Poor Northern programming

[Nelli]

Whoever thought it a good idea to put on trotting and pacing Country Cup meetings at Cambridge when the meeting is back to back with Auckland? If these two clubs were working together for the best of the industry, this is the week Cambridge should be running a 'minor' meeting.

[mikenz]

Thought the same myself, they have  a FFA at Auckland with only 5 noms maybe one or two of those at Cambridge may have run in it but would they if it's dominated by one or two anyway.

Westport noms  for Friday are better than Xmas, does help when their rating 51 feature races don't have to compete with another rating 51 race at Motukarara.

[Nelli]

If the Country Cup dates were happened to be fixed because of some higher level programming, Auckland could have at least programmed a R35+ race. At present all those lower grade trotters have no alternative other than nominate for the Cup qualifier. 

[MisterEd]

1 hour ago, mikenz said:

Thought the same myself, they have  a FFA at Auckland with only 5 noms maybe one or two of those at Cambridge may have run in it but would they if it's dominated by one or two anyway.

Westport noms  for Friday are better than Xmas, does help when their rating 51 feature races don't have to compete with another rating 51 race at Motukarara.

58 Noms for Auckland. Shut it down and turn out the lights on the way out.

How in gods name does anyone think that the racing there with small fields is attractive to punters?

It is becoming a joke that the rest of the industry has to keep on propping up.

 

[Nelli]

51 minutes ago, MisterEd said:

58 Noms for Auckland. Shut it down and turn out the lights on the way out.

How in gods name does anyone think that the racing there with small fields is attractive to punters?

It is becoming a joke that the rest of the industry has to keep on propping up.

 

Don't place all the blame on the ATC. This latest fiasco is down to poor programming. The underlying problem is that we have fewer and fewer owners and less horses being bred. It's not just a North Island issue - the number of qualifiers in the South Island compared to previous years makes sad reading. ATC is just the "canary in the mine" for our whole industry. 

[MisterEd]

1 minute ago, Nelli said:

Don't place all the blame on the ATC. This latest fiasco is down to poor programming. The underlying problem is that we have fewer and fewer owners and less horses being bred. It's not just a North Island issue - the number of qualifiers in the South Island compared to previous years makes sad reading. ATC is just the "canary in the mine" for our whole industry. 

Agreed but there is little chance of Alex park returning to the days of old even with good programming better stakes etc.

There are simply not enough horses or trainers to support it.

Why throw good money after bad chasing a pipe dream to keep it going when that money could be better spent sustaining the industry in other parts of the country.

Just bite the bullet and shut it down before it poisons the whole industry. 

[mikenz]

After withdrawals only 50 left.

Splitting a trotting race with 3 nominations, it must be a difficult decision.