If you ever had career aspirations to be a starter in either the thoroughbred or harness codes, last Friday wasn't the day to be watching Trackside.
First, we had the debacle of race 2 at Timaru on Friday afternoon, followed by the race that never ended - or at least never seemed to start - in race 6 at Addington on Friday night.
Addington can, sadly, be put down to horses who either are not well educated enough, or got riled up when others started swinging in to them.
As has been pointed out in other media, many pacers arrive at a standing start with the sum of their experience behind the tapes amounting to maybe one workout against two other horses.
Some trainers you can trust with standing starts - Kevin Court, for example, always turns out impeccably mannered pacers.
Others, well ... the less said, the better.
Those with cowboy-ish tendencies would do well to remember: the one thing putting many punters off harness racing is blowing their money at the start. The industry shouldn't be giving those punters even more reason to switch codes or start playing the pokies.
... over again
Timaru, on the other hand, was not a good look with the race being beamed to Australia.
After watching the footage of the race, in which six of the 14 starters were left locked in their stalls leaving the other eight to run a race, I tended to side with the panelists on Weigh In, who couldn't understand why the JCA had overruled the starter.
But, the JCA report makes fair reading - the committee spoke to several jockeys of the eight who kept racing, and not one of them was aware of the starter calling the false start, so the JCA made the ruling to scratch the six horses in the stall and let the race stand.
There's little argument the starter, Kevin Ogden, took too long to call a false start, but there's no point condemning him further - he'll be beating himself up more than anyone.
Double the dogs
An extra bonus for greyhound fans this weekend, as the Otago Greyhound Racing Club has two meetings in just three days.
The feature on Sunday is the brilliantly-named (if I do say so myself) Otago Daily Times Stakes, and there is a New Zealand Racing Series graduation final on Tuesday.
Lazy Fiver
Sadly, in the delayed race at Addington, Stunin Dude only managed seventh for Mary Kreft, of Waimumu.
Please enter the competition - I like giving stuff away.
Peter Holmes is this week's winner, and he'll be cheering home Kimani in race 4 at Alexandra Park tonight.
This week's question: Who will ride Mongolian Khan in the Caulfield Cup (as of last night)?
matt.smith@odt.co.nz- Matt's two-minute racing tips video on www.odt.co.nz is taking a break this week
