Poor Owners

[ngatimaru 51]

Once again the owners get slugged ?

Or does the Wanganui club reimburse the owners the Float fees & costs for the

cancellation of the races.

Hopefully they do..

But if those in charge had waited one hour before they made their

decision to cancel the Meeting.. racing could have continued as it turned out a beautiful afternoon.

Would not have mattered anyway because the Prims Donna boys were all on there merry way home.

Apparently the Wanganui Cup will be run next June.

Doesn't help  Mr..Lee Somervell who sponsored the race & hoped to win it with Celebrity Miss

She is in foal to Shocking & wont be able to compete in June.

I hope they reimburse Mr. Somervell & find another sponser

My mind Boggles at times??  Do these Jocks have no Nuts??

I remember  ( OK 'I'm old) when they broke out bales of straw in the Wellington birdcage so the horses didn't slip. 

& we still raced..

Now???       One Watery Fart & there in  the Car & gone.

Tell me if I'm wrong.

[Shad 1,554]

And probably drive home at 100 miles an hour.More likely to have accident on the roads, just another abandonment, they are just about a weekly event now. Poor owners get shafted again, but alas one day there will be no races to cancel, be no owners, no jobs for jockeys or trainers, be a very sad day.

[Midget 4,489]

And I'll be laughing because I told you all so, and no one listened.

I'll tell you again though, it's going to get a lot worse.

[puha 2,177]

Don't think you can blame the jockeys as it was a dangerous surface . The question is is it acceptable for a track to get into this state after a brief shower and what could of been done  to the track PRIOR to the races to avoid  the outcome we had to endure?  30 mins before the first you would not even have thought showers were on the way but as soon as it arrived we thought oh F--K here we go again.

[Shad 1,554]

Maybe they are trying to hard to have the perfect tracks, in my youger years i was a frequent at the kumara races, you could have rain for a month or fine, and a mix of both, but they always raced, no problem, oh until the upgrade of the track, major problems  after that, i think they had about 3 canned meets, one i think was run on the monday, only needs a spit on it after dry weather now, its only one of many that have had issues, after so called improvements, so how are we supposed to have these ideal tracks.Don't the powers that be do track inspections around the country. But i guess what do they know.

[Gruff 2,798]

Health and safety is paramount,one life saved for the sake of an abandonment is well worth any other ramifications,is there a common denominator in all this? Are there drainage upgrades in the interim that need to be scrutinised where a track surface failure is attributed? Surely the finger needs to be pointed somewhere 

[Trump 2,741]

Always point finger at the top. They are always "on top of these things"!

[Midget 4,489]

11 hours ago, Gruff said:

Health and safety is paramount,one life saved for the sake of an abandonment is well worth any other ramifications,is there a common denominator in all this? Are there drainage upgrades in the interim that need to be scrutinised where a track surface failure is attributed? Surely the finger needs to be pointed somewhere 

The disturbing aspect of this sharde that i find unacceptable  is if the track was deemed unsafe after the the first race,it must surely been unsafe prior to the first race,but the boys in charge{stewards} didn't either believe so,or they thought they would send the riders around to see if it was safe,bullshit i say.They have been so wrong so many times they should be held accountable.

I have said so many times that our industry stewards are not to the required level to insure safety is paramount and when you watch races where clear interference occurs and read the reports,it only confirms my lack of respect of their ability to read races and enforce the rules.

The other bugbear i have is the costs of running the RIU.How can the justify sending Northern stewards down South and vice versa.I heard M Godber attemting to explain this on the radio and he said it was good for the stewards to have experence in other areas.Do you see Melbourne Sydney and Brisbane Stewards going into other areas to gain experence?The RIU is funded out of pokie funding but would it be still  good business sense to keep costs to sustainable level,eg J Oatham goes to Cromwell,so a return airfare of say 1k a rental car and a nights accomadation and you would be around 2k and for what,the same at the recent Counties meeting M Davison comes up from the south at a similar cost.This is a complete waste of money and a completel waste of manpower when you have Stewards sitting at home who reside in that area.If these stewards are not up to the job,dismiss them,If these stewards had to pay there own way,this sort of mismanagement would not happen.

SNR

 

[slam dunk 1,317]

SNR,

About a year ago NZRB announced a $5million  contract  with Spark to allow employees to better interact on the road so to speak. That meant going with Google and using cloud video conferencing products like Hangouts which in turn is like Skype. Similarly at almost no cost stipes could virtually be in the same room, be able to speak, be able to view video footage. THey could easily be somewhere in Australia or actually be specialists only rarely required.

[Midget 4,489]

1 minute ago, slam dunk said:

SNR,

About a year ago NZRB announced a $5million  contract  with Spark to allow employees to better interact on the road so to speak. That meant going with Google and using cloud video conferencing products like Hangouts which in turn is like Skype. Similarly at almost no cost stipes could virtually be in the same room, be able to speak, be able to view video footage. THey could easily be somewhere in Australia or actually be specialists only rarely required.

Yes this was part of JA presentation.Has it ever been used in the capacity it was designed for?

This ludicrous situation where the RIU swap Stewards between islands is simply a waste of funding.Having said that the majority of stewards would need someone to show them how this system works,so it may well be better to fly them all over the country and continue to waste funding.

