When I was at Trackside, our presenters used to get a bit of stick from viewers about talking over the national anthem. When it's being performed at an increasing number of meetings throughout New Zealand, you can hardly blame the presenters for talking over it.
I fail to see why more and more clubs are pulling out the anthem for their local cup. I have nothing against the anthem itself - how could I when it was written by a good Dunedin man? - and the Wellington Cup is a nice race (although not what it once was), but come on.
. . . New Zealand
Let's keep the national anthem for the New Zealand Trotting Cup, maybe the New Zealand Derby at Ellerslie (as opposed to the New Zealand Galloping Cup, as it's only a group 3 these days) and the New Zealand Greyhound Cup. Then again, the anthem before the New Zealand Greyhound Cup this year didn't really go to plan, as the unfortunate singer forgot the words.
For the women
It's amazing what comes up when you throw out a question. I had some feedback to last week's column about female riders, including an email from Associate Prof Martin Tolich, from the University Of Otago. Believe it or not, in the mid-1990s, he wrote a paper about the rise of female jockeys in New Zealand and some of the sociological aspects behind the rise.
A toast?
Pinot Express lines up at Wingatui tomorrow for Steven Prince and hopefully she can do the job for a bunch of owners, including my good friend Nathan Campbell. It's a big day for Nathan today as he gets married to his lovely fiancee, Becky Dyer, in Wanaka, so a win for Pinot Express would top the weekend off nicely, I reckon.
Lazy Fiver
The Ace is gone, and in comes the ''Lazy Fiver''. As opposed to picking a hot-pot, I'll give you something that is worth a couple of dollars each way. This week I will opt for Armadale VC in race 9 at the Geraldine Trotting Club meeting tomorrow. I liked his win at Waimate in December, and his form since then has been very solid.
