Thanks to the vagaries of public holidays, I had a fair bit of time to watch Trackside last weekend.
Easter Saturday is always a jam-packed day on the racing calendar, as racing fans try to get over the shock of having Good Friday to do stuff like spend time with family or heat up hot cross buns.
Well, there's Singapore racing on, but ... no.
Anyway, certain posters on internet racing forums had been keeping a close eye on Trackside last week after the controversial consolidation of Trackside and TAB TV on to the Sky TV platform exclusively on April 14.
I'm probably overselling it to describe their reactions as apoplectic as Trackside tried to deal with a full-to-the-brim schedule, but it did all look a bit disorganised.
It's not an easy fit for the schedulers on a Saturday - particularly on a day like Easter Saturday.
To ensure New Zealand racing gets maximum turnover from the Australian punters, our race meetings have to work in with the Australian schedule, which often means gaps of three or four minutes between races. One false start, or one horse needing assistance, and the dominoes can fall pretty quickly.
... to come?
That said, with both channels now given equal access on Sky - as opposed to the Freeview channel trying to be all things to everyone - I was hoping for a bit more immediate coverage of the aftermath of Rising Romance's Australian Oaks win on Saturday afternoon.
Admittedly, Riverton was scheduled to run six minutes afterwards at 5.11pm, and it's hard to schedule races for each channel based on guessing whether a Kiwi horse will win in Sydney or not. Luckily, once Addington came on board at 5.30pm, the New Zealand gallops had finished.
Whatever happened, one bunch of fans would be annoyed - patriotic Kiwis wanting the full aftermath from Sydney or southern racing fans wanting a decent gaze at the horses before Riverton.
I'll save my judgement on the content of the channels for a week or two, even though the full revamp is supposedly in August and the feed preferences in TAB outlets are still being finalised.
Between now and August, though, I would expect a few tweaks, at least.
Million-dollar meeting
Race the good ones together and the punters will bet. That could be the motto for the Forbury Park Trotting Club, which hit more than $1 million in overall turnover at its Easter Thursday meeting.
The total turnover, including fixed odds, was $1,042,080 - the first time the club has hit seven figures since July 2009.
In recent years, the 4 and 5yr-old championship has been held on a separate night to the heats for 2 and 3yr-old fillies, but the combination of all three last week seemed to be a success. The punters had a decent plunge on the group 3 feature too, spending $114,000 on that race alone.
Lazy Fiver
The track was too heavy for Blossom Queen at Tauranga, so she was scratched. Doctor Bones is a fair chance in race 10 at Rangiora on Sunday.
