Dates & Unwanted Patterns

Raining Dollars should be running Down Under on Saturday, kicking off a fresh Aussie campaign. Kealoha and Magic Key are out at Funabashi on the 10th (our Japanese first action of 2017), while Phosphorus makes a comeback on the 13th, and Lotus Blossom makes its debut on the same day (the latter with Yoshihara in the saddle, which is hardly a brilliant choice for me considering I've been against him ever since the Tokyo Derby). Let's hope we can start the New Year over here better than we finished the last one. In reality, it would be difficult to record even worse results, but I'm saying nothing until the racing is over. Oh, Vertice is off to Northern Farm, of course! Let's start funding the bloody place as early in the year as possible. Bollocks.

Larressingle is going back to JRA (with a new trainer due to the old one retiring), and I just hope we don't see the typical Carrot Club scenario of "okay, it's won now, so here goes with three years of no effort and easy money." This has happened all too often in the past, with Tenshinramman and Massabielle being perfect examples of wasted potential, so I shall be watching progress carefully with this one, as it's a damned good horse - if it doesn't perform like one, someone should take responsibility instead of keep taking our hard-earned cash for no racing and no return.

PS. On the subject of unwanted patterns, another bad race in Australia on Saturday. No news on Rush Attack since the 20th, which is concerning - the old saying of 'no news is good news' does not apply when Northern Farm are in the equation, especially when the thing has already clocked up ten months off the track.

PPS. Further to the last race report on Raining Dollars, I have made a decision to end my Australian race campaign for the time being. I don't really want to, as I know the results have not been the fault of the trainer, but the horse's run of bad luck has been seemingly endless in recent months. Sitting in bed awake due to the wind battering the window shutters, I decided a mark has to be scrawled in the sand somewhere along the line, especially when I moan like hell about Japanese results (the only difference is the poor results here are largely avoidable with more effort, which we should be getting without question considering the amount of money that goes out to the clubs each month!), and the New Year seems as good a time as any to draw that line. Thank you, Jo, for almost four years of fun through three different nags...

Crap End To Year

Well, was Million Ways' long-awaited comeback worth all the time and expense? No! Definitely not. As expected, it was a pathetic performance from Million Ways, despite a promising run and decent position up until the last corner. As soon as the straight appeared, it was as if the jockey threw out an anchor, and all the others (all low level nags, I might add) flew past as if the Carrot Club horse was standing still. At a massive 1.9 seconds off the pace, that wasn't race rust, that was a complete and utter lack of training - training that has cost owners a lot more than it should of, too. Two disgraceful runs in three days, and they wonder why I'm fed up with paying excessive amounts for this. It's that word again: Retirement!

PS. The post-race report expresses surprise, but it doesn't alter the fact that the trainer still got paid - we're the ones that have paid out month after month for the damned thing being on the injured list, although in reality, it was never technically injured at any point in its career, just useless. The report says it will be out at the next TCK meeting. It can't do any worse, I guess, but if it doesn't come at least second, it should be retired on the spot, for it's nothing more than a money pit.

PPS. The horse is back at Midway Farm again, which is 70 miles (115km) away from where it's supposed to be based - its home track being listed as TCK. Not only that, Midway Farm sell and prepare their own horses for the same events, so they're really going to try hard to get a rival to win, aren't they? Seeing as they get paid whether the horse does well or not, I somehow doubt it. One thing for sure, though, is that we can safely say that the next bill is going to be huge again thanks to unnecessary transport fees (allied to yet another month of zero income), and we can almost certainly say that the next race will be no better. A totally unacceptable situation, and oh so typical of Japanese racing - too many horses and nowhere near the level of staff, facilities or appropriate race calendars to deal with them properly. The next Tokyo meeting is at the end of January, when I hope a clear conclusion can be made. Right now, I just want to get rid of the damned thing, for it's costing a lot more than it should (that doesn't bother the club, though, for we're the ones paying, not them!) and giving nothing but constant disappointment in return. It should join Shine Tiara, Chocolat Sucre - and Nine Half, the only Carrot NAR nag I didn't buy into that year - on the retired list. And if Trovao doesn't improve, that can go, too! 

