TOM(the other Molloy)

Just proves there is a place for everyone(although not sure exactly which place suits the halfwits running the industry)

Just proves there is a place for everyone(although not sure exactly which place suits the halfwits running the industry)

Just proves there is a place for everyone(although not sure exactly which place suits the halfwits running the industry)

Just proves there is a place for everyone(although not sure exactly which place suits the halfwits running the industry)

Just proves there is a place for everyone(although not sure exactly which place suits the halfwits running the industry)

Just proves there is a place for everyone(although not sure exactly which place suits the halfwits running the industry)

Just as well the east coast has meetings  next week .Lookslike one big trainer questioning their existence has  had a change of heart and nominated at least a dozen . Hopefully he has a rethink now ?

For sure, sounds like it might be a good year this year, have heard of a few travelling stables coming down.

Talented Commentator??????? Every single one of them is unbelievably talented.  The Justin Evans really is a find though like Matt Cross. 
NZ racing might be rooted but one thing we do have in abundance is class in the commentators box. Not a terrible lot of ability among the administrators.

I have nothing against the horse. only the way he has been constantly talked up by AS ...denied a 'Triple Crown' at Hastings as I recall, and the comments last week about how his opponents In the Dyke Stakes were in "deep, deep trouble" is typical of his approach.  Kawi has found many ways to get himself beaten over the last two years...and it's always someone else's fault according to his trainer

But Kawi had been headlined by Mike Dillon in this morning's NZ Herald.  Volpe Veloce is the only horse in the past two years to carry Mike Dillon's headline and win.  That was the Railway H'cap/Stakes.
The newsprint those spurious headlines are printed on must weigh a tonne.

Talented Commentator??????? Every single one of them is unbelievably talented.  The Justin Evans really is a find though like Matt Cross. 
NZ racing might be rooted but one thing we do have in abundance is class in the commentators box. Not a terrible lot of ability among the administrators.

Talented Commentator??????? Every single one of them is unbelievably talented.  The Justin Evans really is a find though like Matt Cross. 
NZ racing might be rooted but one thing we do have in abundance is class in the commentators box. Not a terrible lot of ability among the administrators.

I don’t by into any of this. Posters buy there comments about spelling and gramma make me laugh so much. To much wood you believe? Those that don’t use commas also piss me off a uwfool lot to even tho they should know better but I guess those are the breaks in this day and age of spell check if you no how too use it!
Luv all
Elizabeth

Pike misses the point continually made - those (four actually not three) courses on the Coast cost not one cent to run.  It is entirely(and I mean entirely) voluntary.  The only one paid is the Secretary.  Closing them will not save the industry one single cent not will it provide the industry with one single cent to invest elsewhere.  He somehow mixes them up with the example he no doubt sees at Te Rapa or wherever where there is a myriad of track and admin staff.
I appreciate that the Coast probably has too many tracks and that they are too small but it is false economy to think that closing them will benefit the industry.  Maybe it is time for racing that is more tiered(City/Country) but looking at Riccarton's fields for Saturday(and Te Rapa's yesterday) there does not appear to be a desperate desire for more opportunities in a metropolitan racing environment.
And the complaints re the state of the facilities are generally pointed at the Metro clubs as well certainly not the country venues.
Having said all that Messara makes some very valid points and the issue of NZRB and its desire to be all things to all men in terms of the codes is something that I have not considered before.  Maybe it is time for the codes to take over control of their own destiny.  Three separate gaming operations maybe?  
 

Putting them all into one venue will standardise the racing and pretty soon everyone will be bored to death with it.  The crowds will fall and it will just be a Riccarton situation with a few hundred diehards in attendance at any meeting.  Kumara would not be Kumara for instance at another venue.  And one venue means paid track staff as well(You are not going to get the same level of enthusiastic volunteers when some other Club is hammering your track)
All good as a dream but unlikely to fly I'm afraid.  Anyway the facilities(not the tracks themselves but he public areas) over here are perfectly adequate for the meetings we run. 

Putting them all into one venue will standardise the racing and pretty soon everyone will be bored to death with it.  The crowds will fall and it will just be a Riccarton situation with a few hundred diehards in attendance at any meeting.  Kumara would not be Kumara for instance at another venue.  And one venue means paid track staff as well(You are not going to get the same level of enthusiastic volunteers when some other Club is hammering your track)
All good as a dream but unlikely to fly I'm afraid.  Anyway the facilities(not the tracks themselves but he public areas) over here are perfectly adequate for the meetings we run. 

Putting them all into one venue will standardise the racing and pretty soon everyone will be bored to death with it.  The crowds will fall and it will just be a Riccarton situation with a few hundred diehards in attendance at any meeting.  Kumara would not be Kumara for instance at another venue.  And one venue means paid track staff as well(You are not going to get the same level of enthusiastic volunteers when some other Club is hammering your track)
All good as a dream but unlikely to fly I'm afraid.  Anyway the facilities(not the tracks themselves but he public areas) over here are perfectly adequate for the meetings we run. 

