The other question to be asked is if the Wednesday meeting is even required, with the Thousand Guineas being run on the Saturday.

Bit of a bizarre meeting now – kind of like the VRC shifting the Oaks to Stakes Day, but still having a meeting on the Thursday.

I know I know… it’s all about quantity.

Not sure it’s practical or fair to restrict breeding. It’s the owners’ call as to what they want to do with their horse.

I think an overlooked factor at play here is the old issue of too many Group 1 races. Clearly the planned path for these colts is to get a Group 1 win or two on their resume and then immediately be retired to become a Group 1 winning stallion.

We have so many races labelled “Group 1” that perhaps it’s becoming easier to achieve that and hence more quality colts are retired early.

It’s been discussed before and I’m not sure how you start to unpick it (particularly with breeders on the pattern committee which is a ridiculous conflict of interest) but perhaps less Group 1s = more colts needing to race on longer to win one.

Hard to see it happening in reality as it’s in so many parties’ interests to have more “Group 1s”, but it might be the only practical thing racing can do to impact the breeding industry.

Good piece Tristan. As you say, a perennial problem for racing. Dunno how the hell you fix it though… with the money offered I can’t say I’d make a different decision as a owner.

All Too Hard’s retirement was heartbreaking!

A big step in the right direction for which Pakula should be commended.

I’ll be interested to see who they get to fill the spots. Unlike other sports, there’s few people with an interest in racing – particularly at the level that you’d want on the RV Board – who aren’t financially invested in some way. It’s a money game, that’s how it works. There aren’t really “racing fans” out there who aren’t also breeders / owners / trainers / whatever.

For racing to truly step forward the set-up needs to be largely scrapped anyway, in favour of a national body. That’s a huge shake-up though which may never come. In the meantime, as I said, this is a good move.

(Just on that… O’Farrell review blocks in-play betting – racing the biggest campaigner for that – next minute, Barry O’Farrell new CEO of Racing Aust. A long, long way to go in the “conflict of interest” stakes for Australian racing.)

Exactly – shades of grey.

Many more Australians are now awake to that, and attacking individual “drug cheats” isn’t quite the national sport it once was.

Drugs codes are one thing, but a lot of people probably don’t understand them in detail. Putting faith in a doctor or medical practitioner without asking too many questions however? That’s something everybody relates to. And that has made some athletes “drug cheats”.

The insult simply doesn’t ring out like it used to, people are more willing to hear individual circumstances.

Equally though I think attitudes toward PEDs are changing in that it’s perhaps not the black and white issue everyone once dismissed it as, where we might have imagined evil cheating athletes scheming and taking medals off honest Aussies.

If the Essendon / Cronulla sagas have shown Aussies anything, it’s that that’s not always the case – naïve younger participants may have put their trust in medical staff for example (if an 18yo at one of our footy clubs felt pressured to toe the team line on a “supplements” program, I can only imagine what it’d be like for that same kid on the Chinese Olympic team). Sins of stupidity rather than outright intention.

The black-and-white brigade will still simply say “hang em all” but many Aussies now have a human face to doping through their football codes, and have seen that in some cases it can be a few degrees below outright evil and that perhaps a blanket “drug cheat” attack may not always be fair on a personal basis.

Whilst still supporting the anti-doping measures, I just think a lot of people are now more willing to see the human side when it comes to individuals. If this Aussie swimmer had attacked an overall regime publicly I think he’d have more support. A targeting of an individual comes off differently, more so now.

Don’t think it’s fair to say the Allies killed Origin. It was an innovation to maybe give it some life / rationalise it I think. It didn’t work, but SOO was on death row anyway. It took a bit of time, but the national competition killed it.

Too big to reproduce here, but my own response to RVL’s proposal FYI:

Feedback on the proposed Minimum Bet Rules (VIC)

Same issues as always – the players they want won’t play, and those who do won’t take it seriously.

The thing about footy is its level of physicality. It’s not a game like, say, basketball, where the players can take it easy physically and still put on an incredible show with their skills. Footy needs players “going hard”, if it doesn’t have that it just becomes a farce.

The NFL has a similar issue. It just doesn’t work when ultimately there’s nothing on the line. State representation used to mean something – with a national competition, it doesn’t.

It’s not their private venture Marshall. They don’t produce a product – in this example, Racing Victoria do.

Bookmakers operate under a license. They’re actually not licensed to just take money off losers, mugs and problem gamblers. They’re licensed to frame a market on an event, manage that market, and take their percentage – which, unless they’re shockingly incompetent, they’ll always end up getting. Because it’s (quite rightly) built into the market they control.

