Snazzytavi and Ladies Man seem the obvious quinella for me.   El Vencador looks overs to me.  Last start was a write off after missing the kick and spending the first 400m trying to recover outside leader.  Unbeaten Ellerslie. Not sure La Crique matches up to some of these over 2000m so Campionessa 4th seems about par.  

I suggest that you go and pay Tim Mills a visit as he’s go nearly all the day down there.  I agree, the Canterbury race programming and date planning is a nightmare and all wrong. 

I just happened to note the Timaru noms for later this week. 33 noms for the maiden 1,200m, and NZTR are actually considering splitting it. No suggestion of splitting the fields with 25 and 23 noms though. A couple of weeks ago we had Ashburton with 26 noms for a lower grade race, but that wasn't split. No scratchings out of that field so 12 horses missed a start. That Ashburton meeting was the first Canty meeting for a month, apart from a bizarre AWT track meeting in mid summer. Contrast that with the absolute rubbish fields that will go around at Taranaki. Otaki and Wanganui over the next few days. Also interesting to compare Timaru with Wingatui, which is already a heavy 10 and likely to remain so. You do wonder about the incredible sums of money that get poured into Wingatui while the rest of the South misses out.  Interesting also that no mention at all of any intention to try and make up for the 5 races lost at Tapanui. If a meeting was abandoned in the North they would be falling over themselves to add extra races anywhere possible. Tapanui already had numerous ballots that were going to miss a start. As it turned out five whole fields missed a start. i only really have one question. Do trainers in Canterbury actually notice that they are severely disadvantaged in the way the dates and programmes are organised? And if so do they make any effort to complain to the appropriate authorities? I have never seen any mention of them noticing it or complaining about it. One trainer was obviously so frustrated by the absence of southern 2yo racing ( no races for two months mid summer) that he had to head north to run in a 5 horse 2yo group 2 at Trentham. One of numerous 5 and 6 horse 2yo races in the CD. Does anyone know if NZTR notices the obvious discrepancy in opportunities and field sizes in the CD and SI?

There is normally a built in incentive to support new stallions in that they are most often a lot less expensive to breed to.  It doesn’t seem to work well however as most people want stock from stallions that give them a much better chance of success, especially at the top level. For that reason I suspect this new scheme may not be very effective.  We should not be using new owners we attract to the sport as the Guinea Pigs to find out if a new stallion will be successful or not.  Getting them to invest at all is an achievement. Let’s look after them. 

Race had to buy the land that Lisa Latta’s stables are on. (I presume that’s the $3.9m) The family of the late Kevin Platt (wonderful supporter) wanted to realise its worth. Sell it in other words, probably because of family distribution of his assets. Only guessing there and it doesn’t matter as with the sad passing of Kevin everything came to a head much earlier than was ordinarily expected.  P.S. I hope that I have the name of the late gentleman correctly. I didn’t know him personally but from what I understand, he certainly had Racing in the Manawatu foremost and centre in his thinking. 

Merry Christmas to all and a Happy, Safe and Prosperous 2025.  Thank you Scooby and Say No More and all who contributed to the fun comps here.

Did anyone go out and source a RACEFORM today? If I’ve read the end of Dennis Ryan’s Editorial correctly, one should have come out today and another one next Monday for New Years Day. 

Tom Bamford in the same boat.  Completely agree it should be based on age or perhaps trainers with 50 wins or less.  

The most important part of Next gen is Increasing ownership numbers.  Increase ownership participation & you increase demand for horses & increase punting revenue.  For the policy to work we need new owners to be successful.  No fun in investing in horses that  don’t race or can’t win a race.  We want them to become repeat customers & encouraging them to buy stock from unproven stallions decreases their chance-of success, Therefore the incentive to promote new stallions runs contradictory to the goal of increasing ownership. 

Merry Xmas to everyone and especially you Scooby. Your efforts in providing a forum which gives us all a great deal of pleasure is to be commended, robust discussion is healthy and to be encouraged. Thanks again, All the best for Xmas and the coming year.

Thank you Leigh 😘  Cheers John   Thanks muchly to Ponderosa ... thanks to everyone that has made this year for us all on RaceCafe, enjoyable.. whether we agree, disagree, have a poke at each other, or have a laugh, it's what a forum is all about and we'd be so much sadder without it   Have a safe festive season all and may the new year bring you so many things that you are hoping for            

Thanks Nelli, I was thinking along very similar lines.   They are trying to achieve 3 specific goals with one policy. 1- increase ownership numbers 2- Promote young trainers. 3- Promote new stallions.   The first two are necessary goals but I’m not sure about the 3rd.  I believe the best way to achieve these objectives is to have specific policies for each goal rather than intertwining all 3 into one confusing & contradictory policy. 

Video on here…. https://www.racing.com/news/2024-12-23/news-review-persian-caviar-231224

The Black Caviar story lives on. Her 7th foal wins on debut at Wangaratta, her first to do so. Looked good too.  

The launch of NextGen today demonstrates yet again more half-baked ideas even though the intentions are admirable.   1) I can see the rationale of restricting the scheme to sale horses, since NZB Standardbreds are major sponsors, but why restrict it to progeny of stallions in their 1st 3 seasons in NZ? For example, if you are after a trotter, this restricts you to a choice of just 22 horses with half by expensive stallions (a big windfall for the sellers).  2) Why the G1 restriction on the trainers when I think what they intend is to promote young trainers. This means 21 year old Zev Meredith in his first year of training is ruled out but very successful 80+ year old Luk Chin is eligible (not that he ever needs to buy a yearling with his great breed). 3) The alternative option is having a partnership of at least 4 owners with 30+% of the people under 40 years old and who have never owned a horse before. This of course is easily achieved by adding a couple of grandchildren on the ownership papers. A nice thing to do but will it mean more owners racing more horses in the future? I'd be interested what RaceCafers think.

Forget the car 

What is everyone’s best bet over the festive season….. just one tip to bet on…. 

Yes mate. They have been known to be wrong on occasion, so we’ll see. Up to 20mm now. Does look like a wet Wednesday and Thursday for most.

You couldn’t make this shit up. Doubt he knows what “diplomatic acumen” is…. This follows Kushner, Walker, Guilfoyle and Fertitta all into cushy jobs with no experience. Just waiting for some country to say “ You want a relationship with us and we get this ?.. “    https://www.theweek.in/news/world/2024/12/22/who-is-mark-burnett-the-apprentice-producer-appointed-by-trump-as-special-envoy-to-uk.html