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chiknsmack

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Posts posted by chiknsmack

  1. Posted · Report reply

    Seven or eight years back I was recording race replays from Manawatu off Freeview Trackside onto a thumb drive, editing them down into individual races, then manually adding the race results and videos to GData.

    I spoke to GData (Gunnar or Tony, can't remember) about getting results and GData ratings added automatically like they are for the UK & Ireland, and they said they needed a way to access the results data, ideally in a particular format, which required the help of the governing body. I put this to GRNZ (along with one of my many whinges about why they couldn't add race videos to the GRNZ site; my pet peeve at the time) and it was apparently getting passed along up the chain, but nothing ever came of it.

    There may be a small question around intellectual property rights; would GRNZ give rights to publish historical data to GData for free when RITA/NZRB are looking to charge overseas betting providers for the right to publish racefields? But I see them as different things; GData won't be making direct profit from publishing past results whereas bookies make direct profit from publishing future fields and taking bets on them. The difference between publishing past results and publishing future fields is a major one IMO (basically one has quite a bit of value we should be capturing and one doesn't), but it's not *quite* as simple as saying "This might boost overseas interest in domestic racing, which might boost turnover, which would help with stakes and the overall health of the industry, so we should just do it.". So it might take a couple of phone calls and a couple of weeks of thinking, but hopefully it happens sooner than later.

     

    I know that's not the point you were making, just thought I'd share my thoughts.

  2. Posted · Report reply

    5 hours ago, We're Doomed said:

    I can recall CWJ winning the Oaks on Domino with a similar front fronting ride; may not have opened up such a big lead, but controlled the race from the front the whole way.

    Hero - out of Domino - is the first horse that comes to mind when I think of frontrunners from when I was a kid.

  3. Posted · Report reply

    On 1/10/2020 at 1:02 PM, GOM said:

    I f you were trying to select a person that would ensure this incident would never happen again then Trev would be the safest bet

    I'm a fan of this line of thought (you don't sack someone after an expensive fuckup; you've just paid for them to learn an expensive lesson so you keep them around to use that knowledge you've paid for). Of course, you would've thought that after a similar incident at Avondale the lesson would've been learnt already; the fact that it wasn't means maybe Trev will never figure out to follow the bloody manual and not fuck it up again.

    GOM reacted to this

  4. Posted · Report reply

    I'm pretty sure the charge is $2.15, not a percentage. In the last month or so I've deposited $200 and been charged $202.15 (as per my bank statement), then deposited $800 and been charged $802.15.

    It may have been a percentage a while ago when they first started accepting cc deposits, from memory.

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    It would be possible for the clubs to offer rebates to oncourse punters. Have punters turn in all of their tickets at the end of the day and give them back 5% of their turnover as a TAB voucher. This would make up for the complaints about entry fees to the course; pay $20 to get in and don't bet, a day at the races costs you $20. Pay $20 to get in and turnover $400, get your entry fee back. Turnover $600 and you get a "free" beer or two too.

    Sure it makes sense for the TAB/NZRB/RITA/whoever to do it and to capture bets placed on course via accounts using location sharing with the punter's device (so you're not forcing punters to bet at the tote windows, which is a PITA), but given how well their past few IT projects have gone I'm not super confident they could manage it without blowing another $50m we don't have. It's not like we have an existing relationship with the Australian TAB who do the same thing and could offer them a couple mil to let us copy their homework.

    CosmicBlackie, Pam Robson and shaneMcAlister reacted to this

  5. Posted · Report reply

    Year – Ranking (2yo Earnings) – Ranking (2yo winners) – Ranking (2yo wins)

    2015 - 1st – joint 2nd – joint 4th (Karaka Million winner)

    2016 - 2nd - 1st – joint 1st (Karaka Million 2nd and 4th)

    2017 - 5th - 1st – joint 4th (Karaka Million 4th and 7th)

    2018 - 2nd - 1st - 1st (Karaka Million 4th/11th/14th)

    2019 - 2nd - 1st - 1st (Karaka Million 3rd/ 5th/14th)

     

    So far this season he’s a mile ahead on everything. It helps that he’s had 12 runners while Sweynesse is second with six, and Power (another huge loss to the industry as far as 2yo sires are concerned) and Burgundy are on five.

    He has five of the top 17 in the Karaka Million 2yo Order of Entry this year.

    We were lucky to have him here for as long as we did given the success (and fee) he was getting up North. Well done to whoever was involved in getting him here, and in keeping him here at a relatively cheap fee.

  6. Posted · Report reply

    Is your account so old that they don't have identity documents on file for you? If so, they can't tell that you're not a money launderer so under recently-enacted laws they have to be careful. Call/email helpdesk and get them to look at your account with respect to what you need to do to be able to deposit/withdraw online.

    They want your money, they want you betting with them (probably, unless you're too sharp for them. But they'll have told you that if it's the case so you wouldn't be posting here). So get in touch with them and they'll try to fix it.

