Blue

The latter - No question !!

Not sure if it's hope or not Lloyd. Was considering having a horse trained up here as it would race on its home track during the winter but now that's not happening , what I might save on training fees I'll pay in transport so it might as well go to Cambridge or Puke.

Given racing will only be on a couple of tracks and the propensity to abandon at true winter going, I'd be mildly surprised if Ruakaka wasn't utilised for a meeting or two between July and September.

Well if you read the tea leaves Lloyd you should have seen that coming.

Good going tdytdy.

How did everyone go? I got 2 winners, a 2nd,a 3rd at Randwick and 4 winners at Flemington. Total 56 points. If I dont look at the fields I just take 1, 2, 5 &7 and that's all I did. Never looked at the horses, jockeys, track and never had a bet but good fun.

Randwick R1 - 2 R2 - 1 R3 - 5 R4 - 7 R5 - 1 R6 - 2 R7 - 6 R8 - 7 R9 - 1 Flemington R1 - 2 R2 - 5 R3 - 7 R4 - 2 R5 - 1 R6 - 5 R7 - 7 R8 - 2 R9 - 1

Well they say.....give a dog a bad name...... One can only but guess the breeding. I'd say its probably out of "The Pub" by "Two O'clock."

Furthermore LJ, at 59% in the polls I'd say the only way from there is down. It's up to the Nats as to how far. Muller hasn't filled a ministerial spot as yet but then neither had John Key or Jacinda. I'd say its game on.

Are you going to throw this out to fellow Cafers Mr Cubes or are you prepared to carry the can on your own in this instance. Any clues?

Of course CR, yearlings carry the promise of big 2 and 3 year old spoils but realistically, the cavaet emptor must also come in to play there.

Yep. Part of Media Works I think. Partly blamed it on C-19 but been throwing out distress flares for a while. Show and presenters getting repetitive and boring and their talkback was the same old rednecks.

Exactly Trump. We are 20% through the 21st century. We talk about getting the next generation of punters involved but these are the ones who operate entirely on technology and the cashless society. AS you say " get used to it".

People go to the window with x dollars in their hand. They go to McDonald's with an eftpos card. They don't have to fish around for more cash. When I think about it, we definitely are getting towards a cashless society. People are bitching about the end of cheques. I'm 73 and hardly written a cheque since the mid 90s. We really do need to move into the 21st century where technology is concerned.

I wasn't having a go LJ. Fact is there's not much positive no matter how hard you look. My point was that the wound firstly doesn't need to heal. Those in control just need to stop the bleeding. That will be a degree of success in itself.

Eljay has listed a number of valid negatives. Frankie has said basically 'too little, too late.' Hard to see much in the way of positives from any angle. The big money drain has come over the past six or so years with the beleaguered building project. In that time we have also had a number of management changes. We have a new management team in at the moment. Nobody can change the past regardless of how fervent, honest or well meaning they are. My hope is that racing can begin again to whatever extent and that day to day costs can be covered. I don't care if the club can't make a profit, at least initially, but what they MUST do is stop the money hemorrage. If they can't contain the situation as it is then they will be doomed and the industry along with them.

It's also pretty hard to get trainers to commit to start one week out. Track conditions change, weather changes, lot of scratchings and you're left with 5/6 horse fields on half the card. But we'll see who's really committed to making this work.

He'd just washed them and was surreptitiously shaking them dry.

Me too. Thanks for answering my query.

I understand the above and also that with less meetings than the norm and thus a lot less races, fields will theoretically be bigger. However we're getting to the part of the season July, August, September where changing track conditions, heavy rain, tracks maybe not standing up so well will mean a heap of scratchings. Traditionally less than half the fields during that period have 14 starters so with, say, a field of six runners, do the percentages change to pay out the full $15K or does the stake actually reduce to $12,600 (8 non-runners @ $300 ea)? Be interesting to see how many abandonments this year too.

Gubellini will pick this up. Show off was pretty handy. I remember Secret Show who was a top 2yo of his year I think.

Surely this is also an opportunity to fine tune race numbers and intervals. Five to six hours of an evening wont get people on course, theres too much else happening. International rugby takes 80 minutes, two and a half hours with coming and going and people flock to them. No reason why races cant be run at tighter intervals or is this at the behest of tv and Aussie racing. People want action. Time lags make for boredom. Boredom leads to non attendance and loss of interest which the industry can I'll afford.

Exactly. I'd say most on here have shares in a horse or horses that are working right this minute so you're obviously prepared to race in four weeks or so regardless otherwise they'd be on Gavelhouse. NZ has sold a heap of ordinary horses to Aussie who are racing for 4 to 7k. Been that way for years. Let's just get on with this.

My thinking re Grylls was a stable of 100 horse must be a pretty big incentive but yes, a few definite possibilities. Is that an oxymoron or a malapropism???

Hear, hear to the good luck but if Aussie put their weights back down he will struggle. Any break from a strict regime and he can pack it on real quick.he wont go below 56.5 and there's a heap of good Aussie jocks at that level and below. I'll take a punt and say Craig Grylls will replace him as TA #1, but just mho.