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We're Doomed

Timaru v All Weather.

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I was thinking of conducting a poll, but don't know how to do that. More about that later.

Timaru today; 221 nominations, 12 races (they could have run 14,) 41 ballots scratched, only 5 horses scratched that were assured a start, and they all let others get starts. Dead track after quite a bit of rain during the week. Sponsors for every race. They are doing a great job giving heaps of horses a start on a decent track.

But this meeting won't exist in a year or two. No meetings in Canterbury or Oamaru will exist between May and October once the all weather is built at Riccarton, perhaps the old John Grigg meeting at Ashburton.

The question is this. Would Winston's $10.5m from the Provincial growth fund be better spent in the middle of a major metropolitan city, where a club that doesn't even have a public grandstand is obliged to front with another $5m to make it all work. Or might the $10.5m be better utilized to upgrade a provincial racetrack like Timaru, that has a public grandstand, and already provides a good racing surface all year, but could provide an even better track with bigger starting limits if money was spent upgrading the track and introducing a 1,400m start point amongst other things. There is even the possibility to build an almost straight 1,000m chute. They even have space to attract more trainers, while most of the major tracks around the place are selling off potential trainers facilities to fund their other developments.

A case could be made for an all weather track(s) in the North Island where they race on heavy tracks for many months of the year, but in Canterbury it is already possible to race on reasonable tracks all year around with existing facilities, as we see today at Timaru. So surely in the SI the decision is quite different to that in the north. Winston does like to mention the money that will be saved by transferring meetings from elsewhere to the all weather if the weather is bad. Well, that will never happen in the SI as there will be no other meetings anywhere in Canterbury to be transferred. And if the weather is particularly bad even all weather tracks gets abandoned as we saw at Moonee Valley a couple of weeks ago. And from the sounds of the current thinking a major meeting at Riccarton won't be transferred from the existing track to the all weather because of a bit of rain.

So the question is. Do people think the industry would be better off spending a precious $10.5m on:

A. Funding 75% of an all weather track at Riccarton to hold $10,000 races during the winter, with the rest of Canterbury being shut down during those months.

B. Funding a massive upgrade at Timaru so it can hold regular racing all year round without the need for an all weather track. At the same time reducing the need for Riccarton to race on wet tracks during the winter months.

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Your talking far too much common sense , wash your mouth out .

The 10.5mil isn't industry money , it is coming out of the provincial growth fund so has to be used for A/W's or they don't get it . My issue is with clubs taking on 5/6mil in debt to finish these tracks when the industry isn't exactly travelling flash . RACE are already deep in debt , why risk more , and a risk it is . 

The CD has the equivalent of Timaru in Foxton , completely wasted . No they want to spend the same at Awapuni , which will be a greyhound track , when for a fraction of the money they could upgrade Foxton , but no , they know best . 

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Ita a lot further to travel all winter to Riccarton than Timaru if you live in the south,maybe Riccarton should stay as it is but even if they  have a all weather surely they wont cease at South Canterbury or North Otago they are traditionally dry places.

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5 minutes ago, Chris Wood said:

Once in a blue moon would you see Moonee Valley called off!

I was purely looking at recent events. Just mentioning that they aren't infallible. Besides, I don't think there is much comparison between The Valley and our proposed tracks is there? Aren't ours largely glorified training tracks?

As I said I can see the point of an all weather up your way where it gets very wet in the winter, but the SI is totally different. It is possible to race on reasonable tracks all winter down there. There are 13 NI trained horses at Timaru today, one just won a race. I presume they are just about all there for the better racing surfaces. 

In the NI the experts have said; "its wet everywhere all winter, why don't we build an all weather track". In the SI they have said "the wettest place in Canterbury, and as far south as Oamaru, in the winter is Christchurch, so we better build an all weather track there".  It's a pity the teaboy wasn't listening in at the meeting and said " why don't we just move meetings an hour south to Ashburton or two hours south to Timaru, then they could race on dead tracks all the time". You could have given the teaboy a $1m bonus (perhaps a $1m bonus bet at the TAB) and the whole industry would have been millions of dollars better off.

