Social Media
Being a rather private person, the idea of posting my movements and ideas on line (well apart from those about harness racing), doesn’t appeal. However, whether we like it or not, social media is a part of everyday life, with or without my participation.
While I’m not personally involved, I do find out about some of the things that are posted about racing from various sources, and a couple of items of interest have come my way this week.
The first concerns the race meeting at Addington last Sunday which, to the surprise of many including myself, was held, and held successfully. Apparently there has been some criticism of the decision to race on some owner’s chat room, suggesting that the races should have been cancelled because it was unfair to trainers who were unable to attend due to the terrible flooding in Mid and South Canterbury. Okay, so that aspect was unfortunate, but are these people serious! There were accusations that ‘Big Brother’ HRNZ or the TAB forced the Club to go ahead, which is not only wrong, but just plain stupid.
So these people would have happily deprived the connections of the horses that were able to race, the opportunity to front up and earn stake money to recompense their training fees, because a few others couldn’t make it. How does that make sense on any level? And what about the drivers who make their living from racing, and the Industry as a whole that relies on TAB turnover to exist? Instead of slagging off at those responsible, any sane person should be applauding Addington for staging a race meeting under far from ideal conditions.
The other gem I heard of was some people still having trouble getting their head around the change in horse’s birthday. One questioned whether Krug would be a three or four year-old if he lined up in this years NZ Cup, with another suggesting that he would turn four in August and remain at that age on 1 January!
Thankfully this year is a one-off situation, otherwise this type of insanity would be with us for much longer!
Pete Cook