Straight Shorts - Wednesday February 19 - Injury grounds Skybird, MM guarded on Perth sale, Astern exported to Turkiye, King Of Pop's Slipper course

Skybird takes the Black Caviar Lightning Stakes (G1)!

pic.twitter.com/2mwexGysPm

— IFHA's Longines World's Best Racehorse Rankings (@worldsbesthorse) February 15, 2025

Skybird was earmarked to chase more Group 1 sprint targets in Melbourne ahead of an Adelaide campaign but plans to run Skybird in the Newmarket Handicap and the William Reid Stakes are now up in the air.

“We're just going to have to assess how long this muscle injury takes to come good,” he said.

“It's not the most common injury in the world so the time to recover is a little bit unknown and we'll just have to work closely with the horse.” 

Perth Magic Millions sale an economic test for WA breeders

Magic Millions Western Australia manager David Houston is more circumspect leading into the Perth Yearling Sale than he was 12 months ago, but he is confident a strong buying bench will be in attendance.

The 2024 Perth sale lived up to Houston’s bold prediction, breaking $20 million in turnover for the first time with the local thoroughbred economy defying the declines that had been occurring at the eastern coast sales.

That market “selectivity” that prevailed in 2024r at Inglis and Magic Millions east coast sales has continued again so far this year and there is a hint that the Western Australian heavily mining-dependent economy might be starting to feel the pinch, too.

Houston, however, is optimistic that the market will be relatively steady when bidding starts on Thursday, the first of two days of selling at the Swan Valley complex.

“Let's hope we can maintain it, but whether we can advance that ($20 million figure) or we're a little bit down, that's in the lap of the buyers, obviously, but the horses are here,” Houston said.

“Doing my countback from last year's buyers, 99 per cent of them are back here and on the ground, so it’s just a matter of them having good support behind them, I guess.

“We'll find that out in the next two days.”

The two-day, 350-lot sale starts at 11am (AWST) time on Thursday, with Friday’s Book 2 session starting at 10am.

Ten on notice after F1 ad ban breach

Network 10 has escaped sanction for a breach of gambling advertising rules during a broadcast of the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix in March 2024.

An Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) investigation established there were four breaches of the Commercial TV Code of Practice during the broadcast.

Under the Code, gambling promotions cannot be shown during broadcasts of sporting events between 5am and 8.30pm.

“Broadcasters should have strict controls in place to ensure compliance with the restrictions on gambling ads during sporting events,” ACMA’s Carolyn Lidgerwood said.

Network 10 admitted that the broadcasts occurred due to human error.

While it was a breach of the Code, there will be no sanction for the Network, which agreed to review its processes to introduce additional quality controls, train staff to avoid similar issues in the future and will provide a written progress report to the ACMA.

“The ACMA will closely monitor these actions and Network Ten’s compliance with the broadcasting and online gambling advertising rules,” Lidgerwood said.

The federal government is considering substantially tightening broadcast advertising regulations around gambling, but any reform is unlikely to come before the election.

RA confirms loss after NZ project impairment

Racing Australia’s annual report has revealed a $259,000 loss for the 2023/24 financial year after a significant impairment was incurred on a failed project with New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing.

The annual report was published this week on the Racing Australia website.

Racing Australia’s revenue, across commercial services, its trainers and racing service centre, registrar of racehorses, stud book fees and Single National System was nearly identical to what it was in the previous financial year, at $15.6 million ($15.7m in 2022/23).

Its expenses were also similar to the previous financial year, outside of the impairment, at $13.9 million as opposed to $13.8 million.

But an additional $2.36 million cost of the abandoned project with NZTR pushed Racing Australia’s annual accounts into the red.

“The steps that continue to be taken over the 2023- 2024 year have further solidified the base on which we effectively and efficiently manage the ongoing development of Racing Australia’s systems,” Racing Australia chief executive Paul Eriksson said in the report.

“As reported last year, development on the New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing (NZTR) Single National System (SNS) project was paused in February 2023 whilst a review of its capabilities was undertaken by both Racing Australia and NZTR.

“It was subsequently decided to close the project down leading to Racing Australia recognising a $2.356 million impairment on the investment. The development team that was dedicated to that work was rationalised and redeployed to other improvement projects.”

How a stalled $4 million project divided New Zealand and Australian racing authorities

A troubled data project has caused a rift between New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing and Racing Australia over a multi-million cost blowout.

The StraightHelen Thomas

Group 1-producing sire Astern departs for Turkiye

Astern, the Golden Rose-winning sire of Group 1 winners Golden Mile and Affaire a Suivre, has left Australia to begin his new breeding career in Turkiye.

The son of Medaglia D’Oro has served eight seasons at Darley Australia and also five seasons at Jonabell Stud in Kentucky, but was secured to head to Turkiye in December.

He served only 12 mares in his final season in Australia in 2024.