chiknsmack

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.

Clicked as soon as I posted. BB R1#3.

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Loves the track, loves the wet, wide open race. Good bet.

1. Randwick R1 : 2.30pm : 5 2. Randwick R2 : 3.10pm : 6 3. Randwick R3 : 3.45pm : 2 4. Flemington R4 : 4.05pm : 1 5. Ellerslie R7 : 4.15pm : 6 6. Randwick R4 : 4.25pm : 1-2-4 TFA 7. Flemington R5 : 4.40pm : 12 8. Ellerslie R8 : 4.50pm : 6 9. Randwick R5 : 5.00pm : 1-7 QLA 10. Flemington R6 : 5.15pm : 23 11. Ellerslie R9 : 5.27pm : 11 12. Randwick R6 : 5.35pm : 1 13. Flemington R7 : 6.00pm : 10 BB 14. Randwick R7 : 6.20pm : 8 15. Flemington R8 : 6.35pm : 3 16. Randwick R8 : 7.00pm : 9 BB 17. Flemington R9 : 7.20pm : 12 18. Randwick R9 : 7.40pm : 7 19. Ascot R4 : 7.45pm : 2

There are two options for bookies to deal with winning punters. They can ban them, which leads to complaints to consumer organisations that bookies are discriminating against people by not offering the same odds to everyone and leads to winning punters using bowlers to get bets on (or racing authorities bringing in minimum bet limits, meaning that anyone taking bets on, say, NSW gallops, has to accept any bet from anyone to lose 2k after 9am on raceday). Or bookies can "cop the tip"; accept the bet from the winning punter and accept the fact that they'll lose money to this punter long term, but that the information they get from seeing this good punters bets will help them figure out their markets. You'd have a hard time telling bookies that they aren't allowed to know who is placing a particular bet, especially since there are AML reasons and racing integrity reasons that they could use as excuses. I agree with this. I'd make it that bets by connections have to be placed and stewards notified by 9am so they can be publicised as early as possible. It's not much use being told the trainer has climbed into one 10 minutes before the off when you placed all of your bets for the day before the first or left it out of your quaddie.

This is because there's a problem with the good & slow stats. They show the slow track stats under both dead and slow, and don't show the dead stats at all. If you go to the extended form, the stats are correct.

Isn't the VRC Derby a good test of the early-maturing 2000m+ horses? It isn't usually won by a horse that goes on to be an elite 2400m horse, but it's often won by the best horse at the time (a horse that combines precocity with the stamina to get the trip). Given that owners nowadays are more likely to be urban syndicate members who want to buy a yearling and have it up and running ASAP (as opposed to farmers who can send a mare to the local stallion and chuck the foal in the back paddock for a few years to mature), and given that we just flat out can't compete with Australia for precocious FAST horses, AND given that Euro imports are taking over the open-age 2000m+ races, isn't there good value in the NZ industry focusing on VRC Derby-type horses (early maturing 3yo 2000m+ types)? There should be 1400m 2yo races in March (or even February), starting with changing the Ellerslie Sires Produce Stakes back to 1400m. 1600m 2yo races in April and 1800m 2yo races in May should be added too. The horses we should be trying to breed can have a 2yo prep where they get to stretch out a bit, then go for a spell before aiming up at all the Derbies at 3. The best of them can then train on to compete with the Euro imports, while the next tier down can go around on the NZ stayers circuit as older horses. It'd be nice to see prizemoney tilted in favour of longer races too, so that a R75 2000m+ race had the same prizemoney as a R85 mile or an open handicap sprint. Account for the fact that getting a horse to run over longer trips takes more time and more training, plus the fact that we want to encourage a focus on breeding and racing stayers. Greyhound racing sort-of does this (420m+ races have higher prizemoney than sprints), but they don't quite account for the fact that sprinters can race more often than middle distance dogs.

This happened to a guy in Australia last year. He gave a horse a name in a foreign language which was offensive and got suspended for 18 months.

My winner returned $498.40. Unfortunately I also found a placegetter earlier on. Fun contest, thanks for putting it on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWkLDXXKgKE

This situation looks to be complicated by two horses having been leased by the same lessor to the same lessee at the same time. The lessee wants to keep the one that goes alright and cut ties with the one that doesn't. Lessor wants the lease to either be cancelled for both (in which case lessor can now race the good one) or neither (in which case lessee can pay lessor for agistment of the no-good one until the lessee ends the lease of both horses).

1. Ellerslie R9 : 4.55pm : 18 2/8 2. Randwick R7 : 6.20pm : 7 3/7 3. Flemington R8 : 6.40pm : 11 2/8 Thanks

Race 1 : Memories Only $18/$18 Race 2 : Maduro $32/$32 Race 3 : Guillocharm $16/$16 Race 4 : Spider $16/$16 Race 5 : Kamanda Lincoln $17/$17 Race 6 : Oratia $20/$20 Race 7 : Qiji Express $28/$28 Race 8 : Rikki Tikki Tavi $25/$25 Race 9 : Sponge Bob $24/$24 Race 10 : No Bet

1 3 BB 2 13 2 7 2 4 1 3 BB 1 6 1 6 1 2 BB 6 11 3 10 BB 6 17 9 10 6 8

When I posted it still said your post had been made "Just Now". The game was already going. I don't think my post was 13 minutes later like it says now, but I was mostly taking the piss anyway. At one point not long after I posted (while the game was on) the odds were almost identical on both sites, with the NZTAB being a touch worse on both sides.