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26 minutes ago, nomates said:

Your talking far too much common sense , wash your mouth out .

The 10.5mil isn't industry money , it is coming out of the provincial growth fund so has to be used for A/W's or they don't get it . My issue is with clubs taking on 5/6mil in debt to finish these tracks when the industry isn't exactly travelling flash . RACE are already deep in debt , why risk more , and a risk it is . 

The CD has the equivalent of Timaru in Foxton , completely wasted . No they want to spend the same at Awapuni , which will be a greyhound track , when for a fraction of the money they could upgrade Foxton , but no , they know best . 

I think if $12m can be given to a "Green" school then it could be argued that developing a state of the art racing facility at Timaru would be a better use of PGF money that the Riccarton white elephant.

In their haste I'm sure the Govt got a lot of these decisions wrong, they should be big enough to admit they made some cock ups. I often wonder who Winston's key advisors are. He doesn't think of all these things by himself surely.

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I've watched the races since lockdown,Riccarton looks the one that chops up the most,some of the southern tracks ain't been too bad but we must remember this winter has been very good,all race meetings can be 50 50 weather/trackwise.

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3 minutes ago, We're Doomed said:

I was purely looking at recent events. Just mentioning that they aren't infallible. Besides, I don't think there is much comparison between The Valley and our proposed tracks is there? Aren't ours largely glorified training tracks?

As I said I can see the point of an all weather up your way where it gets very wet in the winter, but the SI is totally different. It is possible to race on reasonable tracks all winter down there. There are 13 NI trained horses at Timaru today, one just won a race. I presume they are just about all there for the better racing surfaces. 

In the NI the experts have said; "its wet everywhere all winter, why don't we build an all weather track". In the SI they have said "the wettest place in Canterbury, and as far south as Oamaru, in the winter is Christchurch, so we better build an all weather track there".  It's a pity the teaboy wasn't listening in at the meeting and said " why don't we just move meetings an hour south to Ashburton or two hours south to Timaru, then they could race on dead tracks all the time". You could have given the teaboy a $1m bonus (perhaps a $1m bonus bet at the TAB) and the whole industry would have been millions of dollars better off.

It's looks like a waste of money here imho , seriously who's paying more in training fees for that track and it will need more income, the industry is a basket case sadly  . However if laid correctly there is nothing wrong with polytrack. John Gosden has forgotten  more than most in the world when it comes to thoroughbreds , very few are his peer in travelling and winning the very best races , he races his best on poly , multi million buck horses , no issues . Enable tomorrow night again heads out on it again  , he's not taking any chances with her .Most Newmarket trainers use it daily, Andrew Balding has just put one down , it must be alright in the correct circumstances . 

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Even in Southland when you look at things Gore is kind of central too why shut it,its weather is a little bit better than Invercargill as well,some of those Southern tracks have short home straights Ascot Park215 m Gore I think is 300 and Wingatui 350,at the end of the day though regardless of the track everybody races on the same course so its horses for courses I spose.

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21 minutes ago, mikenz said:

Ita a lot further to travel all winter to Riccarton than Timaru if you live in the south,maybe Riccarton should stay as it is but even if they  have a all weather surely they wont cease at South Canterbury or North Otago they are traditionally dry places.

If they have an all weather at Riccarton, there will be no racing during those months at Timaru and Oamaru. That is where the all weather licences will come from. Riccarton's Saturdays will continue as they are. The all weather meetings will be $10,000 mid week races taken away from the provincial tracks. Bit ironic really that the PGF is used to destroy provincial racetracks. 

Can you imagine the embarrassment if they let Timaru continue and they got fields like today and then next week Riccarton raced on the all weather and struggled to put together 7 or 8 small fields? They would never let that happen.

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2 minutes ago, mikenz said:

Nothing to stop them having midweek low key meetings on all weather track with every sunday or second sunday racing elsewhere as well,not everyone or every horse is gunna want to race on both surfaces.

