LOVERACING.NZ Thoroughbred Racing Weekend Review with The Mail Run’s Michael Guerin on Mornings with Ian Smith including the abandonment at Hastings & more
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Racing New Zealand
LOVERACING.NZ Thoroughbred Racing Weekend Review with The Mail Run’s Micheal Guerin on Mornings with Ian Smith (30/9/24)
[MUSIC] >> This episode is brought to you by Microsoft Azure. Turn your ideas into reality with an Azure free account. Get everything you need to develop apps across Cloud and hybrid environments, scale workloads, create Cloud-connected mobile experiences and so much more. Discover what you can create with popular services free for 12 months. Learn more at azure.com. That's azure.com, and sign up for a free account to start building in the Cloud today. [MUSIC] >> Love racing. Dottin Zeed, your home of Thoroughbred Racing. >> Well, I would have hoped that they heard that beautiful bit of trumpeting ten times at Hastings at the weekend. But unfortunately, they only heard it once and that is the sound that brings the horses generally into the bird cage. They only came to the bird cage once because it was abandoned. Michael Gerens with us this morning and we've had the spotlight on the black caps. But now, I'm afraid to say it has to be racing stern. And Michael, you'll give us the honest answers on this, I'm sure. I want to start by reading your text from Pernod Herkey. Pernod is the president of the onus federation. A full and independent investigation is required around Hastings abandonment. And not just the track, but the role of the RIB leading up to race one and the inspection of the track in readings at 7 AM. Further incident happened and no one wants injury to jockey your horse. But the RIB mitigate continuing risk, did not consider all options available to them. The next five to six races were 12 to 1600 meter races. And by race seven, group one event, the concerned area with a remedial work during races could have solved itself. The RIB decision to abandon was the last resort, not the first. Your thoughts on that and the events over the weekend, Michael, not a happy time. >> Good morning to you, whether you know, very disappointing with your hands. I was at the All Blacks test on Saturday and if everybody turned up to the All Blacks test, then we decided we could play. Because the ground wasn't right. Well, you can imagine that would go down. And there's a massive TV audience and a massive country audience who are all disappointed by this. And it costs a lot of people, a lot of money. A lot of people get on planes to go to Hastings. They send the horses down, the jockeys, the trainers. It costs a lot of money to get a horse from a Cambridge or mother mother. To Hastings and Pickford for no avail. So it is financially a real gut touch. Not to mention the fact that races are a big move to win today at Matamata. Which means you'll be considerably less turnover. To burn it's a point, look, I don't think it's very easy to accuse the RIB of doing something wrong. Because the RIB is the main. It's not a person, it's not, you're not saying someone to it. It's very much they did something wrong. But observations of race meetings are as simple as this. If the jockeys won't ride, the meeting's off. That's not what the RIB does, it's not a matter of Jesus come down. If the jockeys won't ride, the meeting's off. And it can't be some of the jockeys will ride, and some of the jockeys won't. If even a few jockeys won't ride, the meeting is off. So while I understand, I am a horse owner too. And a lot of horses don't pay a lot of horse bills and understand doing it's frustration. The same frustration achieved by many people in the industry. Suggesting the RIB called the meeting off is largely irrelevant. Because they are this category body who need to make those decisions. But the bottom line is if the jockeys don't want to ride, they don't want to ride. And that would be no different to saying if Ken of the All Blacks had made up the flu and he's got Robinson's that we can't build a team, well that's not Scott's problem. And not his fault, he can't be culpable for that. So the RIB has a role to play in these things, but they also don't prepare the track. There was no doubt a horse slipped, there's no doubt about that. And it was a sideways slip which gets to the camber of the track, we'll get to that in a second. But no, there's no waving the finger here and I would have done something different. And Bernard should know a bit of that. If he wants to be a prisoner of the owners' association, you should have beat up balanced text messages on that Bernard. Or stay out of a conversation. Simple as that. Because we're not going to muck around with people's lives here. No, I follow up with it. There's very few sports in the world where people get killed. Now there's, you remember what happened when Philip Hughes lost his life lane cricket. That was unbelievable. It was just the most amazing, horrible story. That was one poos. We have jockeys out there risking their lives way closer to death than you can be in most sports in the world all the time. There's no room for error on these things. So we don't get to point fingers once it's happened if the right decision was made. - Right, okay. - Because it's in itself. And it comes back