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

Matamata today

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1 hour ago, barryb said:

Honestly? racing at Matamata is hardly capitalising on holiday destinations at Xmas time.

I went along and it was a pitiful crowd and it was a boring meeting with no atmosphere at all,  what a joke waste of an opportunity at this time of the yr.

 

 

Boring meeting? Id suggest very relaxed  Bazza, some good racing BYO and Tab operators efficient and friendly. Does the tracks location in relation to holiday ‘hotspots’ restrict opportunity ? 

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4 hours ago, Gruff said:

Boring meeting? Id suggest very relaxed  Bazza, some good racing BYO and Tab operators efficient and friendly. Does the tracks location in relation to holiday ‘hotspots’ restrict opportunity ? 

Check out Taupo or Tauranga this week for your answer. 

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matamata is a crazy venue for this time of year...i would go so far to say it should be closed as a racing venue and remain a training facility only..spend money on te aroha to make it a main racecourse..i realise rotorua is a tourist town , but it is an awful racetrack ,wouldnt be a drama to say goodbye...give ellerslie's old middle day to tauranga ,ruakaka or back to ellerslie....remember the last day at ellerslie jan 2 ,it was the best day of the carnival ,with all the hangover of jan 1 ...oh for the good old days ,the real auckland cup...who says change is always good or progressive ,bullshit.

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Rotorua is not just a tourist town, it is a city of 70,000 people.  Great crowd and atmosphere at Arawa Park on the 27th and a high proportion of local once a year punters.  Closing down their local track will only achieve a further drop in punter numbers.  These people will certainly not drive to Matamata or Taupo to go to the races, it will be out to the lakes or a drive over to the beach.  VOR  the track is now very good since the club spent $0.5M on a full reconstruction a few years ago. 

A crowd in the thousands gathered for a previous Interislander Summer Festival Rotorua Races. Photo / File

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14 hours ago, voice of reason said:

matamata is a crazy venue for this time of year...i would go so far to say it should be closed as a racing venue and remain a training facility only..spend money on te aroha to make it a main racecourse..i realise rotorua is a tourist town , but it is an awful racetrack ,wouldnt be a drama to say goodbye...give ellerslie's old middle day to tauranga ,ruakaka or back to ellerslie....remember the last day at ellerslie jan 2 ,it was the best day of the carnival ,with all the hangover of jan 1 ...oh for the good old days ,the real auckland cup...who says change is always good or progressive ,bullshit.

V of R  Nothing wrong with Rotorua track have spent big money on up grades in the last few seasons . perfectly placed right in town easy walking distance from town and motels .I think they should pull down old public stand and have marquee's and park like settings .  If they are stupid enough to take racing away they will have a huge battle trying to sell the land ,good luck with that ,.Cheers BH

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Agree BH. Might there be a middle way with all this consolidation? Keep the successful holiday venues (Rotorua etc) but only run there sparingly. Have Te Rapa or TA as the main Waikato track, but surely the only real advantage in closing is the $$$$ from Avondale. 

If they could realise the money locked up there that has got to go a long way to helping the industry. 

Something has surely got to give. One of our premier sprints is worth $200k (Railway) I believe while on the same day at Flemington their main sprint of the say, Standish, is for $160k AUS. There would have to be 30 Aus sprints worth more than that. If you had a half decent horse how could you afford to keep running it in NZ? The numbers just don't stack up. 

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23 minutes ago, Stables said:

I have been to several meetings at Timaru in recent years and if it wasn't for owners and trainers there would be nobody there

I presume Stables that most of those meetings were in the winter months, and they were certainly all industry meetings. It is only fair to compare apples with apples. Compared to a winter, midweek, industry meeting at Riccarton what would the crowd be like?

As has been mentioned on here several times, there is no incentive for clubs to attract patrons on course. In fact clubs like Timaru, racing midweek in winter, would probably be better off to close the gates totally to the public. There would be considerable savings in racebooks, white coated men, catering, oncourse announcers, power etc etc.

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42 minutes ago, Stables said:

I have been to several meetings at Timaru in recent years and if it wasn't for owners and trainers there would be nobody there

That is certainly true. I once sat in the grandstand there and was outnumbered by the birds, feathered variety .But 5000 turning up there two days ago is a very encouraging result.

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1 hour ago, Stables said:

I have been to several meetings at Timaru in recent years and if it wasn't for owners and trainers there would be nobody there

And it doesn’t help when the club is given Wednesday or Friday for a race day, when they used to get Sundays. At least on a Sunday the club stood a chance of getting people on course.

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25 minutes ago, Ludwig said:

That is certainly true. I once sat in the grandstand there and was outnumbered by the birds, feathered variety .But 5000 turning up there two days ago is a very encouraging result.

Hope they cleaned the birdshit off the seats between times Wiggy :rcf-rich-1: Little wonder the stands are half empty theyre the only seats  without doo on them :rcfe-happy-3:

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