Te Aroha Track

[rdytdy 5,341]

Walked the track mid afternoon on a beautiful Waikato day. Not a breath of wind and plenty of heat in the sun. In my opinion the track was between a Dead 6 to Slow 7 track.  

I see a reading was done later this afternoon and listed a Slow 7. 

It probably will be a Slow 7 with a heavy dew first thing in the morning but if we get another fine day like today may well come back to a Dead 6 tomorrow afternoon. 

[rdytdy 5,341]

Nearly forgot: Xtravagant will be doing an exhibition gallop between R2 and 3. 

[Fartoomuch 1,376]

7 minutes ago, rdytdy said:

Nearly forgot: Xtravagant will be doing an exhibition gallop between R1 and 2. 

Correct- putting on too much weight in the paddock so he is back in work to keep on top of things

[Jon Trum 56]

Surely he will come back better than ever, can't wait.

[TOM(the other Molloy) 1,774]

2 hours ago, hesi said:

You mean that over hyped horse that fizzed in Aus.

Can't find a single sentence talking up Tavago, yet he ultimately achieved more in Aus than Xtravagant will ever achieve.

Funny how the press etc etc get their hooks into a horse, What's The Story was supposedly our best Derby hope in Aus

 

Not entirely unreasonable to hype Xtravagent over there Hesi surely?  On his best NZ form he must have been competitive - admittedly he did not run up to that in Melbourne however.

And in regards What's the Story well clearly he is not a wet tracker - maybe Tavago is but he certainly grew another leg compared to his NZ form.  You could not blame them rating WTS a little better than Tavago I would have thought.  Time no doubt will tell.

What is an ongoing mystery to me is how every year we seem to have ultra competitive three year olds over there especially in Autumn but generally they are no where near as dominant when they reach four and venture to Aussie.  I guess the imports might explain it but it still seems strange to me.  

I appreciate Lucia Valentina  is an exception, MK won the Caulfield Cup and TML looked good in Melbourne but other than the former who is now Aussie trained there weren't too many shots fired in Sydney these past few weeks by our older horses 

 

[Yorkielad 108]

How many meetings you got over winter, Ted ?

We coming home for a spiritual weekend soon and may as well catch a few races.

The hot pools still open ? 

Bringing the kids and nephews down later to climb their mountain ...........   

[rdytdy 5,341]

6 hours ago, Yorkielad said:

How many meetings you got over winter, Ted ?

We coming home for a spiritual weekend soon and may as well catch a few races.

The hot pools still open ? 

Bringing the kids and nephews down later to climb their mountain ...........   

Following today's meeting:

Sun 19th June

Sun 3rd July

Sun 24 July

Fri  12 August

Sun 28 August 

Sun 25 September

Hot mineral pools (only soda water hot pools in NZ) are indeed open (7 days a week) . 

[rdytdy 5,341]

Heavy dew this morning and a Slow 7 first thing but beautifully fine, sun shining and blue sky with no wind.    

[Canelo 459]

I think the quality of Australian horses is not in question, the high attrition rate of promising horses pushed too hard, too soon in Australia as 2yo's is why the quality of the 3yo crops seems weak and ours seem superiour. Just my theory...

[Shad 1,554]

1 hour ago, Canelo said:

I think the quality of Australian horses is not in question, the high attrition rate of promising horses pushed too hard, too soon in Australia as 2yo's is why the quality of the 3yo crops seems weak and ours seem superiour. Just my theory...

I agree, that hard racing in the early years when they are not physically developed to handle the rigors or racing as 2 and 3 y olds and we only know about the top liners that don't go on, the attrition rate must be huge in the horses that don't even make it to the races, for mine and i said it on the breeding site that most owners and trainers are all in a rush to get them to the classic races as young horses, i understand that its an expensive game but there must alot that given time to develop make handy 4 or 5yolds, in my opinion we seem to be breeding less staying types, just going by the odd sales catalog i've seen. Even the odd ones that are breed to stay are turning up to race as 2yrs, maybe the art of breeding and training a stayer has been sum what lost. Be interested to hear any other people's opinion, Well thats my rant for the day.

[TOM(the other Molloy) 1,774]

12 hours ago, hesi said:

 

I think this applies also to many of the Aus 3 year olds, which suggests the standard at 3 is not as high as what many think.  Certainly the low number of 2 year old Slipper winners that go on, is well documented

The depth in Aus racing is eye watering

Well at least we can still produce a small number of horses that are up to G1 quality in Aus.  

Tavago's run in the NZ Derby, he made up as much ground as Rising Romance did in her Derby, yet the press did not write a sentence about it

You are probably right. We won a couple of VRC Derbies four or five years ago as well and with all due respect to Sangster you wouldn't put him in NZ's top ten horses of the last ten years or so. Lion Tamer never really got a chance to go further. 

[rdytdy 5,341]

Track played as I thought yesterday being between a Dead 6 and a Slow 7. Horses could win from either, being in front or from the back, out wide or on the fence. Bar Rogan's mishap it was a very good day's racing and we saw some promising horses.