowing black type calendar would need the co-operation of NZTR and a lot of clubs, and it wouldn't take much unco-operation to throw the whole thing off and we'd be back at the start

Are you just watching or betting as well? If the former, trackside can be streamed from loveracing.co.nz. Only requires a free account. Can't imagine it's location locked but interested to know

It totally sucks that this is the way we're portrayed in mainstream media when this happens, indeed. The jockeys won't stop breaking the whip rules. If they're a chance halfway up the straight in a Melbourne Cup, the last thing they'll be thinking about is the whip rule or stewards. I think the only way to fix it is to just take them away altogether (or only have them carry them for safety, etc). It pains me a bit to imagine what non-racing people think when they see a close finish - whips flying everywhere. That can be fixed with education on the actual 'whip' is, and the reason it's used... but it's much more simple and effective to ditch them, for the sake of giving racing a more friendly image.

They are having a laugh - because most people are relatively risk averse and they can get away with a higher percentage market than usual

1st - #7 Verry Elleegant 2nd - #21 Tiger Moth 3rd - #16 Steel Prince Last - #21 Miami Bound

It was changed as part of the calendar put together during lockdown, along with stuff like moving the Northland Breeders and the Awapuni Metric Mile around. It'll only be for this season, and go back to normal next season, according to that same era of documents. Seems a bit strange now, but it was a whole different world but then I suppose. I'm not a big fan that it creates so many similar black type 1400m races so close together (the 1400 at NP, Matamata, Hasting next sat, and to some smaller extent the mares at Hawera) when there are so few black type opportunities over that distance later in the season. The race seems to have held up pretty well in any case.

A horse rated above 65 with more than 1 win can't run in them. I believe it's to keep the 65s a little bit clearer, because they're often full. On the main topic, some of these lower rated horses are actually winning though? Take Matamata yesterday, for example. 5 open entry races. One was actually split into a R71 so I won't count that. The remaining four were won by horses with the ratings 75, 71, 84, and 73. The highest amount of points given out for a win of those was 6 (New York Jazz), so maybe 1 more than usual for a saturday race. At Gore on Friday a R58(!) horse won a R90 and received 4 points etc etc etc. There are most certainly examples of R67-72 horses not being up to the big boys, it's far from a perfect system. But not every single one such as this thread would suggest. There is actually a R70 race at Rotorua this week, so who knows why there isn't a few more.

Yeah, I think he might have been included because he's a cool horse and has a great story. On paper though he has a similar record to The Mitigator/Wyndspelle imo, so I don't really know if he should be there either personally

How could you have him over Te Akau Shark, Avantage, or Melody Belle though? If you're going to include The Mitigator you may as well have Wyndspelle too. Definitely ridiculous that Tallyhoe misses out though :(((

Hawera has a meeting next Saturday. I suspect noms are lighter because the races at that Hawera meeting are the first lot in the CD with pre-Covid Saturday stakes, which are twice as much in some cases. I do agree that it could be run at Wellington, Awapuni will be toast after another few more meetings

What does this even mean? What has it got to do with nominations at Riccarton or even nominations in general? Please give an example, so that we can have some meaningful discussion. Without that, we would all just be clutching at straws as well. I can think of a couple of possible examples of a backflip that you *might* mean. RITA said no tote operators at all to begin with and then decided to bring a few back, because everyone got (correctly) mad about it. Is that a backflip - or is it listening to it's audience? Yes I'm aware that if they had looked in the first place that they wouldn't have tried to get rid of them, but would people rather have tote operators now or have RITA show that it is 'strong and independent' by sticking to its word, and have none? In addition, every time one of those organisations even tries to make a plan for the future, and change something, it gets ripped apart by many. It is quite difficult to come up with a fully cohesive plan - racing has so many stakeholders that range from the people implicitly involved all the way to the public that is almost impossible to satisfy everyone. Even on this forum there are examples of this. Everyone here wants a better future for racing. But a lot of people here also disagree on many issues, such as Avondale, small clubs, best ways to produce racing media, etc. This isn't to say either NZTR or RITA are doing a good job, but it is to say that doing a great one isn't simple. I agree that racing here needs a direction to improve But being equally vague is at best not that useful, and at worst, being somewhat contridictive.