to the tracks, but he says, "Sorry?" Yeah, I know you go ahead. I was going to say Philip, the Philip Hughes one was a freak of nature really, it was a one-off thing. And because of that, they took remedial action in terms of the style of the helmets and things. And that part of the head is now protected. Okay, so if things actually require re-entry, yeah. - And that's what they happen here, isn't it? What they happen here is to make sure these things don't happen again. And we've had too many of them happening. Now, the worst problem, there's some race-making abandonment which comes to the track gets watermarked. There's too much rain up there for there's nothing. You can do about it barf for it. There's nothing we can do about those meetings. At best, you'll be transferred to a synthetic track. That's your only option when you're living one to New Zealand. The more common one is a track gets firm or firmish. There is rain or a bit of rain on the day or the night before, and it creates a slippery top, which is not quite any different to your own front lawn. If you have a sprinting of rain on your front lawn, it becomes slippery. Now, hair tracks can work against that as birdie draining the top of the track up and the horses can get their hooves into it a bit more. But the problem with this particular pile of hastings, from all the phone calls I've made yesterday, and from all the people I've spoken to, is a timber on the track. Most racetracks have a bit of a camp. Not a huge run for the galloping track. They have a bit of a camp. But the timber flattens out at that point for a specific reason. When you go to remember bend and hastings, outside that bend, and if you've ever watched the races, the yields map this in your mind, outside that bend is a 1,600 metre start shoot, which is ironically where they were going to start, the arrowed field drop. Now, because that shoots the, that pin can't be cambered quite as flat or properly as you would like, the campers should be consistent from the inside to the outside. Think of a valid drone, but not quite a state. So stay with me here, hunters. So what you have is that, and that means the horse can go into the bend at speed, but they don't have a consistent camber on their bended hastings, because the 1,600 metre shoot is right alongside it. If the camber came all the way up the track, the 1,600 metre shoot would be below that starting point. They would have to run up the hill to get into it, so it flattens off. So what you have been is a crown. You have an inside six or seven metres where it has cambered, and then it flattens off the camber. And anybody who's driven on the road would understand, once you're on one part of the road and you get to that crown part, it's a vastly different thing. So we have horses racing on the inside on a camber, and the horse who slipped is wider because the rail was out three metres, and then that horse is about four or five metres off the rail, and it's getting to that crown. So that crown goes, is a change of footing, which, when it's slippery enough as it is, the camber can't assist the horse to get around that bend. That's why the slip marks, you sort of hastings, were sideways. The horse didn't slip forward and backwards. Often when you see slip marks or a horse, horse puts its foot in the tooth and it slips forward. The horse loses its momentum going forward, because you slipped, as you think of yourself, if you were running on your board, it was slippery. But this slipped back to the sideways. The horse is going out of the bend. There's not enough camber to assist it to stay the way it should be going, because there's a trifugal horse on a bend and the hoof slips sideways. Sideways and forward, of course, because the horse is moving forward. And that means that the alignment of the track in that area isn't right. Now that takes us back to another, but what do you do about it? How do you change a 1,600 metre shoot to enable that camber to roll full of the track? Does hastings need to be redesigned? Or was this human error with the preparation of the track? Now, it would appear it wasn't human error. The guy who's doing the track in as a goggle price, Nilden, who has a very good reputation and the track raced well on the first day. So you say to yourself, if he's not stuffing it up, then what does happen? You say, well, do we have to go back to racing in the true and hastings? Which means the railboats of the inside and we don't have to use that powerful track too much. But then again, if you've got a racetrack, you should be able to use every part of it. So the doing side of hastings has to look at re-calibrating the track, re-cambering track, which would mean changing the 1,600 metre shoot. And that seems to have even more long-range questions. Hastings is already the club in a discussion at its future. They want to have racing in the Hawkes Bay. We realise that and that won't be going anywhere. But they build a new track at a greenfield project because the track they have now, the grandstand in some of those buildings, may eventually become quite compliant. And how much money do you want to tip into this? If in fact you can sell that, use that money and start a purpose-built greenfield project and start again. It's a really big question and those things don't happen overnight. So