That is fantastic! Thanks for sharing this. Time will tell I guess. However to be blunt- it shouldn't happen in the first place Far too often in this industry we are needing the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, rather than having good processes in place to prevent any such occurrence happening However, we take the positive from your comments and move on

So maybe just maybe it is the trainers voting with their feet and saying enough of the Sunday BS...everyone needs a break and the extra overtime must be killing too...but the people who make these decisions dont have a clue...it needs urgently addressing.

I have been told there has been two emergency committee meetings this week...maybe it is in some trouble????

One good thing is they have seen the thread and are addressing the posters concerns...thats what happens when you are the leading racing site people come from all facets of the industry.We get the message out there.

Very interesting article indeed. Thanks for sharing😀

Just had a thought , Blair is going to miss out on a lot of good drives now 

Now, there’s a blast from the past. Remember Shocking, who reeled in the Saeed Bin Suroor-trained Crime Scene to win the Melbourne Cup for Mark Kavanagh and Eales Racing in 2009? The son of Street Cry also won the Australian Cup back at Flemington on his swansong. He has been quietly standing as a stallion at Rich Hill Stud in New Zealand since his retirement 14 years ago, cropping up every now and then with the odd top-notcher like Toorak Handicap and Makybe Diva Stakes winner I’m Thunderstruck, but he made a big noise when notching a Group 1 double as a sire at Te Rapa in New Zealand on Saturday. El Vencedor, a six-year-old gelding trained and owned by Mark Freeman and David Price, ran out a three-length winner of the Herbie Dyke Stakes and an hour later Here To Shock, a seven-year-old gelding trained by Ben, Will and JD Hayes, slammed fellow Australian challenger Bosustow by four lengths to land the Waikato Sprint. El Vencedor was already a Group 1 winner, having scored in the New Zealand Stakes last March, but Here To Shock was gaining a first top-level strike. He takes Shocking’s tally of elite winners to five. Not a bad record for a horse who stands at a fee equivalent to £5,700 or €6,800. Shocking’s (pictured below) weekend exploits got me thinking back to a curious little chapter in the recent history of breeding in Britain and Ireland.  A decade ago this year Dunaden became the first winner of the Melbourne Cup to stand in Britain since the 1890 scorer Carbine was imported by the Duke of Portland in 1895.  The apple of his owner Sheikh Fahad’s eye, he was retired to Overbury Stud in Gloucestershire, with a range of bonuses unveiled to encourage breeders to take the chance on supporting him. The incentives were inspired by French premiums, with two-year-olds and three-year-olds from the stallion's first crop having their winnings in Britain and Ireland supplemented by 64 per cent, and those horses’ breeders earning 15 per cent of the combined prize-money and premium. Furthermore, the breeders of all Dunaden’s stakes-winning two-year-olds and three-year-olds in Britain, Ireland and France would earn a one-off £25,000 prize. In truth, even at Dunaden’s negligibly small fee of £3,000 those juicy carrots were needed. He was undeniably a talented individual, as he demonstrated when grimly repelling the challenge of Red Cadeaux in the Melbourne Cup and later also winning the Hong Kong Vase and Caulfield Cup, but stamina just isn’t what commercial Flat breeders want, and his pedigree was a bit out there, too. He was one of 15 foals in the first crop of Ian Balding’s Group 2-winning miler Nicobar, who stood for little money in obscurity in France, and was one of four winners out of the unraced Kaldounevees mare La Marlia. Until his niece Ribera ran second in Listed company a few years ago, he was the only black-type horse under his first two dams. Nevertheless, the novelty factor of a Melbourne Cup hero standing in Britain, those generous breeder bonuses and that refreshing outcross pedigree all conspired to generate plenty of good will for Dunaden. His novelty factor didn’t last all that long, mind you; like London buses, another Melbourne Cup winner turned up in the British and Irish stallion ranks soon after Dunaden’s arrival at Overbury Stud. Americain, who won the Melbourne Cup in 2010, had been part of the lucky bag of stallions that Brad Kelley stood at Calumet Farm in Kentucky, and had shuttled to Swettenham Stud in Victoria for two years before it was announced in the January of 2015 that he would stand at the Irish National Stud that season. Americain was more conventionally well bred than Dunaden, being by the internationally recognised stallion Dynaformer and out of the Wertheimer brothers' Group 2-winning Arazi mare America, and he was at least as tough and classy as Dunaden, having also won Group 2s in France and Australia and regularly run with credit at the highest level down under. However, there were no incentives provided to use him, and in a market that values sprinting over stamina for better or worse (definitely worse), he unsurprisingly proved to be a bit of a hard sell, even at his bargain basement fee of €5,000. That turned out to be his sole season in Ireland. Still, the number of nominations sold shouldn’t be the ultimate arbiter of success in the stallion industry. So, looking back ten years on, how did those two Melbourne Cup winners get on at stud in Britain and Ireland? Dunaden’s first crop of 49 named foals yielded 11 winners, including two really