weasel57

NO Greg
A professional outfit would have take the time to acknowledge receipt of the proposal from a genuine stakeholder

NO Greg
A professional outfit would have take the time to acknowledge receipt of the proposal from a genuine stakeholder

That means that either we've got the rudest most unprofessional mob running racing, or we have a meltdown on our hands.
OR BOTH
 3

NO Greg
A professional outfit would have take the time to acknowledge receipt of the proposal from a genuine stakeholder

agree, mate ...he has been hugely disappointing for too long now for mine. Thought he was Grp 1 quality a while back

In our brave new post-Covid world, could we partially solve our pathetic 'TAB Fixed Odds/bookies' problem by allowing bookmakers on-course and licensing overseas bookies to compete with or replace the TAB?

NO Greg
A professional outfit would have take the time to acknowledge receipt of the proposal from a genuine stakeholder

Has been tried and was an abject failure

Des is a huge loss
NZ Racing have no idea about marketing the product
All very sad

I'd pay for the Mute button when he is on ...

Give customers a choice then and bring in on course bookies....should increase on course attendance as well !

I'd pay for the Mute button when he is on ...

Marketing 101 - both radio and free to air TV should both be back on.
It really is that simple.

Good factual article on the demise of NZ racing....
The costs have just spiraled out of control, and it has taken Covid 19 to bring these problems to a head?
We all know about blind Freddy, and these people being paid the huge dollars didn’t want to act earlier?
What a bloody joke, sadly at our expense!

What a fantastic but also a very sad read.
Would you loan this lot any money?
 

I can't believe how John Allen could gain another high profile executive job in the same country......Let alone the same City
Makes my blood boil that he can Bullshit his way into a $700K job at NZRB - do F all but talk more Bullshit....Waste $50 Million plus and just move on like nothing has happened.
These Gravy trains for executives have to stop......No one should be paid more than the Prime Minister......unless you own the business and earned the money yourself.

One industry is led and managed, the other is not
Pretty simple

Along similar lines....Talking about tracks/Merging etc........Here in the Mighty Manawatu, has anyone thought about selling off both Awapuni and the Trotting/Greyhound course as both surrounded by housing and on the fringe of the city - Then start with a clean sheet at Foxton?
Plenty of room to strech out at Foxton - Think Mega training centre with top notch facilities - Gallops/Trots?/Greyhounds.
Awapuni function centre could still be kept as offices/Function centre.
Foxton only 20 odd minutes away from Palmerston North.
Could even lobby to get the train line re-instated from Palmy to Foxton? - Could double up as a rail link for frieght from State highway 1 (Foxton into Palmy) and there used to be a rail line in place back in the day and plenty of room on the wide road shoulders.
Is that too much common sense for a Sunday? Should I go back to Sleep?
P.S - I'm not a member of either racing club and don't reside in Palmerston North or Foxton.

Racing as we once knew and loved it - 1946 thru to late 1990's will never return. It is as simple as that.
An industry destroyed by the Leadership.
Hard to accept, but the reality.
Thank God for Australian racing
 

Barry Lichter's summation of the situation is - sadly - very much "on the money".
One point I would like to make, though, is that he makes no reference to the Directors of the TAB Board leading into the Racing Act of 2003. Prior to the Act there were two organisations responsible for the administration and ultimate success of Racing NZ. The Racing Industry Board and the TAB were separate units although the Chairman and one person were on both Boards. 
It would be difficult to find a more responsive and responsible group than those who comprised the TAB. Yes, you may consider I am biased but this was a genuine RACING group of people interested in RACING. Owners/Breeders/Punters, the General Public were all very well represented. This group oversaw a steady rise in the wagering on racing, including the first billion-dollar turnover. This was a time when NZ still reigned supreme in Australasia. The era of Ethereal and Sunline.
I was personally appalled that not one of those people was on the new Racing Board. The expertise, the knowledge, the PASSION of those people were totally ignored, along with the loss of so much intellectual capital.
Shame on whoever made those decisions, those appointments, which have rebounded so badly on the industry ever since.
As an example, the issue of Free-To-Air Trackside would be raised each year and each year summarily consigned to the this-will-not-change in our time basket.
There were a number of things which that group implemented  including percentage betting and incentives for those running the TAB agencies up and down the country.
As I look back on that time, I find it almost incomprehensible that Racing finds itself in such a parlous position today.
 
A time to weep. A time to mourn.
 
 
 

That makes you 16 years younger than me.  I think back to August 1969 and I think; …..my youngest brother and I had just invested in a Hasty Cloud weanling hoping to sell it in April 1970 at the yearling sales.  It went on to win (Lucky Cloud)  the Stradbroke Handicap, but we did okay with it.
In July 1969 I was given a Messmate mare in foal to Test Case for my 21st birthday..  I never got a key for my 21st birthday; I got an in foal broodmare.  That foal went through Trentham in January 1971.  Okay.  Interestingly, she foaled in November 1969 and having seen the unbelievable achievements of Battle Waggon's first crop prior to her foaling in mid November of that year, she was mated with Battle Waggon and that colt went through Trentham in 1972.  We all need some luck, and I got it there.
In 1969 I thought Bob Dylan's music was an oxymoron; it had no tune.  But I have come to appreciate his raw tones in the past 50 years.  In those days I thought of the Woodstock people as long haired no good hippies.  Age has taught me and I have widened my viewpoint of human behaviour in the past half century.  August 1969 was when I was a reserve for the Auckland rugby league team at University Tournament in Dunedin.  I said that I would play on the right wing as there so many left wingers in the team.
In August 1969 I was studying at Auckland Technical Institute part time as I held down a awful paying job with an antecedent firm of Ernst & Young.  I do not recall any influenza epidemic. What I do remember was an arrogant Northern Irishman at the Grey Lynn boarding house I was in, arguing with a dinkum tyke from Cork about the merits or otherwise of Bernadette Devlin.  Fifty years ago that Grey Lynn place was the pits of Auckland.  Now it is an overpriced gentrified area of that city.
I hope I have not bored you with anecdotes from half a century ago.

