chiknsmack

Thanks. The info is up now on GRNZ. He won in 23.99 over 410m at Palmy last Monday. I'd have him clear second pick on that (at $3.50, with Bigtime Stella $2) so I've had something on him at $9.

Anyone know anything about this dog, on debut in the first at Palmy tomorrow? There's no qualifying trial details on either the TAB or GRNZ websites. I thought maybe he qualified on Friday and so info hadn't been updated, but wouldn't he have been nominated for the race last Tuesday? Are you allowed to nom non-qualified dogs? Or do you not actually need a qualifying trial to be allowed to race? (I'm a punter and former licensed owner who never actually owned a dog, so I don't know all the ins and outs). It's a maiden, the field is Bigtime Stella vs Harpoon Harry vs not much else, and Stella's no star by the looks of it so I probably won't be betting. But it'd be nice to know how Harry goes, if anyone's willing to share any mail.

William Scott. Or Catalyst.

I've posted about this before. You can't lay your own horse, but you can back every other horse in the race (de facto laying your horse) and it's all good.

On Bigtime Willow's profile page on GRNZ, her trial from the 15th of February is listed twice. The first time, the winners time is given as 17.72, the second time as 17.42. The winner of the trial was Bigtime Wendle, on her page it's listed as 17.42. The runner up was Blazin' Carter, on his page it's listed twice, the first time as 17.45 and the second with no time given. If it was really 17.42 or so, Willow would've run around 17.75 and should be $1.50 favourite for the c1 today (as she is). If it was 17.72, she hasn't broken 18 and shouldn't be fave. I guess the fact that the market has her $1.50 means that 17.42 is the correct time, but I shouldn't really NEED to guess. I might just take the 3&4 quinella instead. Depending on the trial time, Willow either blows past Light Cruiser or struggles to get past her.

Hokitika makes sense; it's a poor track where there is already a surplus of tracks. Dargaville makes sense, you can go all-in on Ruakaka. Stratford has some close neighbours too, so if the locals are happy to close it to focus on the others, that's cool. If Thames can sell up and buy into the new Waikato Greenfields setup (a "RACE Inc." of the north to hold 40+ meetings a year hosted by half a dozen different member clubs), instead of having to give the cash to NZTR to fund a million dollar Derby or two, then that's fine. Waimate, Winton and Wyndham are all dual-code. So NZTR no longer programming races there doesn't mean NZTR can force the harness clubs to sell and give the money to NZTR, which was Messara's plan. It does mean that locals might swap involvement in the thoroughbred code for involvement in the standardbred one, so HRNZ will be happy.

Seems pretty straightforward then. Return it to Australia, get your money back. Don't, then don't. Return it to Australia, get your money back. Don't, then don't. Return it to Australia, get your money back. Don't, then don't. Return it to Australia, get your money back. Don't, then don't. Every time there's an attempt to dictate breeding restrictions from above, NZ breeders get upset about being told what to do by people who know less than them. And rightly so, IMO. Think of the $2000 (should be $5000) Import Fee as not only a fee to cover the cost of Australian dogs being rehomed in NZ, but also as an obstacle to prevent average Australian dogs coming here in the first place. The fewer imported dogs we have in the local racing population, the more room there is for locally-bred dogs. The more room for locally-bred dogs there is, the fewer restrictions that are needed on NZ breeders. The fewer the restrictions on NZ breeders, the more dogs will be bred locally. The more dogs bred in NZ, the more demand there will be for purpose-built rearing, breaking and pretraining facilities run by experts using world-leading skill and technology, which will lead to better NZ-bred dogs. If you wanted to tweak the import policy, you could say that c5-winning imports get half their import fee refunded and group placegetters/finalists get the whole lot back. So the best performers can stay in NZ for breeding without being penalised.

Great horse, no big signature win so a very nice stud fee. Eminent could be the same, if he doesn't beat Winx in a couple of weeks.

Isn't he calling two of the earlier race as well? They might be exciting. Two dog races can be exciting, or at least interesting. I've always wondered if it would be worth trying some two dog straight-line lure coursing on the thoroughbred tracks during the "Summer Festival of Racing" or whatever it is where you have big crowds of once-a-year racing patrons in attendance. Have GAP dogs wandering around for people to pet, have the public get up close to the racing, give them something to watch between horse races. The surface might not be good enough, and they like to keep the grass (far too) long nowadays so it might not work. I've done alright betting on match races in the past with the Shootout or whatever in Oz so count me as someone who it excited for the two dog races, regardless of whether or not the best racecaller in the country is calling them..

Before the Ranvet the talk was that he didn't handle wet tracks at all and was best on top of the ground.

They were saying that they would pay out on winning fixed odds bets and refund all losing fixed odds bets. So people were able to get on at some stage (and got a very generous "bet to lose nothing"). And tote betting at retail outlets was available all the way through. The race was delayed for quite a long time after a jockey was dislodged in the prelim and injured his back, maybe that had something to do with it. Or someone hit the "Close Betting" button accidentally?

The "80" is used to account for their deduction. If they did "100 divided by price of scratched runner", the deduction would be bigger. I believe they got the 80 from assuming a 125% market on average. 100/125 = 0.8. They could probably change the formula to use the actual market percentage, but given that they're now using Paddy Power/Sportsbet prices (which, on Australian racing, are from markets set lower than 125% close to race start time) it's probably better financially for punters that they don't. Plus having 80 as their standard number means punters can calculate in advance what their expected payout is, and the TAB won't receive a bunch of complaints from people arguing about their deduction being too big.

Why do modest mid week meetings often draw bigger fields than say Ellerslie on a premier day? Honest question.

Code distributions are based on domestic share of turnover. If fewer meetings (with higher stakes) mean larger fields, and larger fields mean more turnover per race, you could potentially increase thoroughbred turnover (and therefore code share of total turnover) by running fewer meetings.

A 55% deduction implies the late scratching was paying $1.45 when it was scratched (Deduction% = 80 / price of scratched runner). The closing prices (before deductions) of the field that went around add up to 52%, so if the closing market was at 120% that leaves 68% to have been taken up by the late scratching. A 68% chance of winning equals a price of $1.47 or so, so the deduction looks about right.