  7. Posted · Report reply

    5 hours ago, Sickopunter said:

    If he wasn’t betting on the tote why would anyone care if he leaves?

    The fact that he is leaving isn't a problem, it's a symptom of the problem.

    Increases in tax rates/new taxes (Point of Consumption tax, etc) are driving up the bookies' takeout rates. This is obviously a negative for punters (bookies keeping 5% of fixed odds turnover for themselves+taxes and paying out the rest is better for punters than them keeping 20% of turnover).

    The fact that someone as sharp as Dr Nick (who is probably much sharper than any of us) can't make ends meet with increased takeout means the rest of us must be starting to struggle too.

    It has been pointed out to me that us individual punters don't have the overheads that Dr Nick has (he has to pay his team of analysts and runners; the rest of us generally don't have a wage bill to cover) so we might not be completely fucked. We may have to get more selective with our bets and only bet where we have our bigger edges, probably reducing turnover in the process (or increasing bet size/risk to maintain turnover).

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    I'm pretty sure he isn't a tote/rebate guy. I know he has deals with bookies where they let him on for a set amount and, in return, he shares his prices with them so they can finetune their markets.

    Leggy, barryb and Nukkledragga reacted to this

  8. Posted · Report reply

    Today: warm, dry, windy (even by Palmy standards)

    Tomorrow: warm, dry, windy

    Wednesday: warmer, dry, less windy

    Thursday: warmer, possible showers, less windy

    There will be plenty of drying over the next few days, and you don't want things firming up completely ahead of possible rain on the day. Though I'm personally pro-leaving it to Mother Nature, pro-firm tracks in summer, and happen to have a horse entered who wants it dry, so I wouldn't complain if they turned off the tap for the rest of the year.

    Baz (NZ) reacted to this

  11. Posted · Report reply

    12 hours ago, GOM said:

    in answer to (1) it will without doubt increase harm. Evidence from area's that have already made it legal show the black market remains, the link with youth suicide and cannabis is fact, expose more youth to cannabis and you increase the amount of schizophrenia in young males, schools will be in even more trouble than they are now as kids short term memories are corrupted, accident rates from all categories will increase etc etc

    I disagree that it will increase harm, on a net basis. Even if the black market remains, it will shrink when it has competition (who would buy product of questionable quality from scummy gang members when you can by high-quality stuff from a specialist retailer?).

    Smoking cannabis daily in your teens leads to an increased risk of suicide. That's why no-one in their right mind is pushing for kids to be allowed access to cannabis. Teens currently have widespread access via the black market, so if we shrink the black market by adding a white market which provides most/all of the supply for legal adults, we reduce teenage access to cannabis. Plus having it legalised means we can have straightforward conversations with the youth and educate them on the risks involved when combining it with an undeveloped brain.

    Also, there's a proven link between cbd and reductions in anxiety and depression (and therefore suicide). Seem like a big reduction in harm is available there.

    Accident rates will probably increase (assuming people don't stop drinking and replace their drinking with cannabis, in which case accident rates would stay around the same or maybe even reduce, as being high on cannabis makes you less likely to go out and get up to shenanigans compared to being drunk). In that respect, you're probably right. But this will be far outweighed by all of the benefits I mentioned in my first post (medical use, tax revenue).

    13 hours ago, GOM said:

    Using your logic you could expand that list to include , shooting up with heroin, snorting coke and puffing P if that is what you want without society trying to stamp on you. 

    This is why just asking yourself just one question doesn't work. If I based my opinion purely on freedom and liberty, I'd say we should legalise Heroin/Cocaine/P. I could even point to Portugal as an example where widespread decriminalisation lead to reductions in both the use and the harms caused by these drugs. But that's not my stance.

    It's a balancing act. You need to balance personal freedom against the net benefit/harm to society. I believe there needs to be a good reason to take freedoms away from people. In my view, the harms from cannabis legalisation are outweighed by the benefits; it would be better for New Zealand as a whole if cannabis was legal. So even if I wasn't such a hardcore "You live your life, I'll live mine" person, I'd be pro-legalisation. And this is from someone who has never used illegal drugs and never even had more than four standard drinks in a year.

    GOM reacted to this

  12. Posted · Report reply

    2 hours ago, Red Rum said:

    Who of those fighting the " war on drugs"  have blood on their hands?

    Nukkledragga is implying anyone who supports policies that force people who would like to responsibly use safer-than-alcohol marijuana to instead use deadly synthetics.

    Also, anyone who supports gangs having a monopoly on the supply of marijuana. Legalising cannabis takes away funding from gangs and takes away customers they can push towards harder stuff like P.

    2 hours ago, GOM said:

    Will legalising cannabis possibly cause harm? Yes it will

    Everything can possibly cause harm. Your one question is a bit simplistic; there are two questions I think you need to ask before voting.

