Scotch Thistle
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Posts posted by Scotch Thistle
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It was great to see good sized fields in the Great Northern Hurdles (13) and Steeples (14) yesterday. It looks like the new pattern of jumping racing is bearing fruit, hopefully sustainably.
Another highlight was having Emily Farr doing the comments on Trackside TV before the jumps races. A pity for her that she was out injured, but a bonus for the viewers as her close familiarity with the horses, stables and jockeys involved stood out. She seemed a TV natural, being eloquent and easy on the eye as well as knowledgeable.
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Well done Ellerslie.
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Part of the explanation for the weight differential spreading is that the minimum in the Parliamentary was 54, whereas in the Taumaranui Cup it is 53. Second Innings was on the minimum at Trentham, and still is at Rotorua.
The major part of the explanation is that at Trentham Pump Up The Volume carried 58.5, as Belle Sorriso was topweight with 60 through her higher rating. At Rotorua there is nothing rated higher than Pump Up The Volume (after adjusting for the mares' allowance) so PUTV gets 60.
For mine it is absurd that there is so much elasticity depending on whether a field has acceptors who have ratings at the top of a band. But it happens all the time. In Rotorua race 10 Rocky with a rating of 70 has 60kg in a R75 race, as the highest ranking male accepted for, whereas he would have 57.5kg if a male with rating 75 male had been entered. Invites manipulation of the type Te Akau got up to a few years back when It kept entering and scratching a high-rated topweight so stablemate Burgundy would get a light weight.
- Southland and MiDeBo Racing
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If anyone knows a farm manager in Canterbury who won't say anything about adding coffee in his cows' troughs to the IRU, let the Coles know.
- Fartoomuch, jess and chevy86
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7 minutes ago, ADM said:
Spoke with Greg from Trackside this morning, took me seriously about the issue and then rang back this afternoon to say they had found the problem. Great customer service
I beg to differ. If they were at all customer-focussed they would have checks done on the quality of their transmissions. In this case, after weeks of crap transmissions, they have taken days after notification to get off their arses and put things right.
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Good to see an account of the competition on the Waikato Racing Club website:
It was the final race of the competition, the Lord Mayors Cup from Rosehill M11 R7 that featured the winning punt for the team behind Say My Name, who took out the grand prize at Te Rapa's Punters Challenge on Saturday. Say My Name, walked away with the $5k prize on the back of a winning total of $6470, just pipping at the post the running leaders What A Deezer who had sat on their leading total of $6005 rather then risk a bet in the final race. Arguably it was the individuals and teams who entered the competition who were the overall winners on the day - but we cap our hat to those behind Say My Name and look forward to hosting another competition here at Te Rapa in the future.
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No doubt the Racing Integrity Unit will be onto this, and will call in help as needed from the Police Serious Fraud Unit and the Commerce Commission.
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I would love to see the day when Key or Guy rock up to a race meeting on a glamour day and get directed to the public entrance and told to pay their way.
On the other hand, it would be great to see clubs pepper them with invites to $7,000 meetings, where - if they had the balls to turn up - the reality of the state of the industry could not escape them.
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The Aussies are far from perfect. The coverage from marquee day at Randwick on Saturday provided comedy when the communications around the course with interviews etc kept breaking up or falling silent, with a variety of lame excuses.
On the matter of intelligent raceday comments, I reckon Bruce Sherwin is brilliant before, during and after races he calls. His observations during the races he called at Te Rapa last Saturday were spontaneous, accurate and perceptive. Perhaps he has the advantage over other callers in that his talents are respected and rewarded in other facets of the industry, so he can maintain his dignity by overlooking the shallow and petty behaviours so enthusiastically followed one trick ponies.
- THE TORCH, inside edge, elbow and 2 others
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2 hours ago, scooby3051 said:
Speculation..you have no idea what was said so stop poking fingers unless you know the FACTS..or this will go the same way as the other one.
I think it reasonable, given that O'Sullivan's lawyer Galbraith made no mention of O'Sullivan directing his farm manager to assist the RIU, to conclude that O'Sullivan didn't.
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Sealed By A Dance finished last in race 2 at Trentham yesterday, a rating 75 1600.
Today he races in the Waipukurau Cup, a rating 75 2100. The bookies have him in the second line of win betting at $6.50.
If he wins today, and the stewards ask Kevin Myers to explain the form reversal, how will Myers respond?
Perhaps Myers will ask "What form reversal?", as the TAB and NZTR websites show his form as 44564 and miss the 13th from yesterday.