that's a question which apparently is already at board and we'll have to mention that immensely. You would need to have a special meeting with the members to approve that or not saying that's going to happen. But that's one option order. The more immediate option is, do we race there again for the Liverpool, which is in 12 days in time, and we trust the track. And a question which goes a step further, because there's a whole lot of things involved in this movie, is at the time the group won races in this country, the most important races we have are based where the whole population is. So that could be a lousy because of the glamour track. So you would add that to the mix. The rubber and the motor motor. Do we stop putting horses on a float for four and a half hours to go from Cambridge to Hastings for a group one, when that group one can be run closer to where those horses are based? Now, does that mean the racing is a national sport? Or, like rugby, we only play the big games in the big cities? And that's a really interesting question, because do we deserve to have group-run racing and Hastings? Do we, in fact, deserve to have group-run racing at Ricatan if we have to fly all the horses there to get them there? What's the point of doing that when we could hold those same races that are mostly? But the question then is, is that devastating racing is a national sport? Or, the people who went to Hastings on Saturday, who ironically had to go home after a race, what those same people turned up for 10 OK races and 10 not group-run races? Would the same crowd at Ricatan, put into the cup day, be there if the group ones weren't there? And flaunt on to the answers about that, yes. But do we want to lose that regional engagement with our best horses? Shouldn't we be taking our best horses to the people? Go back to rugby and cricket. Do we let the black caps play in grey mouth? No, we don't. A couple of reasons, the crowd's not big enough and other reasons. No, there's no reason to send them there. It's too hard to get them there, it costs too much money and all the television crews got to grow. And the facilities aren't good enough. Well, isn't that what we saw at Hastings on Saturday? So it's a really long question about where should we put our best horses as we do our best sports people to pursue the sport. So there's a lot of layers to this, and the last question, because there's so many aspects to this, and I've spoken to so many people about it, is if we need to change two or three or four or five of these tracks and make sure that they're a bit of cambered, or they have been a tooth, or they've been reused, and this is a subject you know a lot more about me. It's been all your life on a cricket pitch, you know about tooth management, and you know how, if it's not good enough, it can denigrate the product. If we're going to do that, and we need all this money to do it, where we're going to get from this only place, we're going to get a massive financial injection. Is if what's called the legislative net, I'll make that more simple for people. GEO blocking. If GEO blocking comes into New Zealand gambling, which means people listening to this can only gamble with the TABL picture. If that comes in, it triggers a $100 million payment to support and race it, which would give them the money to fix some of these things. But it will also take away from people the opportunity to beat with offshore operators. And you say to yourself, is that fair? Is that what we want? And at this stage, if we keep having these problems, can we survive some of these tracks? Can some of them survive without that money? So Smithy, there's four or five or six really important long-term questions at play here, which were all bought to a head by one horse slipping and hasting some Saturday of all that activity. Right, okay. Bridget, what clearly has to happen here? And I'm talking about you and me and racing people in this country. It's, we need to give you a dedicated hour or two on this at some point. And I'd be very happy if you used an hour of my show any time had to come in because you've, by answering a question, you've asked so many others. And I, which are worthy of that, we'll all say about this. I'll tell you about this one, but you just do all that subject 'cause I must sort of talk out of it, pop you. Tonight on our television show, which was on track side of that episode, with the gear on report, we've got Bruce Sherrick, who's both of the NTR, and he'll be in the studio. And we're going to put those questions to him. All of those questions are about name of productly. And we're also going to talk about the future of jumps racing, but I agree, I would love to come to the studio here for an hour or two. Smithy, because this is a billion-dollar industry, which is underrepresented in the media, obviously, since it gets quite a bit of coverage on this radio station, but it doesn't get a lot of coverage because a lot of people don't understand it. And it's too important for us to just brush these things off. I did a really good Bob on a mister day on way in, but it's really hard to ask some of these questions, as you know, with cricket. It's really easy to say hints must roll, but then you say, well, what else are we going to do? 