It is intended that the total number of licences will remain the same, or even decrease. They will not issue new licences for the all weather, they will take them from elsewhere. I imagine the same would apply in the NI.

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And on another note I see that Serina William's is just about to win again,just beaten and bullied some little girl as she does,hopefully she will trip up as she keeps doing in majors nowadays,as you can see I'm not a fan.

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1 hour ago, We're Doomed said:

If they have an all weather at Riccarton, there will be no racing during those months at Timaru and Oamaru. That is where the all weather licences will come from. Riccarton's Saturdays will continue as they are. The all weather meetings will be $10,000 mid week races taken away from the provincial tracks. Bit ironic really that the PGF is used to destroy provincial racetracks. 

Can you imagine the embarrassment if they let Timaru continue and they got fields like today and then next week Riccarton raced on the all weather and struggled to put together 7 or 8 small fields? They would never let that happen.

Certain vested interests have decided that an AWT will solve everything in the south. But Timaru to day suggests otherwise. Here in Oamaru, there are fewer meetings, no radio or newspaper coverage, no TV for the poorer folk, and maintaining any interest or enthusiasm for racing is becoming hard. An AWT track at Riccarton, in my view, does nothing to tackle the real issues.

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4 minutes ago, Ludwig said:

Certain vested interests have decided that an AWT will solve everything in the south. But Timaru to day suggests otherwise. Here in Oamaru, there are fewer meetings, no radio or newspaper coverage, no TV for the poorer folk, and maintaining any interest or enthusiasm for racing is becoming hard. An AWT track at Riccarton, in my view, does nothing to tackle the real issues.

Well said. You are of course totally correct. Sadly NZTR wouldn't even know what the real issues are. The more I think about it, the more I realise that the all weather at Riccarton has got nothing to do with providing a better racing surface. That is a total red herring. Red Herrings and White Elephants; Riccarton should open a zoo.

The South has plenty of decent racetracks for winter racing, outside of Christchurch. This is all about centralisation. They want to move all racing for hundreds of kilometres around to Riccarton, and the all weather is just an excuse for that. Once Timaru and Oamaru are gone that will compress Otago and Southland racing into an even smaller zone and shorter racing period. Trainers like the Tylers won't have the option of relocating to Waimate for a few months each winter. Gradually racing in the deep south will wither and die off.

Having said that though I still put these poor decisions down more to incompetence rather than a big conspiracy. That might be me being generous, but I just don't think they are bright enough to have a cunning plan.

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4 hours ago, We're Doomed said:

I was thinking of conducting a poll, but don't know how to do that. More about that later.

Timaru today; 221 nominations, 12 races (they could have run 14,) 41 ballots scratched, only 5 horses scratched that were assured a start, and they all let others get starts. Dead track after quite a bit of rain during the week. Sponsors for every race. They are doing a great job giving heaps of horses a start on a decent track.

But this meeting won't exist in a year or two. No meetings in Canterbury or Oamaru will exist between May and October once the all weather is built at Riccarton, perhaps the old John Grigg meeting at Ashburton.

The question is this. Would Winston's $10.5m from the Provincial growth fund be better spent in the middle of a major metropolitan city, where a club that doesn't even have a public grandstand is obliged to front with another $5m to make it all work. Or might the $10.5m be better utilized to upgrade a provincial racetrack like Timaru, that has a public grandstand, and already provides a good racing surface all year, but could provide an even better track with bigger starting limits if money was spent upgrading the track and introducing a 1,400m start point amongst other things. There is even the possibility to build an almost straight 1,000m chute. They even have space to attract more trainers, while most of the major tracks around the place are selling off potential trainers facilities to fund their other developments.

A case could be made for an all weather track(s) in the North Island where they race on heavy tracks for many months of the year, but in Canterbury it is already possible to race on reasonable tracks all year around with existing facilities, as we see today at Timaru. So surely in the SI the decision is quite different to that in the north. Winston does like to mention the money that will be saved by transferring meetings from elsewhere to the all weather if the weather is bad. Well, that will never happen in the SI as there will be no other meetings anywhere in Canterbury to be transferred. And if the weather is particularly bad even all weather tracks gets abandoned as we saw at Moonee Valley a couple of weeks ago. And from the sounds of the current thinking a major meeting at Riccarton won't be transferred from the existing track to the all weather because of a bit of rain.