    1.) Will legalising cannabis increase or reduce the harm being done to society (funding gangs, not being able to educate people on safe use, not being able to use cbd-based medicines to tackle anxiety/depression/nausea/pain, not having the government be able to tax the * out of it so they can reduce income tax in return) under the current laws?

    2.) Do I want a government that treats me like an adult and lets me race dogs/smoke weed/bet on sport/marry a dude/drink a beer if that's what I want to do, or a government that bans things it doesn't like and will merrily stomp on my freedoms if it/a big enough mob decides the things I want to do are "bad" things?

    As racing participants, we have a passion for an activity which is slowly losing its social acceptability. Out of everyone in the country, we should be the most ardent "live and let live" group there is.

    7 hours ago, Nerula said:

    Where does that place say trainers held personally responsible for the safety of staff. I would think daily testing at the stable door and sending away all those that test positive.

    Yes, probably. Trainers will have to decide if they want to ban all of their staff from consuming cannabis at all, or if they're willing to make judgment calls and roll the dice. It'll mean that if you want to work in the industry you'll probably have to not partake. But at least everyone will have the choice of how they want to live their life.

    HarryHindsight reacted to this

  14. Posted · Report reply

    How much would they have taken on that market at this point? It's not super attractive to tie your money up for nine months in a 125% market with a $1.20 favourite, so would they have taken even 1k on it in total so far, never mind 10k?

    If I was running that book and someone wanted 10k on, I wouldn't even give them $300. I'd probably suspend the market straight away until I made sure the Richards team hadn't had a bunch of cobalt positives, or Jamie had keeled over and died, or something silly like that. I suppose someone could theoretically think Baker/Forsman were more than a 17% chance of winning the premiership and so value at $6, but unless that "someone" bets millions per year a 10k bet would be strange in a market with next-to-no interest from anyone.

    I'm usually less of a pussy than the bookies too.

  17. Posted · Report reply

    Corey Brown is reasonably eloquent, but he's not much of a genius. Last week he said he doesn't bother walking the track before the meeting because you can just follow one of the jockeys who has. On Thursday he had no idea how quick they'd gone early in the first and how strong the wind was (they came home in 12.3 and 12.9) and what that meant for the shape of the race.

    Then the juveniles go around in Race 2 and he tells us all that the jocks will want to put their inexperienced mounts on one of the rails down the straight track to help guide them. Which makes sense, except the actual jockeys who were riding on the day were happy to stay up the middle.

    Before the third he said that the favourites in the next had tough barriers and that you wouldn't want to be covering ground... followed by telling us all after the race that he spoke to a couple of the jocks and they said that the wind was hitting the horses on the fence so 3w was a great place to be.

    Trackside is set up as a betting medium, so they want polished presenters who can talk idiots into having a bet on the next race, and then seamlessly encourage them to back something in the next, then the one after that. Occasionally you'll get some info you wouldn't have otherwise gotten (on domestic racing anyway; there's never anything of value shared about the Australian races) but Trackside isn't set up for knowledgeable, eloquent presenters to educate the viewers or help out the punters. If they did want to turn the channel into a quality viewing experience showcasing the sport though, hopefully they could do better than Corey Brown.

  18. Posted · Report reply

    I'm after footage of all the pre- and post-race stuff from the VRC Oaks today. If someone has this recorded off Trackside we can probably find a way for me to get a copy, which I'd really appreciate.

    Failing that, if anyone has any ideas of where I could find it online (I know racing.com have replays of the race and of some of the post-race interviews), please let me know.

    Thanks.

  23. Posted · Report reply

    Hōiho Nāti.

    Those macrons seem quite important; the difference between "Play/Gamble Horses of New Zealand" and "Play Strangle Yellow-Eyed Penguin of New Zealand". Though I don't know why they haven't gone with the transliteration reihi hōiho (race horse). Maybe the same reason we've gone away from the old transliteral days of the week from when I was a kid (Mane, Tūrei, Wenerei etc.) to the "Rā" days (Rāhina, Rātū, Rāapa etc).

  25. Posted · Report reply

    1 hour ago, Insider said:

    What I don’t understand is: 

    If Australian’s cannot bet with our TAB, who are the New Zealander's betting with in Australia?

    Surely the rules/legislation works both ways or am I missing something?

    It's Australian law that Australians can't bet with offshore agencies. The idea is to protect punters, and the integrity of racing in general, by cutting off access to unlicensed bookmakers in the Pacific Islands, Asia, or the Caribbean.

    The NZTAB/NZTR should've spoken up when the law was being mooted to get an exception, but they didn't. Once the law was passed they said they were going to try to work something out so people in Australia  could still bet with the NZTAB, but they haven't done so.

    There's no equivalent NZ law, so we can bet with Australian corporate bookmakers, or with any old dodgy mob from Vanuatu/Cook Islands/Costa Rica/wherever.

    Boss Hogg, Insider and JJ Flash reacted to this