'Cause you can't keep boring people because the previous track manager at Hastings was let go six months ago. And the guy I've got now is really good. If we let this guy go, where do we go next? And that's not going to happen. So I agree, if we can have time to pick these things apart, maybe because there are major questions to be asked here about the future of New Zealand racing, and whether the most important thing is the money, or the most important thing is putting the best horses on front of most people. And I think that conversation, which for me for a long time has been great. Let's take the best horses all over the country. I think more and more people now are saying, let's, the best horses race at the best tracks, like the old let's play at Eden Park and the Cape Town, and let the other stuff just be of a sick and tear of racing, and people can go along and have a beer. And I'm not sure exactly what the answer to that is. Well, you might have an answer to this. Leading Hawkes Bay trainer has just texted me. You can probably all guess who it is. We trained the car at the weekend, actually. Just had jumpouts. No horses slipped. Meeting at NZTR this afternoon at four o'clock, big room at the last day goes to Auckland. That could kill Hawkes Bay and central districts racing. If something slips on Darby Day at Flemington, does the Melbourne Cup go to Sydney? Look, first of all, they had jumpouts this morning, which is to work out whether the track is going to be used for Liverpool day, which is 12 days away. They will have a beating. I'm not letting it on rumours. I don't know if it's going to Alisley. I'm going to work on that. I think we'll talk about that tonight on the show, and it'll be in the Herald in the morning. But I don't know if I'm going to get on rumours. Racing has a dreadful room machine. 90% of them aren't right. But if they have any doubt, any doubt, jumpouts aren't races. We know that from Alisley and some of the issues I've had in the last 18 months, or the last year, my apologies. If we have any doubt that this track is going to be fit for purpose, for the Liverpool, which is a group one, then we need to send that meeting somewhere else. And it won't finish Hawkes Bay racing. It won't. If people get traumatic with the time they're racing, not with the end of it, there's a weakness. It doesn't. It doesn't. Very few racetracks ever die. What you need to say is this racetrack fit for purpose, and is it safe? Now, if the jumpout's been safely today, that's a good step in a good direction. But both decisions don't get to be made by me, or you, or a trainer, because trainers obviously want to race on their home track. They have to be made by NZTIA, and then we say, "Do we trust the people that eat ZTIA?" I do at the moment, knowing them. But I'm going to ask Bruce Sherrick tonight. Does he have bright stuff? And does he have enough stuff to make all the stuff happen? But they can't be accosting an enormous amount of money, and it's enormously tiring for horses to be trucked into Hastings and bet. And there's any doubt, even percentage points doubt, that we're going to end up in that situation again. Then, yeah, it needs to go somewhere else, as much as that absolutely sucks. But that's the reality of the situation, because we don't run racing in this country for Hastings. Just like, for example, they don't run the eraser meetings to help treat them. And you've got to make sure that the things you have, the most obvious one being you would track, is safe. And it wasn't on Saturday. So I don't know what happens to it next. I wasn't privy to those jumpouts that I wasn't seeing them. So therefore, I'd be talking about my art, and I suggest that I know what's going to happen. But I have to trust the people who do make those decisions smitty, because that's what they'll pay to do. And at the moment, I think the more we stick to the facts and try and get people the questions which need to be answered, rather than dealing in the room, is all you and I can do, because we're not here to make those decisions. OK, Mick, that's fantastic. And I'm going to push forward for you popping in, and giving us, if you can, some more of your time. Mate, thank you so much for that. With the people to know, there'll be a lot of more questions asked to, with Bruce Sherrick. If there's a very close and bloke, you know, Bruce, and talk tonight on the backside of people, watch that sort of thing about trying to do this conversation. But we'll try and do it unemotionally, to try and provide people with facts, because I realize it's a really emotional situation at the moment. But the most important thing is this. Nobody died. No horses were injured. This could have been so much worse. We'll explain solutions. But walking around, telling everybody that that means, I think Bob is going to make this pretty far. 8 o'clock tonight, folks. 8 o'clock tonight, Matt Garron with Bruce Sherrick. He'll pose some questions. We won't get all the answers, because quite clearly, you know, there's a lot to look into in this particular situation. The end of the day, it was dangerous. No one can deny that. At the end of the day, questions have to be asked about the immediate future of that track. There's no doubt about it. Because a spot on there, and we might find out a little bit later on in proceedings, horrible, horrible situation.