admirable geldings: Ranch Hand, who won seven races on the Flat including the Listed Rose Bowl Stakes and one over jumps, in a novice hurdle, and Just Hubert, whose seven victories included competitive handicaps at Glorious Goodwood and the Shergar Cup meeting. Both horses, who won at two and/or three and should have unlocked bonuses for their connections, were the work of smart-cookie breeders. The Kingsclere Racing Club-campaigned Ranch Hand was the result of another pragmatic mating devised by Emma Balding, who would have known Nicobar well, and Foursome Thoroughbreds’ Just Hubert was bred by the Veitch family of Ringfort Stud, who don't tend to let fashion concerns get in the way of a clever plan. Penelope Johnson’s first-crop Dunaden gelding The Pink’n also scored at two, and was later Listed-placed over hurdles. Among the other highlights of that debut crop were Corey’s Courage, Hidden Pearl and Pearl Warrior, all multiple winners at a slightly lower level. Demand for the sire’s services petered out over his next four seasons before his death due to a paddock accident at the age of 13 in 2019. The 14 named foals in his second crop included five winners, one of them being the fairly useful three-time Flat scorer Merryweather, and the 25 named foals in his third crop included two jumps scorers in Little Pi and Weaver's Answer. The ten named foals in his fourth crop don't yet include a winner, though four have been placed, while the four named foals in his fifth and final crop number no placed runners or winners. Dunaden wasn’t a roaring success, then, but neither could he be called a failure, not least because he wasn’t competing in the commercial realm. There was no shame in getting a handful of decent winners from small books of mostly modest mares. He might not leave any mark on the breed, but he gave a good few breeders a great deal of enjoyment, and even a little profit on a few occasions. Poor old Americain meanwhile sired only nine named foals during his sole season at the Irish National Stud. They included three multiple winners over jumps in American Gerry, Early Education and Camilla’s Choice.  Not a bad strike-rate, but none were stars, and it goes without saying that the sire’s brief service at the Irish National Stud will be a deeply buried, minor footnote in the distinguished history of the operation. Americain didn’t leave much of note in America or Australia either, with one Group/Grade 3 winner in each hemisphere – Causeforcommotion in the north and Eperdument in the south. He died at the age of 17 in 2022. Americain and Dunaden set a bit of a trend, as Europe welcomed several more Melbourne Cup winners as stallions in the following years.  Protectionist, successful at Flemington in 2014, stood at Gestüt Röttgen in Germany from 2017 until his death at 13 in 2023, although his principal attraction to German breeders was probably his pedigree, being by Monsun and related to Peintre Celebre, and his domestic victories in the Grosser Preis von Berlin and the Hansa-Preis, twice. He has delivered the dual Group 2 winner and Group 1 runner-up Amazing Grace, who was sold to Moyglare Stud for €850,000, and further Pattern scorers Lambo and Lazy Griff. He’s also had a smattering of winners in the National Hunt sphere, including Fergal O’Brien’s unbeaten Warwick bumper scorer Kaylan, a clever €26,000 purchase by Yorton Farm from the BBAG October Yearling Sale who was resold as a two-year-old at the operation's own sale to Highflyer for £55,000. Green Moon, the son of Montjeu who followed Dunaden on the roll of honour of the race that stops a nation in 2012, appears meanwhile to have been stood on a private basis by the Comer family in Ireland, and has produced for them their dual winner Roman Palace and a few other place-getters. Rekindling, the son of High Chaparral who was sent out by Joseph O’Brien to win the Melbourne Cup in 2017, has also covered a few mares in Ireland in recent years, first at Kenmare Castle Stud and then at Longford House Stud.  Weatherbys records him as having sired six foals in 2023 and another four foals last year. He will have to perform miracles to make a name for himself as a stallion, but stranger things have happened in the breeding world. No doubt about it, Melbourne Cup winners standing at stud in Europe are more for hobbyists than hard-headed commercial breeders. But I’m all for something different in the stallion ranks, in particular a healthy injection of stamina and some invigorating new bloodlines. Without horses like those the breeding industry would be awfully beige. It wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility that Dunaden or Americain might have worked out better, either; especially if they had received more mares. Sheikh Fahad and Brad Kelley deserve some credit for giving it a go. Nothing ventured, nothing gained in breeding. The Duke of Portland came to realise that after he paid £13,000 to purchase Carbine out of Australia at the end of the 19th century.  The New Zealand-bred, who supposedly couldn’t bear to get his ears wet – so much so that his trainer designed a small leather umbrella and attached it to his bridle so the rain wouldn’t fall on them – sired the Derby winner Spearmint and a number of other big-race scorers. Spearmint meanwhile sired another Derby winner in Spion Kop, and Spion Kop sired yet another Epsom hero in Felstead. Spearmint also made a deep impact on the breed through his daughters Catnip, maternal granddam of patriarch Nearco, and Plucky Liege, the blue-hen dam of Admiral Drake, Bois Roussel, Bull Dog and Sir Gallahad, all of whom became influential stallions.

