tackled

Where did all those hurdlers come from at Wingatui? I haven't seen that many down south for years. Especially considering they only had about five at Riverton.

I seem to recall Oamaru had a firm track last week and Riccarton is currently firm for tomorrow, so there are opportunities for everyone.

In my experience the Aussies aren't that clever at all when it comes to punting. Most of them just back the favourite. If you want to see Aussies looking totally lost just wait until you see a race with three equal favs. They also don't mind backing top weights, which are often far too short. The bulk of the betting is win betting. If you like something other than the fav you can get good value. Also exotics, even quinellas, can give very good value, especially if the fav is out of it.

I think one of the missed opportunities in NZ is the reluctance of trainers to alternate horses between hurdling and flat racing during the winter, usually through poor programming. I think there is a real opportunity to promote decent hurdle races with suitable flat races in intervening weeks. In Australia the gun hurdlers are also competitive in decent flat races. We really need to build on that in NZ.

I thought it was a poorly written article in the sunday paper, made the connections of the runner up all look like halfwits. As for the suggestion that they do it better in Australia, well they obviously have a very short and selective memory.

If they water of course everyone then moans that the track isn't hard enough.

I really am speechless. Can you imagine if Flemington or Randwick were abandoned in similar circumstances. At least the 2yos got a run, they have had more than enough races abandoned down south this year.

Some interesting comments above. I agree totally with Hesi's comments re the corporate crowd being fickle and about it being hard to get a customer back once you have lost them. I don't agree totally with Huey. The industry would still be doing ok if the clubs were making good profits outside of betting turnover. I can't ever recall specific mention of on course turnover on Melbourne Cup day, but I always remember mention of the crowd size. One of the problems has been that Auckland has tried to copy Melb Cup Week and NZ Cup Week in Chch. I think it is obvious by now that they can't do this. I have been in Auck on three of the last four Auckland Cup days and haven't even bothered going. The fields are just generally too small and ordinary to get me excited. In Melb and ChCh Cup Week is the pinnacle of their year, in Auck its just an add on. A decent percentage of the people at Flemington and Riccarton come from outside the district especially for the races. I suspect that doesn't happen in Auck. I don't really think the "Cup Week" experiment has worked. Unless they are making a fortune out of corporate activities the Club should just admit that. They just don't have enough feature races to make the week attractive and sustainable.

I don't want to get into a pointless debate, but you don't seem to appreciate either the history of racing in NZ Trakdap or the type of forward thinking that is needed. As several have said on here, it isn't the small clubs that are causing the problems, and it never has been, it is the bigger metropolitan clubs that are the under achievers. They have been the under achievers for probably 50 years and nothing has changed. The only noticeable changes in racing over the years has been to close some of the smaller tracks (and sure some of them did need to go; Opaki, Bulls, Feilding etc) and to restrict funding to the remaining small tracks. The one constant over this whole period has been the poor performance of the major clubs, usually coupled with an incredible arrogance from the people running those clubs. Certainly times have changed and forward thinking is needed, but my god the quality of that forward thinking has never been very impressive.

And many would have us shut down all of the small tracks like Wairoa and Cromwell and give all the money to the big centres, As I have said many times, it's not the country tracks that are the problem.

I have never looked at the NZTR Bulletin until I saw it mentioned here. It really is appallingly written. It sounds as if it's written by an Asian, certainly not someone with English as a first language. How hard is it to get something like that right? Its indicative of the malaise affecting the whole industry really.

Old timers will remember when this race was won by the likes of Bonecrusher, Balmerino, La Mer, Tidal Light, The Gentry etc etc. How times change.

Sorry everyone. Stupid of me. I'm just used to the Australian situation where big races are sponsored by Emirates and the like. That's really sweet of the ARC to use a big race for charity purposes rather than get an actual sponsor like in the old days, . The game is moving much too fast for us old folk.

I see the feature race at Auckland on Saturday is being sponsored by a charity. Surely the charity is not spending its hard earned money sponsoring a horse race. If it isn't pouring in thousands to the stake could the club not find a "real" sponsor. Interestingly, given the corporate emphasis on this whole carnival these days, there don't appear to be many major international corporates involved; BMW probably the notable exception. Most of the race names seem to reflect contra deals. And I won't even mention the demise in quality in what was once one of the great races.

Interestingly I tend to agree with most of the comments above. There is absolutely no evidence that Racing in NZ will benefit from closing the smaller tracks. In fact it has become one of the strengths of NZ Racing. It is the larger tracks that have been the disappointments for as long as I can remember. Ellerslie, Te Rapa, Trentham, Riccarton and Wingatui continue to attract terrible crowds and show no leadership and I cannot see this changing. We have had some small town, small minded problems over the years, but largely the problems have stemmed from totally out of touch and out of depth management at the national level, and a tendency for the bigger clubs to blame all of their problems on everyone except themselves. My biggest frustrations stem from the inability to get the basics right, and track management comes under this heading.