Yeah just finished the exhaustive run through the book. My top lot would be back-to-back with last year. #564 Proisir / Donna Marie - another Prowess sister that will be tought to beat off as saletopper. General comments: - Kiwi breeders continue to do their best to balance out their breeding, lots to interest linebreeders - ...but the lack of stallion diversity is telling. 57 lots for Satono Aladdin is a bit over the top. They've also had to stretch further to Aussie stallions with the Kiwi stallion % dropping to 77.5% from 80% over the last few years. Ideally we need more stallions with more variety - e.g. would be good to have more Acclamation lines here given his offshoots like Dark Angel have done so well in the UK, also no Scat Daddy lines this year as Justify and Mendelssohn aren't back which is a hole. - ...and speaking of Aussie stallions, I don't see why so many of them made the Book 1 cut at the expense of quality Kiwi breds that the Aussie and Hong Kong buyers come for. I'd understand if it was the big sellers but I Am Invincible has just 3, Snitzel 2, Zoustar 2. There are 10 x Proisirs in Book 2 for some baffling reason, including Lot 919 out of a Savabeel with Marquise representing Eight Carat on the page... I've said this in prior years that Book 2 isn't far off Book 1 and the results keep proving that. Could it be that NZB are looking at these strapping early-growing Aussie bred sprinting baby types and putting too many of them into Book 1 purely on their early looks? - Best balanced stallions for me this year are the Vanbrughs, the Noverres and the Savabeels. Kudos to Waikato Stud with the matches they found for Noverre - he's set up to be the fourth in the Sir Tristram dynasty for mine. - Poorest balance - I'm not getting the St Mark's Basilica mare selections. May be just my lack of knoweldge on his own lines but as an example I don't see why Hallmark would send a very ND heavy mare in Bronte Lass to a very heavy ND stallion. For similar reasons I'm not sure they're getting the right mares to Circus Maximus. - Not a single Northern Dancer free entry in either of the two books. I can't recall that happening before but may not have paid as close attention.

And the moron thought he could get away with this……and so it begins……🙈 https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/21/us/trump-birthright-citizenship.html?campaign_id=190&emc=edit_ufn_20250121&instance_id=145375&nl=from-the-times&regi_id=266388260&segment_id=188884&user_id=9a58df884918e69c275518a2e2b02702

Ultimately the stewards make the final call and that’s probably the same in every other jurisdiction. I’m not sure the new NZ protocol is the right approach - in the UK a track check like today would have involved stewards, jockeys, trainers and the clerk and a consensus would have been reached.  The problem is imagine if the opposite had happened with the stewards happy to race and the jockeys refusing to carry on. There have been controversial abandonments in the UK though these usually relate to fog and frost which is often variable especially the former. @Tauhei Notts has put his view forward - I imagine there’ll be more detail released about why the stewards weren’t happy. I confess watching it I found it odd - initially it was announced the meeting would continue and the issue seemed to be when the next race would be fitted into the TAB schedule.  Next thing it’s been abandoned.

I'm afraid that last paragraph diminished any interest a lot of people would have had in the rest of the statement.

Great stuff. 

Plan was to stay on for the Auckland Cup in March. Haven’t heard if that has changed.

Every jockey was happy to continue riding.  One person from the RIB said no.  Since when did NZ Racing become so authoritarian? 

Fair call. I just remember the "windburn" comment, and while l didn't see the race l was hoping he was carrying a good winter coat as it'd probably have got pretty blustery as all of the Kiwis swept past HIM [assuming he got near the front at some stage?] 🤣 Was it just a hit & run mission?

There was a rider though Idol….”if he could handle the weight…. “  As it turned out, the way the race was run ( slowly ) didn’t help him much either. Don’t drop just yet.

Two letters today ( rare articles these days) one from BNZ the other Father Murphy&Sister O'Malley Both asking why in banks case behind in mortgage and Father Murphy asking why contributions dried up and I'm lining up 3 times for 🍷.. Explained my income dried up since no S O   So anyone know how her recovery going so I can keep these two institutions of my back

An anonymous knowledgeable man told me that last week they had 250 horses run at the trials at Matamata with the rail out 16 metres.  Today the rail was out 7 metres.  When you are taking your horse wide you want to avoid that part of the track that had 250 horses gallop on it last week.  Hence the jerk to the left.

That was something that did go thru my head , something that happens often here when jockeys are asking their mounts to improve quickly on the bend .

Maybe he was sacked by the Mrs , still an interesting conversation .

My sympathy lies with the hard working Matamata committee. Racing was abandoned after Tempest Moon (Lily Sutherland) slipped where the stalls had been placed for the 2000 metre start. Poetic Justice, in a run from the back, went wide entering the home straight.  From about 10th at the 700 metre peg he got within a head of the winner.  Lily Sutherland followed Poetic Justice and, in the words of an elderly hugely experienced ex-trainer, Lily seemed to notice that she had taken her horse too wide and sort of jerked it to the left.  The horse slipped, but then ran on okay for about sixth.  I submit that the jockey correcting the horse's wide running caused the slip rather than an unsafe racing surface.   A horse slipped so the Judicial Control Authority abandoned the race meeting.  That is, in my opinion, the actions of spineless administrators.  The course looked like a lovely emerald green ribbon amongst a burnt off environment.  The sort of abandonment that destroys the enthusiasm of track staff who had worked so hard to present a great racing surface. But the down stream consequences are that next week is the great horse supermarket, that is, the Karaka Sales.  "Tauhei, would you like a share in a couple promising yearlings we have bought?" "No thanks.  If racing continues to be run by those numpties on the Judicial Control Authority we saw at Matamata today; I don't want any part of that game.  Call me Billy, but don't call me silly." Breeding horses to sell is a hard game.  The actions of the stewards at Matamata today make it even harder. Yesterday we saw the inauguration of a courageous man as president of the USA.  Trump achieved more in the four hours after his inauguration than did that spineless prime minister of ours in the past 15 months.  The stewards displayed as much backbone as our prime minister has shown.

What I found interesting in that race was Warrens jumped on Jaarffi over his mrs runner.  Must make for interesting conversations at home.. 😄

Wasn't it you Hokey that suggested Interpretation was going to give all the Kiwis windburn in the Wellington Cup? Maybe our local fields are full of undiscovered champions 🤣

Stand should be a stand start… not run in start… not who can cheat it…. Here we don’t have stands….Victoria make them stand…. As do Brisbane…. NZ may learn…..

Rail out 7m today at Matamata. Absolutely ridiculous. If it was out only 3 or 4m that horse wouldn't have slipped- it wouldn't have been as wide as it was. The thing about irrigating is that if it is done in windy conditions there is not an even spread of water- may have been a soft spot wide out where that horse slipped?

That was the best one. Top of the Bombay Hills wasn't a bad location either.

Okay 👍 Cool to know.