Putting them all into one venue will standardise the racing and pretty soon everyone will be bored to death with it.  The crowds will fall and it will just be a Riccarton situation with a few hundred diehards in attendance at any meeting.  Kumara would not be Kumara for instance at another venue.  And one venue means paid track staff as well(You are not going to get the same level of enthusiastic volunteers when some other Club is hammering your track)
All good as a dream but unlikely to fly I'm afraid.  Anyway the facilities(not the tracks themselves but he public areas) over here are perfectly adequate for the meetings we run. 

Putting them all into one venue will standardise the racing and pretty soon everyone will be bored to death with it.  The crowds will fall and it will just be a Riccarton situation with a few hundred diehards in attendance at any meeting.  Kumara would not be Kumara for instance at another venue.  And one venue means paid track staff as well(You are not going to get the same level of enthusiastic volunteers when some other Club is hammering your track)
All good as a dream but unlikely to fly I'm afraid.  Anyway the facilities(not the tracks themselves but he public areas) over here are perfectly adequate for the meetings we run. 

I think I asked this once before and got no reply, but is there anyone that people know of in the Racing Board or NZTR that knows all about dates and programming and has a history in Racing that is making any progress in these areas? Or do they all just have a history in posting letters? Because it does appear to be getting worse rather than better. As McKenzie mentioned above a lot of the problems in the NI are caused by Auckland; firstly plonking an Auckland Cup carnival in where it doesn't fit and then slotting the Karaka meeting in and clashing with established meetings.

Great post We're Doomed.
In recent times as a punter I have looked at a raceday and thought pass as there are only one or two races I am interested in studying and betting on. Largely due to small field sizes etc.Happened with both meetings on Waitangi Day. More to come this weekend.
This is down to a variety of issues but as you correctly identify handicapping and meeting programming are perhaps the two key ones.
Funnily enough they would appear to be the cheapest and easiest ones to fix as well. No  capital spend. Just the right people appointed and get it sorted (and you would think looking at what happens overseas and listening to industry players gives you all the information you need to improve these areas). They are not trying to invent time travel for gods sake.
These areas are entirely within their control. No need for a Govt handout, or legislation or trying to get money out of overseas betting organisations. By all means have a crack at those other things. But get our own house in order and change/improve things we control.

Surely this weekend sums up everything that is wrong in NZ racing and answers quite a few questions.
Te Rapa and Riccarton aren't minor country tracks, that are supposedly causing most of the problems; they are two of our top four or five metropolitan tracks. And there is nothing wrong with their stakes, but to be brutally honest a lot of the fields are rubbish despite reasonable stakes.
The Dyke at Te Rapa has attracted exactly the same field for $400,000 that it would have got for $200,000, and a pretty ordinary field at that. It shows that stakes are not our problem. Structure is a much bigger problem. We have far too many 2,000m WFA races scattered randomly throughout the season, all attracting poor fields. 
Riccarton gets six horses for a $35,000 race. Hardly surprising really, following only a week after a major meeting at Wingatui. The SI doesn't have the horses to be running major races at Riccarton every second week with Otago and Southland holding major meetings on the Saturdays between. And Otago and Southland have for some bizarre reason held low key midweek meetings with only seven races for the last three weeks, whereas the last minor meeting in Canty was mid December. Totally mindboggling really. How do they expect horses to get through the grades and fill the tighter class races?
I wonder if anyone has ever thought outside the square and thought of running a 1,200m 3yo race at Riccarton. It wouldn't clash with the Guineas down south. Perhaps even an 1,800m 3yo as an Oaks or Derby lead-up.  Anything to shake up the "lets drag last year's programme out of the draw" school of programming.
Many people on here love discussing the merits of pouring $20m into an allweather track and would love to create a few $1m races and close down a few dozen tracks, but as I have said many times most of the problems are structural and just down to administrative incompetence and don't actually take much to resolve.  Handicapping probably comes into this category as well. With all of the highly paid administrators about it is pity none of them have any interest or skills in the areas of dates and programming and general structural matters. 
What a pity we can't get the basics right. Then perhaps start thinking about building an all weather track somewhere.

I think I saw it in the ODT.

Pike misses the point continually made - those (four actually not three) courses on the Coast cost not one cent to run.  It is entirely(and I mean entirely) voluntary.  The only one paid is the Secretary.  Closing them will not save the industry one single cent not will it provide the industry with one single cent to invest elsewhere.  He somehow mixes them up with the example he no doubt sees at Te Rapa or wherever where there is a myriad of track and admin staff.
I appreciate that the Coast probably has too many tracks and that they are too small but it is false economy to think that closing them will benefit the industry.  Maybe it is time for racing that is more tiered(City/Country) but looking at Riccarton's fields for Saturday(and Te Rapa's yesterday) there does not appear to be a desperate desire for more opportunities in a metropolitan racing environment.
And the complaints re the state of the facilities are generally pointed at the Metro clubs as well certainly not the country venues.
Having said all that Messara makes some very valid points and the issue of NZRB and its desire to be all things to all men in terms of the codes is something that I have not considered before.  Maybe it is time for the codes to take over control of their own destiny.  Three separate gaming operations maybe?