Total Bollocks!

Sunday Thoroughbred Club - total bollocks! Shadai Thoroughbred Club - total bollocks! Carrot Club - total bollocks! If you want a really fast way to get annoyed and lose money, join one or all of them. If not, avoid them (and Japanese 'racing' in general) like the plague... 

Let's look at the Sunday/Shadai horses first. One of them last ran in June (although its last win was three years ago), another in June (last win in April 2015), another in May, and another (costing 16,000,000 yen I should add) in January - seven months ago, and with just two runs to its name! The other 16,000,000 yen 'star' has won 225,000 yen from five races, and would get left for dead by a blindfolded donkey with three legs. Yesterday it got banned for 20 days to add insult to injury, because it is being 'trained' at NF no doubt.

As for Carrot stuff, as usual, just read treadmill and Northern Farm against everything for months on end, with no plan of action, simply dragging out the NF fees for as long as possible. Even when they do run (with the possible exception of Larressingle, run isn't how I would describe the movement made by these things, as it happens, but it's the right word, so I have to use it), the results are terrible - it's even hard to see any effort most of the time. The club is still pissing about indefinitely on Massabielle and Perfumer, when a decision on their future should have been made months ago (do something, or ditch them - at this rate, it will be the Tokyo Olympics before they run again), and Rush Attack is - and will continue to be - a drain on resources and nothing else; that one probably will be running in 2020 next time out. 

Regarding the Carrot NAR stuff, it's the same level junk as the Shadai rubbish. Why? Because they all come from the same place, and all get ruined by the incompetent staff at Northern Farm. Lotus Blossom has now been added to the injury list (and Vertice was close to joining it), making you wonder if anyone in the racing game out here should be allowed to go anywhere near a bloody racehorse. Either that, or the horses are so inherently poor and fragile, they shouldn't be offered for sale in the first place.

Keeping fees keep going up, especially when the nags are away from their racing stables (odd isn't it, when professional staff are as rare as rocking horse droppings?), but prize money doesn't. The current prices mean Shadai stuff, in particular, has to win every month to avoid going into the red with them - that's not going to happen when they don't run. There is no interest in racing whatsoever - the sale of new horses and keeping NF rich is all that matters; they won't even return a phone call, unless there's a sniff of a sale in the air. It's just a huge scam of epic proportions to keep 'the boys' in clover at the (heavy) expense of enthusiasts. I cannot wait until I can put this very unhappy chapter in my life behind me.