The biggest problem with NZ racing is that the TAB has a statutory monopoly on punting.  A monopoly inevitably leads to a second rate product. That is exactly what you have in NZ.  Open up the market to bookies and you will stimulate interest and get a better turnover.  This is the one area that Messara never touched on but is probably the most important.  Closing down tracks isn't the answer.  Nor is synthetic tracks.  James Cummings wont race his horses on synthetic tracks.  I haven't done a count, but Victoria probably has 3 times the number of tracks that NZ does, and racing in this one state alone contributes $3.2billion a year to the Victorian economy.  Go to any picnic meeting on a Saturday during summer and the bookies ring will have 10 bookies operating and people are standing shoulder to shoulder trying to get a bet on.  Right now during the covid-19 crisis there are 1 or 2 racemeetings every day of the week in Victoria.  The state government has shut down just about everything else but realises that racing is a huge employer and contributor to the economy. Same as NSW.  Betting turnover has actually INCREASED during the covid-19 crisis.  You wouldn't have that if the TAB had a monopoly on betting.  But the corporate bookmakers are out there with incentives and offers and people are taking them. 
From what I see NZers are just taking whatever is dished out to them.  Ardern was so big on compassion after the Christchurch massacre but now she doesn't give a toss about livelihoods, particularly those of racing people, who still have to feed and care for their horses even though the industry that sustains them has been shut down.  I have been reading of people who are having to die alone because she won't show a bit of compassion, women having to give birth alone, people missing out on cancer scans when the hospitals are half empty anyway.  Then all the small businesses that will probably never reopen again, their owners having lost their years of hard work and investment.  This woman is a fraud and completely out of her depth.  She has no real world experience and is being led by the nose by health officials.  NZ has a chance to get rid of her in September, I hope you don't waste it.
 

Wherever John has gone, he has taken a team of suits with him.
Look how many are still at the TAB from NZ Post!
Lets hope like Fx=3k that he takes most of them [hanging on by the skin of their teeth] still at the TAB with him.
At least it would save a huge amount of redundancy money, if the place isn't put into statutory management, which is on the cards.
 

I don't agree. I don't think a good job has been done. I can only react to the first job, which was the execution of the proposed Racing Bill. Prior to this happening, the backbone of the industry was reviewed and assessed by John Messara. He created a blue print to follow. The Minister for Racing promised us that he would follow Messara's recommendations and his agents, RITA, were mandated to deliver the legal documentation framework to do this. The proposed Bill was an absolute disaster. I could put up with Dean saying that he could not get what he wanted from those green twats who want to eliminate gambling and abuse to animals. I could understand if Dean went to the industry as explained that he fought like hell but he couldn't get what we wanted across the line. But that didn't happen.
I went to two of Dean's industry presentations and unfortunately (and I like Dean) the content of what he said was lamentable. He tried to sell the proposed Bill!. The Titanic would have sunk faster if it had more obvious holes as the Bill did. I don't see any changes after over a year of patience by us all and I think everything is done as an after thought and not a well timed, well executed  process. 
This RITA  crew have done everything behind closed doors. That's not what is currently needed. It needs an open sourced style so that the industry feels as though its being listened to. Through collaboration we can achieve good, big things....but that isn't being done. Everything seems to be extracted like hens teeth and under duress. This is not a good leaders style and we need a good leader. Small things like telling us that they have taken pay cuts, even as a gesture to all those who are broke and have been socially smashed, is leadership. Consultation on a daily basis within a Zoom cast would help built confidence. It doesn't cost anything. 
If I was in the role, I would have published a pin point plan in an attempt to track performance. You may not hit the marks but everyone would know how. and why we failed or succeeded.  How could you currently not know the availability of stakes unless you had NO MONEY at all. If this is the case, RITA has to come clean. If it needs to raise $80m, it must publish this instantly so that we can all prepare. 
If I found out that we needed to borrow $80m, then I would entertain the idea of placing the game into statutory management. As this is going to be a noose for all of us in the years to come, we should be afforded the honesty and respect to understand the problems, and be asked what we all think. This is NOT RITA's industry. It is NOT the government's industry. It is OUR industry.
So think very carefully. This has been and still is a very shoddy job. I seem to have been saying this since 1994 and everything stated at that time by a collective group of experienced racing and horse people seems to have come to pass. It almost seems as though a revolution must take place to get this right.
And make no bones about it, the Greens are our public enemy number one. They must go. Their ideals will destroy us all and a bigger group called farmers.

Well done stopper credit where it is due. It must be some horse.....