You're kidding?  190 horses going around over nearly 5 hours and they couldn't work out how many would turn up?  Although I guess everyone could have taken a cut lunch and a thermos.

Stodge you are correct and seems like a lack of communication within the Club on the number of people that could/did turn up

I don't think anyone's outraged that a 3yo stayer had had 10 starts by the middle of his 3yo year. I don't think anyone should be outraged that a 3yo sprinter-miler has had 15 at the same point. I think people are "outraged" that while Sharp N Smart looked like he could be the next Verry Elleegant, he had a viral infection which seems to have permanently impaired his racing ability and yet his trainer is sending him around as though he's still the superstar he could've been, leading to him being well beaten more often than not. They further think that's he's being harmed by continuing to race when he "doesn't want to", though if he's actually unfit to race there's room for the authorities to step in and declare him as so (and it's probably not the case, given that he's still putting more money in the bank than most horses could ever dream of).  

Okay, so it’s an in house catering operation. Fair enough - hopefully they get a lot of business on non racing days for corporate presentations, exhibitions, weddings and the like. The question isn’t who does it but what was expected and accounted. At many midweek race meetings in the UK, the catering operation will be scaled back. If you get 5,000 on a Saturday or for a summer evening and 1,000 for a midweek meeting you’ll have the appropriate catering for the numbers expected. How many attend or are expected to attend Trials? Presumably not the numbers who would attend a regular meeting let alone a big Saturday. I can only assume more people turned up yesterday than was expected or budgeted for and the catering operation has been cut short. Ellerslie has run trials before, hasn’t it, and would have known the number of trials and horses running so should have been prepared.

HELLO YOUMZAIN had his first European crop last season. The best was ELECTROLYTE, runner up in the Coventry and winner of a French Group 3. Already had five winners this year, the best perhaps GODSPEED who won by six lengths on debut at Chantilly last Friday. She’s out of a Storming Home mare who has produced three winners. I thought I saw Annie Lindahl ride a couple of winners in the south last month.

You obviously stalk me, see if you can stay on topic, which is this post. Not the past, maybe you can't let it go and you're the one that is relentless 🤔

North v South of the South Island, first 6 months.                        Races           FS               Stakes           GBR/Stake                T/O                   GBR                  Funding              GBR/Funding North              434            8.4             $6.708m            66.4%                 $26.068m             $4.455m           $7.117m             62.6% South              328           9.5              $4.332m            109.1%               $24.278m             $4.727m          $4.443m             106.4% South of the Waitaki benefited from holiday racing, and leaves North Island dead in the water.   

Annie Lindahl been riding here for a bit now, limited opportunities so far, had the horse buck on her out the gates at Te Rapa a few weeks ago. Hayley Hassman previously with Phelan Racing rode an amateur winner last year (possibly year before?) went to Australia to gain more experience and now back on our soil, not sure if signed up to TA or continuing amateur path. Parmer is now with Paul Richards. 

In that same era i seem to recall lots of Bicarbonate Soda conversations- surely not😚

There was a great little bar at the back of lion red at the bottom of the Main Street , think it was called the Squire McGuire hopefully someone can correct me, Pat Farrell was the barman, of course in those days the public bar was a no go for most of us non patched drinkers 

Same figures but reported differently; In the 6 month period HRNZ ran 151 more races, spent $5.254 million more on Stakes, generated $2.871 million more Turnover, but ended up only increasing GBR by $105k. HRNZ still love me, sent me an email yesterday inviting me for FREE entry to Motukarara, soft drinks and barbecue in the NEXTGEN  tent, I am of course OldGen, it takes more than soft drinks to encourage me!

I never did, and most definitely never WOULD have, picked a fight in that boozer. I valued my future too much 🤣

Savaglee had 7 starts as a 2yr old.  So only 10 starts in his 3yr old season. He is a valuable colt if he scores Group form in OZ so unlikely to race much as a 4yr old. I doubt you will get "time to tell".