Compare Kawasaki Races (loam / sand) in Japan to Randwick Races (grass) in Australia. The first one is a welfare issue.

Steve,

I am no expert on grass or loam - I can only observe what goes on. I can also note that on any given subject there are 99 different opinions expressed here.

What I do note is that any grass track I have seen is partly or wholly kikuyu which then poses a question with nasty stalks and sometimes holes - it is kind of the opposite of a bowling green. Presumably, finer grass types would not stand up to all the racing and trialling.

I suppose you noticed the barney going on about Jubilee oval where RL wants long grass and soccer wants short grass. It's hard to keep everyone happy.

Anyway, the justification for a shift from grass to loam was always economic - ie due mainly to meeting cancellations as I pointed out earlier. Not perfect but a fact of life.

Ages ago I got invited by the then chairman (unusually, a gentleman) to the eagle's nest at Wenty on Saturday night to have dinner with the GBOTA - wives included, of course, with personal waiters and TAB operator attending. Basically, they ignored me so I went back down to the ring.

Nothing has changed since. So how would I know?

I also offered them some comments about the first Gosford reconstruction (prior to letting of contracts) but was told "we know best". After three months racing they realised I was right and tried to fix the 400m start. Did a poor job of it.

I even offered some thoughts to the Alliance but got cut off at the pass by the lady manning the barricades.

Then GRNSW refused to answer any more emails after I criticised errors in a media release. Of course, he got sacked a little later.

To be fair, the NCA sacked me, too, not liking what I was writing. It all reminds me of Jack Nicholson screaming at Tom Cruise, "You can't handle the truth!"

Same goes for the Chairman of QGRA who did not like me suggesting in my monthly article that Betfair was here to stay so we might as well get used to it.

Anyway, a better question might be does anyone run the GBOTA or does it just blunder along?

Lots of fun, isn't it? Still, I have written for seven publications, every one of which invited me to contribute. I never sought the gigs. Apart from the above, all have gone broke except for one which started censoring what I wrote, so I quit.

IF you were asked to investigate the NSW industry you have two prominent issues of the day.

After GRNSW took over Wenty maintenance we can see that the running was significantly slower on Sat (2nd) than on Wed (27th) - and half the races had empty boxes on Sat. Why the big difference? Above all, tracks should be striving to achieve consistency.

More critical was the Sat meeting at Bulli with several very short fields and only 9 races. And no sectional times this week - they must have been exhausted after last week's effort.

Both are GBOTA tracks. In earlier years, Bulli ran successfully on Wednesdays but today the fields are often small and poor. Why is it now forced to compete with Wenty/Sat for nominations? Given the overall dog shortage that hardly helps either one.

Some may say GRNSW assigns the dates but I would bet money others have a hand in it.

You have to read more or decipher what the writer (other) is trying to inform the reader (you) to understand the differences with times. Dont panic and whine because your data (someone elses data) might be distorted due to track work. Times on a heavy rating of a track at Randwick are not the same as a good rating. Factor it in by making the necessary adjustments. They are called variables.

There are fewer dogs in the pool therefore fewer dogs racing and everyone knows why. There were five or six meetings that had its nominations extended during last week.