So the question is. Do people think the industry would be better off spending a precious $10.5m on:

A. Funding 75% of an all weather track at Riccarton to hold $10,000 races during the winter, with the rest of Canterbury being shut down during those months.

B. Funding a massive upgrade at Timaru so it can hold regular racing all year round without the need for an all weather track. At the same time reducing the need for Riccarton to race on wet tracks during the winter months.

Why haven't these types of discussion taken place before any of this begins in motion?

It appears to be the case across the entire country , no thoughts of better utilsing existing tracks and facilities just the promise of empire building for the few. This is the reason NZ racing will go no where , there is no analysis , study or deep discussion taking place to improve it and please don't tell me the M report was.

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3 hours ago, Red Rum said:

It's looks like a waste of money here imho , seriously who's paying more in training fees for that track and it will need more income, the industry is a basket case sadly  . However if laid correctly there is nothing wrong with polytrack. John Gosden has forgotten  more than most in the world when it comes to thoroughbreds , very few are his peer in travelling and winning the very best races , he races his best on poly , multi million buck horses , no issues . Enable tomorrow night again heads out on it again  , he's not taking any chances with her .Most Newmarket trainers use it daily, Andrew Balding has just put one down , it must be alright in the correct circumstances . 

I don't think the issue is racing horses on it, to me the major issue appears to be punters aren't that enthusiastic about it, that is a major worry its going to be major block holding up the industry in the future. I can't be the only one that detests punting on them?

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2 hours ago, Ludwig said:

Certain vested interests have decided that an AWT will solve everything in the south. But Timaru to day suggests otherwise. Here in Oamaru, there are fewer meetings, no radio or newspaper coverage, no TV for the poorer folk, and maintaining any interest or enthusiasm for racing is becoming hard. An AWT track at Riccarton, in my view, does nothing to tackle the real issues.

What the AWT does is mean that Riccarton dont get chopped up,and everywhere else things carry on as normal,or it should,

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3 hours ago, We're Doomed said:

If they have an all weather at Riccarton, there will be no racing during those months at Timaru and Oamaru. That is where the all weather licences will come from. Riccarton's Saturdays will continue as they are. The all weather meetings will be $10,000 mid week races taken away from the provincial tracks. Bit ironic really that the PGF is used to destroy provincial racetracks. 

Can you imagine the embarrassment if they let Timaru continue and they got fields like today and then next week Riccarton raced on the all weather and struggled to put together 7 or 8 small fields? They would never let that happen.

I suppose their reasoning is that the tracks will attract crowds if in the CC area, I can't see it myself.

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3 hours ago, We're Doomed said:

It is intended that the total number of licences will remain the same, or even decrease. They will not issue new licences for the all weather, they will take them from elsewhere. I imagine the same would apply in the NI.

Not to mention they will not wanting to be getting 200 horses nominated for racing on grass tracks down the road and 60 nominated for the AWT, they'll do their best to make it the only option to give the Claytons impression that its worked out.

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4 minutes ago, Huey said:

I don't think the issue is racing horses on it, to me the major issue appears to be punters aren't that enthusiastic about it, that is a major worry its going to be major block holding up the industry in the future. I can't be the only one that detests punting on them?

I don't mind them , been punting on them years but big difference between OZ , NZD and UK and Ireland,  in UK and Ireland a decent  pool of horses rattle round on them weekly ,  a lot stick to it so form gets to played out . In UK and Ireland they don't have pool of bog track winter flat racers because they finish turf Nov and start again March so the winter awt runners are bar the backend maidens getting an outing mainly awt horses, only query is if they swap Southwell to other tracks as Fibresand deeper , in fact most these bog trackers would probably be better on fibresand I reckon .

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