Has anyone seen any reports from the Betting Analyst and who has been charged since his appointment a while ago.The only one I have seen was N Rasmuson who had forgotten that she had put a futures bet on some months before the race,from memory it was a $20 bet,so unless I am wrong,we have another employee who i am picking would be on a 6 figure salary and has had 1 success.GEEZS

[Guest 2Admin2]

32 minutes ago, Midget said:

Yes this was part of JA presentation.Has it ever been used in the capacity it was designed for?

This ludicrous situation where the RIU swap Stewards between islands is simply a waste of funding.Having said that the majority of stewards would need someone to show them how this system works,so it may well be better to fly them all over the country and continue to waste funding.

Has anyone seen any reports from the Betting Analyst and who has been charged since his appointment a while ago.The only one I have seen was N Rasmuson who had forgotten that she had put a futures bet on some months before the race,from memory it was a $20 bet,so unless I am wrong,we have another employee who i am picking would be on a 6 figure salary and has had 1 success.GEEZS

Wasn't he around when the CD Senior Jockey got pinged?

[Shad 1,554]

Its always easy to squander someone else's money, certainly wouldn't be travelling those schedules if they had to pay there own way.

[Midget 4,489]

3 hours ago, 2Admin2 said:

Wasn't he around when the CD Senior Jockey got pinged?

maybe,but it was the TAB operator who spilled the beans,so if he was he didn't pick it up or the Stewards who were in charge on the day,but that is not surprising given their ability to read a race.

SNR

[Leggy 4,077]

22 hours ago, Midget said:

I'll tell you again though, it's going to get a lot worse.

For how long do you reckon before it bottoms out? 3-5 years?

[Midget 4,489]

9 minutes ago, Leggy said:

For how long do you reckon before it bottoms out? 3-5 years?

I think it depends on the migration of punters.

If they go we're gone, it's that simple.

If the NZRB can persuade them to stay we might last as long as your time frame.

 

[Leggy 4,077]

Agree. They're definitely walking. If they start to run my time-frame might be optimistic as you say.

Even JA now acknowledges that the economics of NZ racing are unsustainable and that's been achieved in not much more than a decade. I don't see a single strategy in place likely to mitigate the continuation of that.

[rdytdy 5,341]

44 minutes ago, Midget said:

I think it depends on the migration of punters.

If they go we're gone, it's that simple.

If the NZRB can persuade them to stay we might last as long as your time frame.

 

Surely the departure of punters has by and large been due to the NZRB (TAB) itself with their continual disengagement with customers along with the removal of Freeview Trackside.  

[Ohokaman 5,839]

Yep...you are right Leggy. JA was hammering the "we need more customers" mantra.

I actually felt sorry for the poor bugger, couldn't fault the passion but you got the feeling he'd rather be somewhere else.

Interesting to see Purcell there throwing curve balls and deflecting attention. He couldn't have done that presentation.

Well, he probably could, but you wouldn't want to watch it...

[Leggy 4,077]

29 minutes ago, rdytdy said:

Surely the departure of punters has by and large been due to the NZRB (TAB) itself with their continual disengagement with customers along with the removal of Freeview Trackside.  

Hardly Ted. That has certainly helped but Nztr has continued to provide them an increasingly unsaleable product. What can they really do with that?

We are at a point I'm afraid where we can only monitor the unfolding disaster and assist the wounded.

[Leggy 4,077]

22 hours ago, Midget said:

I think it depends on the migration of punters.

If they go we're gone, it's that simple.

If the NZRB can persuade them to stay we might last as long as your time frame.

 

Probably just a question of when the government decides to switch off the life-support.

[Brown Fox 867]

1 hour ago, Leggy said:

Probably just a question of when the government decides to switch off the life-support.

What bloody life support? They're sucking the life out of it.

[Leggy 4,077]

8 minutes ago, Brown Fox said:

What bloody life support? They're sucking the life out of it.

Really? $50m a year in duty reduction (fair enough), $20m from pokies, plus sports betting and overseas racing revenues. Switch those off and return that revenue to the taxpayer where it belongs and what have you got. A decade or so ago racing produced the revenue to support itself more or less. Now it's maybe the country's largest beneficiary.

[Brown Fox 867]

Any idea what the annual tax take is Leggy?

[Leggy 4,077]

53 minutes ago, Brown Fox said:

Any idea what the annual tax take is Leggy?

Yep, the details are in here:https://nzracingboard.co.nz/sites/default/files/documents/NZRB Annual Report 2016_0.pdf

I can't be bothered working it out exactly but roughly $35m total on NZ Racing (all 3 codes) GST+Betting duty. That's about equal to the Gross Gaming Revenue we are gifted.

[Insider 3,954]

28 minutes ago, Leggy said:

Yep, the details are in here:https://nzracingboard.co.nz/sites/default/files/documents/NZRB Annual Report 2016_0.pdf

I can't be bothered working it out exactly but roughly $35m total on NZ Racing (all 3 codes) GST+Betting duty.

So Leggy are you saying that before the Fair Tax campaign they were taking $85m in taxes, but they then gave back in duty reduction $50m  [three postings back] and roughly today ONLY bank $35m in GST+Betting Duty?

I am leaving out of the equation Pokie Money, as I despise the bloody things and wish that we didnt have to have anything to do with them - but that's another story.

Leggy, I think that you are bloody well named as obviously you are pulling the other one with those figures!