Progress Stalled

Pop Label let me down badly, coming a pathetic tenth at TCK today, despite Christophe Lemaire taking the place of Mori-kun at the last minute and starting as third favourite. After waiting ages for the thing to run a proper campaign, I saw no effort whatsoever, and I would definitely have no hesitation in retiring the horse after such a poor performance! Numerous post-race excuses, as always, but none of them acceptable. A serious toothache (following a difficult lower wisdom tooth extraction) prevented me from going to Tokyo, as the thought crossed my mind (I haven't been for a very long time as a form of protest), and I'm bloody glad I didn't, for I'd have been even more furious than I was watching the race from my armchair. Three years without a win now, and with the current team, that ridiculous situation isn't going to change. Million Ways next, but I'm not expecting much better than today, to be honest...

Meanwhile, the main race was a bad joke for NAR supporters, with all 122,000,000 yen leaving NAR circles to go to JRA stables. When will TCK learn that all they are doing is encouraging folks to leave NAR, for it doesn't pay at the best of times? Keep donating all the decent pots to JRA runners and the NAR owners' list will just keep shrinking at a time when new owners are desperately needed in order to replace those dying off, let alone increase numbers.

Signs Of Progress

Masterson was fourth at Fontwell yesterday, tiring at the end after taking up the pace for most of the race. For a flat runner, it was a sterling effort, and who knows, he might have a go over the jumps again after such a bold performance.

Trovao is supposed to be aiming for a big Nagoya race as soon as winter fades, although keeping the horse at Northern Farm in the meantime is not a good idea as far as I'm concerned. In fact, I think it's a bloody awful idea - I just hope I'm proved wrong. Meanwhile, Lotus Blossom has passed its race proficiency test, so hopefully it can start clawing back a few pennies after it makes its very, very long overdue debut. Phosphorus also passed, so can get back into action, albeit an annoying five months behind schedule!

The first time out, Vertice ran a stinker. We were told to forget it, as it wasn't an authentic display of the horse's potential, so had a right to expect something decent this time around, despite the extreme outside gate. Well, we didn't win, but third (three-and-a-half lengths down) wasn't bad at all, and it certainly gives us more to build on than the awful debut run.

PS. The post-race report notes that Vertice will disappear to NF for a while in the New Year. Why? Today is the first month since time began that the horse has actually broken even on the finance side - in fact, it's the first cent it has earned. Now off to Northern Farm at needlessly huge expense, and you'll probably have a donkey on its return. That mention of 'progress' in the post title didn't last long did it? Pathetic! At least Lotus Blossom might run in early January, and that's good, for this one also has an expense sheet running in rivers of red ink.

PPS. Just checking, and Larressingle is now at NF again following its Sonoda campaign; Rush Attack has been there forever; War Chronicle is at the stable so far (we'll wait for a new report to see what happens next, although there are hints of a break being such a fragile horse, bringing into question its worth as a racehorse, full-stop); Trovao is at NF; Vertice is off to NF soon, while Million Ways is at Midway Farm. This means that of all my Carrot horses, apart from Million Ways, only Lotus Blossom is totally free of Northern Farm's grip, which is madness. And they wonder why they are struggling to sell NAR horses. Maybe it's because constant Northern Farm breaks (after we've been paying for nothing other than cut-and-paste reports for a year, ready to get long-overdue debuts and what should be a promise of regular racing thereafter, something absolutely necessary in NAR) pisses people off! I think you can see why my shares in Japanese horses have fallen off to such a large extent compared to a few years back. It is nothing like racing - Carrot Club should change its name to the Northern Farm Supporters Club.

Contrasts

Larressingle claimed a seven-length victory yesterday, beating the other heavily backed horse (fresh from JRA) by no less than eight lengths. I guess it will go back to JRA now, although I'd rather it stayed in NAR, running once or twice a month like a proper racehorse. Great run on the day, though...

On the flip side, today Trovao ran a race more in the mould of Perfumer or Chocolat Sucre than Larressingle's effort. It has to be one of the worst performances I've seen in a long time, and god knows I've had to suffer more than enough of those in Japan. It finished 11th of 12, a disgraceful 3.2 seconds off the pace (at least a fifth was needed to justify the trip), which naturally means nothing in the way of income and doubtless a break to follow at heavily over-priced rates. As such, it would have been better running the horse once a month in regular TCK races - we'd have got some entertainment and almost certainly for free. I really do wonder what is planned next. After a piss poor performance like that, having started at second favourite, a lot of thought needs to be given when considering the horse's future direction. Does it even have a future? Not if today's run is anything to go by - it was for the Gold Cup, but the pairing weren't worthy of a cracked tea mug with a missing handle. Furious!