Or maybe Myers will say the horse was better ridden today, the Waipukurau course suited better than Trentham, the horse goes better when a cup is at stake, or that Trentham was too close to Petone for the horse to strike out with integrity?
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I don't understand. Is NeilD suggesting the raceday judge, John Craig, is incompetent in his timekeeping? Or that Craig's equipment is faulty or inferior? Or that there is some other lack of integrity?
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4 hours ago, henry30 said:
I thought the whole point of having 2 racing channels was so that we could hear post race interviews etc...immediately post race without having to immediately cross to coverage of an Aus race!!
That was the point.
The coverage went from excellent (over the top, even) for the warm up races when Ellerslie and Waverley alone were covered, to incoherent when coverage of Flemington and Rosehill cramped out full coverage of the big Ellerslie races.
If the NZRB has some contractual obligation to show Australian meetings, the crap fields at Waverley (quantity and quality) would have justified that meeting being covered only by Trackside 2 once the Aussie meetings started. Hopefully Ellerslie will have the day to itself next season.
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Sticking to the guts, a trainer has broken the rules of racing by employing a disqualified rider, pleaded guilty, and been fined $500.
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I don't know that this Racing Minister is any more of a problem than each of his predecessors, except for Winston Peters (who achieved more for racing than the rest put together).
If the Minister isn't well informed of industry issues, the first question is how well is he supported/advised by his officials. I think the department which supports him is Internal Affairs, which has a grab bag of responsibilities, most fulfilled poorly (passports being a possible exception). The next question is how well, individually and collectively, do racing industry bodies represent their needs and issues to the Minister (and other Ministers), through coherent submissions and effective ear bashing.
Ministers in general can't miss seeing media reports of shambles after shambles within the thoroughbred portion of the racing industry. Examples over the last few months are fiascos with starting gates, the incompetent watering of tracks, crude persecutions of small trainers (Morton), the chief handicapper sacked for punting, kid glove treatment of industry darlings (O'Sullivan). Loads of other festering matters, not dealt with or unresolved, are chronicled on Racecafe.
In the face of constant evidence of the failings of thoroughbred racing administrators, even a competent and energetic Minister of Racing would find it hard to get other Ministers and Cabinet to pay active attention to thoroughbred industry issues. Except those raised by the breeders and NZ Bloodstock.
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38 minutes ago, Yorkielad said:
I like Lance and have found him to be a straight up guy, but this tosh is just unacceptable in the real world and they and others should stand up and be counted. Far to often its who you know and not what, in this business and no wonder most of the public avoids anything to do with the game.
If Lance is a straight up guy he will plead guilty as charged. He and Scott will reimburse their owners for the prize money they now relinquish, and the owners of the horses which move up a place for the delay in getting their increased prize money. They will reimburse their owners for the training costs and racing fees paid during their cobalt campaigns. They will happily compensate RIU in full for the Grierson costs. And they will cop whatever the JCA imposes by way of bans or fines.
One might expect that Scott, given previous racing "form", gets stiffer punishment that O'Sullivan. However, O'Sullivan, as a dairy farmer with several farms, could be expected to be more aware than Scott that cobalt goes into cows water troughs, and that might square up their punishments.
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Given that fixed odd dividends are reduced by late scratchings, they should be increased if there are late starters?
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I see that the O'Sullivan/Scott stable is 27th on the trainers' list for races won so far this season, with 1 winner for every 15.78 starters.
Last season the stable finished 6th with a winner every 6.43 starters. The season before that they finished 15th with a winner every 7.03 starters.
If they don't up their current winners to starters performance they'll be out of business before their 3 cobalt cases are resolved.
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35 minutes ago, rdytdy said:
They never do as far as I can recall for Pirongia.
Maybe only the bookies get to study them, then? Another illustration of a lack of consistency, and integrity.
The heats at Pirongia were certainly videoed. After Straight Sets won at Tauranga on 2 January for Rogerson, Rogie rabitted on about how good he thought the stablemate that beat Straight Sets at the Pirongia trials [Unconquered] was. A replay of the closing stages of the heat was soon shown on Trackside, with Brendon Prattlewell claiming the credit for arranging this and frothing on about the value of the information from Rogerson.
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3 hours ago, biff said:
Hello, anyone home?.......videos of the trials at Wanganui.....hello, do you think someone can upload before old age catches up with us all........are you all back from holidays yet? maybe not, that's why there is sweet bugger all racing this week.
Geez, you could be waiting a while yet.
They still haven't put up videos of the Pirongia trials held on 26 December.
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Thanks for posting the article Phantom.
Press Release - ARC Stake Increases 2016-17
in Thoroughbred Cafe
Posted
Perhaps from the new tenant?