DUE TO THE DISGRACEFUL RACETRACKS WE DISH UP – IT’S THE WONDER WE STILL HAVE AN INDUSTRY

17/03/14

It is my considered opinion, that as an industry it’s a miracle that racing survives, as weekly, simply to survive, it has to overcome such a vast array of problems, week-in-week-out that any other business would surely have no option but to fold under the degree of ineptness endured in racing across its three codes.

To survive in racing, it’s pretty much a no-brainer that TAB turnover is the keystone of success, but yet again after enduring another weekend of thoroughbred racing on a Saturday afternoon around the eastern seaboard, it’s the wonder that there are any punters left after the what I’d call “pathetic tracks” that the punting public get dished up to bet at.

Let’s start in Brisbane and work our way south. Eagle Farm was supposed to be a “dead 4” track last Saturday. Now I’m not real bright, but how can it be on a sunny and fine day with a 28 or 30-degree maximum yet the outside of the track was the place to be late in the day if you were to be a winning chance. One would have reasonably thought that a dead 4 track on race morning would become a good 3 by the end of the day, given the alleged “wonderful drying capabilities of our two Brisbane tracks” that gets constantly rammed down our throat every time they race by all the “experts”. Down the road from Eagle Farm an hour south at the Gold Coast and the fence didn’t provide a winner all day with the rail back in the true for the first time in a while. Put simply, the exact same scenario unfolded there as happened at Eagle Farm, namely “either the jockeys have no idea or the fence was off”. At Randwick the track was a slow 7 on Thursday and it was allegedly back to a dead 5 on race morning. Then before the first it was upgraded to a dead 4. Therefore yet again the entire industry from its owners, trainers, jockeys and punters are entitled to expect that a “dead 4” track will be uniform across. Sadly it obviously was nothing like “uniform across,” as well off the fence the winners came – one after the other. Down at Bendigo in Victoria, they had their opportunity to shine once a year – but couldn’t as they fell at the first hurdle. Yet again the Bendigo race club demonstrated their ineptness on their big standalone Saturday as they couldn’t even issue one official last 600-metre race sectional. You know that’s pretty basic stuff in 2014 and beyond. People shouldn’t be forced to join my Sectional Times services – or buy and learn to use a stopwatch – simply to find out what the figures are, such that they can pull the races apart sectionally. It’s simply not good enough from any of Eagle Farm, the Gold Coast, Randwick or Bendigo.

I’ve regularly written here for years that the Eagle Farm course proper “needs to be bulldozed” and years after it’s been written here that will happen after the upcoming Winter Carnival. So years on – the powers that be, invoke what Justracing has written for years. I’ve also written for a long time that “the Gold Coast track is not a Saturday metropolitan class racetrack” and I get the same sniggers from the usual detractors all the time. There it was last Saturday – old “Mr Negative” was proven right again as not one horse near the fence got hot. And after all the recent controversy regarding horses breaking down at the Gold Coast, which started after Helen Page’s talented General Exhibit had to be put down, there was another victim last Saturday as the Beaudesert trained Save The Star had to be euthanized after breaking down at the 200 in Race 2. In fact from reviewing tapes I can’t find any winner that finished closer than four horses off the fence. As for Randwick well as I’ve been writing here for yonks, how can they spend so many millions of dollars, yet the finished product is hopeless, like that alleged “dead 4” crap that they dished up last Saturday – where out in the middle of the track is the go?

It truly is the wonder that someone in racing authority around Australia hasn’t approached Justracing for a major consultancy role, as given the passage of time the scriptures that get written here get proven right week in and week out. Over a decade ago – on 11/8/2003 to be exact – I wrote a story entitled “What A Brainchild – 40 Minutes Gap Between Races” and now “they” have decided over 10 years on that I was spot on, so they are working feverishly to reduce the time gap between races as they realized they’ve stuffed up – yet again. Fair dinkum – most of them wouldn’t know if the Sydney Symphony Orchestra was up them until the tuba player hit up. That story I wrote at the time when the fools went to a 40-minute gap between races can be read here:

https://www.justracing.com.au/index.php?news_page=183&artid=441&catid=52

I won’t go into detail on all the Group 1 races that were run last Saturday at that disgrace called Randwick, as those races get habitually flogged to death all over the joint, to the point whereby everyone is over all that by the time I’d write anything publicly on them. I will say however that the win by Villa Verde in the Group 2 Challenge Stakes again emphasises what I regularly write here, which is “I don’t know why more owners don’t change their horses around different stables”, to see if someone else can improve them. In Villa Verde’s case she had double whammy of 1) a change of trainer and 2) it’s possible she’s far better racing clockwise than anti-clockwise. I constantly see horses with good ability staying in the same stable going nowhere and by the time owners think of moving them to another trainer, the horse’s racing career is as good as over. There’s a narrow window of opportunity for young and lightly raced horses to fulfil their potential and it’s little use a horse changing stables at start 50 as a 7YO.

On the subject of older horses, how pathetic are Brisbane’s alleged Open company horses, when Ollie Vollie, at age 11, can beat them in a $100,000 Quality Handicap race? Deary me. The old greybeard had won just one race in his previous 13 starts and that was in a Port Macquarie $30,000 total prizemoney race and before his Gold Coast victory last Saturday, that Port Macquarie win was his sole win in the last 16 months. And interestingly two starts before that Port Macquarie win, Ollie Vollie had been incapable of winning a $19,000 total prizemoney race at Moree. As I write here regularly “when are all our promising young horses coming through the system”? The answer is we don’t have any, as here are the ages of the acceptors, in saddlecloth order, for that Ollie Vollie race from last Saturday: 6-8-6-5-6-11-7-4-8-8-5-6-5-5-4. So we had two 4YO’s accept for the race, namely Seeking More and Tukiyo – and Tukiyo was a race day scratching. The average age of the acceptors was 6.27 years.

Today on www.brisbaneracing.com.au there’s the story on young stallions Swiss Ace and Bon Hoffa throwing winners. On www.sydneyracing.com.au there’s the story on how great broodmares generally fail to throw a black type winner at stud, whilst on www.melbourneracing.com.au Matt Nicholls writes his normal “Monday musings” column.

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