PS. Just had the report in on Trovao. The trainer doesn't have any idea what went wrong, but one thing I can tell you for sure is you're not going to find the answer by shipping the bloody horse off to Northern Farm. So what do they do? Ship it off to Northern Farm. I honestly cannot wait to leave Japanese 'racing' behind me, for it is truly just a very bad joke that does nothing but act as a vessel for funnelling money to an undeserving monopoly in every direction possible. No thought whatsoever is given to providing owners with any kind of value for money, despite us paying over the odds for monthly keep, and way, way, way over the odds in initial purchase price. Fed up of being badly let down and no-one giving a toss as long as 'the boys' keep getting paid. The sooner this nightmare is all over, the better.

Weekend Resume

Raining Dollars was fifth, so no cigar (or pennies) Down Under, but at only 0.6 lengths down on the winner, we can take comfort in that it was a good strong run at least. The ground wasn't ideal for The Jazz Singer, having rained hard in the Fairyhouse area for a couple of days, so a fifth against some top horses was no disgrace.

Early betting on War Chronicle simply raised my question of why the donkey was being kept again. But after a dreadful start, the jockey kept his nerve and found a nice little gap down the inside for an unbelievable second place - if the finishing post had come ten yards sooner, it would have been a stunning win! Well, another pleasant shock, but now we need to keep up momentum and make up for all those lost months. If it was up to me, I'd keep the young jockey for War Chronicle, as he seems to understand the horse a lot better than her previous pairings.

Next up, Larressingle at Sonoda, followed by Trovao at Urawa...

Financial Disaster

Really annoyed with the bills from Carrot Club again - it's a damned good job they're running War Chronicle this weekend, for there's a mad bill for her that could and should have been avoided. In reality, she should have been retired at the beginning of 2015, or at least have stayed in NAR once that route was taken - at least we might have got some action out of the horse instead of feeble excuses for failure or the threat of yet more time off, as if it hasn't had enough already (three races within four weeks in NAR, but only a truly pathetic five races over 24 months in JRA). Rush Attack should have been retired eight months ago as well, for I can't see any meaning in spending out for almost a year (as I predicted, one will remember) to get back a horse than was nothing better than average at best. Yet another exercise in keeping Northern Farm rich with no thought whatsoever given to the shareholders.

Million Ways is on my radar as one that needs to perform very well over the first three months of 2017 (it's supposed to be arriving at TCK at the end of December) to justify keeping it, for the bills are pretty damned silly considering it isn't doing anything constructive - this month's invoice would be for a ridiculous 550,000 yen, and that simply cannot be justified unless it starts clawing it back in a hurry. After a win in March, four dreadful runs is all we've had for our money, so if it does no better than it did in the last three quarters of 2016, it should join Chocolat Sucre and Shine Tiara without hesitation, for it is a drain on finances and nothing more.

Trovao's bills, too, are outrageous - yes, there was transportation fees to take into account, but the club didn't have to buy the bloody truck, which it looks as if it did judging by the invoice we've got. Had Trovao not won, it would have been a serious loss yet again, for six out of nine horses brought in zilch, one got something but nowhere near enough to cover its keep, and two gave a plus sign, with Trovao covering them all. Considering he hadn't run for five months before that, though, he's probably only +/-0 after all is said and done, and needs another exceptionally good result on the 21st just to break even. What's more annoying is those six liabilities will almost certainly pull in zero again next month!

Larressingle should be out again on the 20th, but another win will be needed just to break even for the month - that's right, without two wins within the month at Sonoda rates, you make a loss! And they want you to keep supporting Japanese racing? I'm not happy about the horse going back to JRA, but at least it has more chance than War Chronicle and Rush Attack put all their power and speed together...

After an overly-long period of nothing happening, at least the Shadai TC and Sunday TC stuff has started earning its keep a bit better. Another Door has knocked a dent in its mountain of debt with a big win in the week; Pop Label is due out on the 29th, and Kealoha and Magic Key (both winners at Funabashi this month) are out again in early January. Only Phosphorus is letting the side down now, with bills coming our way for the incompetence of others, and how often is that the case out here? Far too often unfortunately, and, as far as I'm concerned, Phosphorus will have to go if it doesn't come back strong after yet another long break.

Tomorrow, we have races in Australia and then Ireland, and War Chronicle here on Sunday. Let's see what happens...