They then pay a license/product fee to the producer for the privilege, and the rest is their profit.

Fees are generally based largely on turnover, so any sporting/racing body who doesn’t make it a condition of license that bookies accept bets from everybody (to a reasonable commercial level for all) is crazy. They’re the customers and their lifetime value is huge (wagering currently accounts for 95% of RV’s total annual income).

It never used to be a problem because bookmakers were bookmakers. Now they’re not. They’re corporations with a CRM system.

I can guarantee it’ll be Allardyce – because I’m a Sunderland fan, and with a fair bit of optimism having been around the place, this is just how the universe works!

All good JB, you make fair points – I think though there was a shift with the 2000 Euros being the catalyst.

Certainly not to say the Germans invented coaching, but their review showed what we now know doubtlessly – the game is more technical and requires a higher level of education to carry out effectively. The got to work on fixing this which is where the overhaul of coaching and academies happened – which fits in with another evolution of the game, the absolute power and resources of club football. This is something England clearly still haven’t caught up with.

Thought the comparison was apt given no country’s clubs have greater resources than England’s, which is why that particular model would be worth a solid look. The English game sees none of that benefit, instead it all flows straight through and into the hands of foreign players and agents. Key is getting the clubs on board I think.

Most critical I think is getting the entire English football industry to buy in – the Premier League, the Football League, all the clubs. The FA don’t need a national manager, they need a team of negotiators and diplomats to get a plan that everybody is on board with. National directors then need only to find a manager that believes in it and can set an example. Most important is it flows down and creates competent coaches who will create competent players.

Any fruits won’t appear until long after the next manager is gone anyway.

Re Wales, different situation. I think they’ve hit a good intersection of their own golden generation of natural talent, the payoff of the previous youth focus by Toshack and Speed etc, and an underrated manager who knows how to organise his team to take most advantage of Bale and Ramsay. Different to England I think – much smaller population and most elite players playing abroad.

Avoiding relegation sounds pretty good to me

Hands off our man

Signed: all long-suffering Sunderland fans

Aware of that, but the article seems to be about the Brexit issue. Not sure what that has to do with the Euros

Excuse the ignorance, but the Euros will be very different in future how?

“England have been spoken about as a team that looks to be in for a long run at Euro 2016 but their opponents appear to disagree.”

Agree with this and have to say I’m not entirely sure why – can only really put it down to the fact that a lot of our media comes out of England and thus has a natural slant to it.

For me the squad is pretty uninspiring with very few players who have proven themselves on the world stage or in the UCL.

Vardy and Kane are coming off super seasons but are really an unknown quantity at this level – same with Dier and Alli.

Sterling and Sturridge aren’t on their game, neither is Wilshere (who really shouldn’t be there), Rooney is a fighter but possibly not a natural as a general in midfield, and the defence (particularly in the centre) looks workmanlike at best. And of course the question over whether Hodgson is the man to bring it all together.

Guess they could surprise but that’s exactly what it’ll take for mine… a few players to jump right out of the box.

Personally don’t think they’re anywhere near as close to the favourites as the bookies and some pundits seems to suggest.

The priority for the A League has to be FTA coverage – LIVE – on Friday and Saturday nights. That’s the biggest thing that can do to grow the game.

Crowd-pleasing quips aside, would he really want to? United is hardly the club he left. They’ve been a relative mess since Fergie departed. Champions League looks unlikely next season again.

If he was to seek a move there’d be suitors queuing up.

Does racing really want crowds though?

Some genuine efforts by some of the clubs aside, there doesn’t seem to be much focus on it from the controlling bodies.

“The BMW” really is a rank name for a horse race isn’t it?

Get the news for sponsors, but surely the “BMW Tancred Stakes” would be OK?

Stand to be corrected but I believe the average speed in Australia in around 6mbps. If you’re able to average 20 and have it constant throughout a football match I’d suggest you’re doing very, very well.

Personally I don’t have great faith in our current (or currently proposed) systems to handle the amoutn of streaming that is / will happen.

Interesting from Presto too:

http://www.news.com.au/technology/presto-says-australias-internet-speeds-too-slow-for-4k-content-and-blames-new-nbn/news-story/f08d9845d708bdaa0556ddc3e7251f6f

The future might have arrived but not sure the infrastructure has.

Connection quality and speed will make or break this – constant buffering on live sport is terrible.

From a selfish point of view it’s annoying as Fox was a one-stop shop for all sporting coverage, now you’ll need Optus for Premier League and the World Cup.

A Smart TV app would be ok, I don’t need another box under my TV.