The cliche that the squeaky wheel gets the grease would have been true for some who read Wednesday's edition of this paper.
The squeaky wheel was the need for the programming of South Island thoroughbred races and their grades to be changed to best suit the horse population.
The grease came in the form of a promise received from NZTR head Bernard Saundry. He listened to local trainers' concerns at a public meeting of the codes at Wingatui last month.
But the squeaky analogy does not fit perfectly, because there are plenty of squeaky wheels going ungreased in the racing game.
There is a sea of whingers out there and many have extremely good cause to voice their concerns, but most of them do not turn up to meetings - they mostly just hand out ear bashings at the races.
So a better summation might be: ask and you shall receive.
Or, more specifically, turn up to a public meeting where you will get your chance to air your views and they will be listened to by the heads of the racing codes.
Those who did got their chance to speak and got immediate responses or, in this case, the promise of a response.
Really, you could not give Saundry more of a rap for what he has done. He came down, listened to the people and is on his way to finding a solution for the concerns raised.
Harness Racing New Zealand boss Edward Rennell also answered questions at the meeting. I am sure he would have done the same thing if he faced the same situation.
But he was not prompted to take the same action to investigate programming problems as Saundry because barely enough harness racing folk turned up. Maybe they did not care, although it is more likely that for 100 reasons they could not attend.
One only had to look at last night's Forbury Park fields to see the challenges that could have been addressed.
A whopping 16 rating points separated two horses racing off level marks in race 9.
Some trainers have said to me these kinds of scenarios happen because too many horses are slipping down the ratings and only a few are going up.
The good horses have no-one else to race against locally, as there are few horses in the top bracket.
It becomes easier just to sell those horses and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I do not think there will ever be a perfect way to programme races or a perfect ratings system.
But without presenting a case to the industry leaders it will not change.
Relying on associations and representatives is a waste of time when these leaders are offering a direct line.
So, go on, have your say.
Happy trails.
