John Clydesdale

GS has vocalised, as have his taskforce, that it's this or nothing. I do recall that one Murray Acklin said the very same thing to the breeders when we opposed Section 16, "we had to have it or the Act would not go through", unfortunately for the code, it was just another measure of bulldozer tactics without enough backbone in the opposition. The backbone required to stop the Oneracing thought pattern has to be a lot stronger. If the very same raceclubs, that have their vote in January, cannot work out that this plan serves to undermine their own existance, then they need to think again. The two corporate bully boys will come visiting and try and convince them this is the future, but test their information, check their so called facts, then see the blood pressure increase from them. It will be measurable by the volume of the responses. Guy, the plan is completely flawed and unworkable. Start again, but before you do that, get your own house in order by having true representation of the industry stakeholders. Get the balance of the Board right and then there may be some credibility ascribed to the management of our code. But maybe the first thing you should do is apologise to the other codes!

Don the problem is the ego of the people manipulating the puppets. My challenge for the puppeteers is to go out to each regional cluster meeting and talk to the club representatives, because the info they are presently receiving at their Board meetings is clearly not reflecting the realities of life out in racing land for the trainers, jockeys and dare I say owners. Try and determine how many trainers have lost owners this year, and how many owners have been lost, possibly for good. The industry is now staging open class races with pitiful stakes. Outside of stakes races, and the Premier days of Auckland, Wellington and Waikato there is not an open race being run anywhere in New Zealand between now and February 6th 2010, that is worth more than the $25K Thames Cup in the New Year. Sorry, there is one at Marton for $35K. But for all the open handicappers in NZ, sprinters or stayers, who have earned their stripes to be open class horses, they are now racing for $22k or less on average. So who bares the responsibility for this......ultimately the Racing Board, but just exactly who is not representing the Stakeholders of the industry very well at all?.........The NZTR Board that's who! They have been derelict in their duty, therefore their Board composition must be wrong. You guys need to get out more. There is no $4 miilion of savings at clubs? Just ask Stiassny and Sutherland to go and have a review of the accounts of most clubs in NZ. Let them appraise how much FREE input is provided by hard working Committee members to stage the races that are so poorly funded. Let them find how they are going to save 10% of Opex year on year at each club. (The Tui Billboard comes to mind) Let them also quantify the cost to that Club when some of those FREE Committee inputs tell Stiassny and Sutherland where to go if they continue to try and implement their changes. They may then get the reality of life that their own PR training people are so adept at training them to avoid. Well done Stig, you are dead right about the answers being supplied to the speakers. Given the turnout for the Auckland launch press conference you could be light on the costs involved.

What cornflake came up with that suggestion? You take the mountain to Mohammed, not try and take Mohammed to Huntly. The person who suggests that has the IQ of a bent and unusable paperclip!