RaceCafe..#1...Tipsters Thread.... Share Your Fancies For Fun...Lets See Who The Best Tipsters Here Are.
MalcolmH

Great Western this Sunday

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Given the lousy weather down south for the last three days horses and spectators will all need flippers and snorkels on Sunday!! It has been raining steadily all night with flooding in Invercargill and surrounds so would imagine Riverton to be faring no better.Good luck!!

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8 hours ago, MalcolmH said:

Given the lousy weather down south for the last three days horses and spectators will all need flippers and snorkels on Sunday!! It has been raining steadily all night with flooding in Invercargill and surrounds so would imagine Riverton to be faring no better.Good luck!!

Looking at that field , weather  and  going it is  going to be a very average race,  plodders plodding through the bog. 

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On 5/16/2019 at 8:30 PM, Shad said:

Iconic race, but in all fairness, not the race it used to be, much like many feature races, throughout the country, many just glorified hack races.

Race was better than I thought it would be , first two not too bad and course looks well looked after from only watching on TV though  . Rest of field  really are of little account though.  

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13 minutes ago, Blue said:

Course should be ok for the jumpers. Only a handful went round and two or three pulled up. Poor spectacle I thought

I suppose I had very low expectations for the race  so when first two fought on in straight it exceeded my expectations.It's likely jump racing will be gone in few years in South Island outside GN meeting and   only northern horses keeping that going .I see Speedy Jax had decent win over in OZ today .

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6 minutes ago, Red Rum said:

I suppose I had very low expectations for the race  so when first two fought on in straight it exceeded my expectations.It's likely jump racing will be gone in few years in South Island outside GN meeting and   only northern horses keeping that going .I see Speedy Jax had decent win over in OZ today .

I can't really see the GN meeting carrying on if jumps racing stops in the rest of the SI. Riccarton provides no jumps racing itself outside of the GN and there are virtually no jumpers trained in Canterbury. I imagine there are all sorts of clever highly paid people proposing various initiatives to try and revitalise jumping in the South,  but I have  missed reading about it.

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1 hour ago, puha said:

Pretty sad state if that was all the jumpers they could muster up . Loved the jumps course but where are the numbers ?

To be totally honest SI racing is appallingly run. It seems to exist in the dark ages. It would cost very little to get a decent pattern of racing going in the SI. Look at Timaru last week. 7 races programmed, eventually one split to make 8. Dozens of horses balloted and eliminated in rating 65s and maidens as there are in Canty every week.. How clever would someone have to be to say "why don't we include a maiden 2yo and perhaps a 3yo fillies over 1,200m, just for a bit of variety". Run 10 races for a change to give everyone a chance.

What is the last innovative thing that has been done in the SI? What is the last new race anyone can remember being added? What is being done to encourage 2yos, what is being done to encourage 3yos over multiple distances, what is being done to encourage jumpers? What is being done to encourage trainers and jockeys.

These aren't things that cost much money at all, but they are things that require some knowledge of racing: so who can anyone think of amongst the highly paid that has sufficient racing knowledge to implement such initiatives? 

I think that in the absence of any real leadership in the South a panel of the six or so most intelligent Southern trainers need to get together and say "right, this is what needs to be done, or else we are all stuffed". I don't actually think John and his mates would even mind as they really don't give a stuff about the SI and would be quite happy just to see it die off.

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On 5/20/2019 at 1:28 PM, Pam Robson said:

Great post.

Sadly, a subject that is of interest to only a small minority. I wonder if the SI trainers and owners ever complain about the incompetence inherent in SI Racing.

Take today at Wingatui for instance. 20 balloted horses and probably another 15-20 eliminated. Not a single balloted horse got a start. Only one horse that was in a field scratched. All the ballots and eliminated horses in rating 65 and maiden races. In contrast, not a single ballot at Trentham. And four open races at Ellerslie and Trentham this weekend with 6, 11, 6 and 7 starters.

This is surely a sign that the structure of racing in the South is all wrong. The pattern of feature race-meetings and industry days isn't appropriate to the South. It only works if there is a choice of one of each, each week. Why run only 8 races at Wingatui when there are clearly enough horses to run 10 races? The only 2yo race in the SI this month was a listed race at Riccarton on the 4th. And yet there are dozens of 2yos going around at the trials. Why would anyone race a 2yo in the South? How do trainers organise syndicates to race horses when new "investors" want a quick return and yet there are few opportunities for 2yos. And very few opportunities for 3yos at this time of year, at a time when 3yos are winning maiden races all over and owners would aspire to try their budding champs against their own age group.

It is easy for everyone to focus on the waste involved in a $50m computer system, but what about the wasted opportunities through not investing more effort and common sense into running SI Racing. I sadly can't see a committee of "change" experts suddenly turning all of this around. I think more could be achieved by one person with a vision and a passion for the game..

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