Source: Brent Read, Fox Sports News
CRAIG BELLAMY last night confirmed his interest in having Andrew Johns on his coaching staff as NSW attempts to end Queensland’s two-year stranglehold on the State of Origin series.
Bellamy, whose appointment as coach was announced yesterday, is yet to determine his assistants but made it clear he would like to utilise the brilliant football mind of Johns.
Johns, who retired in April with neck problems, has distanced himself from the game since admitting to drug use and depression in August. However, he is still regarded as one of the sharpest thinkers in league and Australia coach Ricky Stuart used him as a sounding board in an effort to help Test five-eighth Greg Bird in recent weeks.
Given the lack of certainty over the NSW halves positions leading into next season, Johns’ input could be invaluable for a Blues side looking to avoid three successive series defeats.
"I would certainly be interested in having him but I know he will have some obligations with Channel Nine next year," Bellamy said.
"He’s the best player I have seen in the game and he deserves to be treated with respect. I would love to have him on board and we would be mad not to use him.
Source: Ron Reed, Melbourne Herald Sun
CASEY Stoner, Australian sport’s newest conquering hero, promised his fans last night the mission isn’t quite accomplished — he still wants to show them his world championship style.
The new king of MotoGP — the fastest man on two wheels — held court in front of about 1000 cheering fans at Federation Square, saying: "this is the race I want to win.
"One of my dreams is to win my home grand prix — and Philip island is my favourite track."
Stoner, 22, was making his first public appearance since he wrapped up the championship in Japan two weeks ago, dethroning the legendary Italian Valentino Rossi.
It is a triumphant homecoming for several reasons, not the least of them being that he has thumbed his nose at critics who labelled him crash-prone early in his career.
"People have called me a crasher which has frustrated me a bit, and also scared me. I didn’t want to crash each race so that people couldn’t say those things," he said.
Source: AAP, The Age
A dozen horses at the Broadmeadow racetrack in Newcastle have returned positive tests to equine influenza (EI).
Leading Newcastle trainers Kris Lees and Paul Perry had swabs taken from several horses on Monday, the same day a positive test for EI was returned by a horse trained there by Rod Byrnes.
Five of the 12 horses that returned positive tests were from the Lees stable and while he was upset by the results he had resigned himself to the inevitable.
"A dozen of them have returned positives and we expected that and now it’s here and we’ve got to let it run its course," Lees said.
Racehorses at Broadmeadow were inoculated last week, and just three days later vaccinated horses at metropolitan Rosehill succumbed to the devastating virus.
Horses require two doses of vaccine for immunity to EI and those at Broadmeadow were due to be given their second shot this Saturday.
"It’s a very disappointing situation. We only had a week until the booster shots," Lees said.
"The horses aren’t that sick because the vaccine has taken the edge off the virus."
Source: John Schell, Sydney Morning Herald
NEWCASTLE racecourse was locked down yesterday after the dreaded equine influenza virus arrived at the track.
EI was confirmed in a horse in Rod Byrnes’s stables, which are between those of powerhouse operators Paul Perry and Kris Lees.
"It is just another disastrous result for the racing industry," Racing NSW chief executive Peter V’Landys said yesterday. "We’ve lost Randwick, Warwick Farm and Rosehill, and for Newcastle to now be affected is a body blow for all participants in the area."
On Saturday night it was hoped Newcastle had avoided EI after tests on horses from the Alan Scorse stable returned negative. But the positive test from the lone horse yesterday is likely to be the forerunner for up to 500 horses trained at the track to succumb to the horse flu.
EI has also been detected in five thoroughbreds at Toowoomba in Queensland.
At a meeting yesterday afternoon V’Landys and Australian Racing Board chief executive Andrew Harding addressed Primary Industries ministers from each state and territory, the federal Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Peter McGauran, and the director-generals of all state and federal Primary Industries departments on the need for a national mass vaccination strategy.
Source: Nat Wallace and Frank Walker, Sydney Morning Herald
MIGHTY mare Makybe Diva and her seven-week-old foal are expected to contract equine influenza by the end of the week.
Coolmore Stud general manager Michael Kirwan said the epidemic struck the Hunter Valley property last week.
He said the triple Melbourne Cup winner and her foal – a bay colt by Galileo valued at more than $3million – were not infected by the flu, but "it won’t be long before they get it".
The Sun-Herald can also reveal that the Diva is thought to be pregnant again, having been covered by Kentucky Derby winner Fusaichi Pegasus.
"[The flu] infects the whole property. It doesn’t play favourites," Mr Kirwan said.
Source: Paul Gover, FoxSports.com.au
AUSTRALIA’S newly crowned world champion Casey Stoner could upstage the V8 Supercars aces at Mt Panorama on Sunday.
Stoner is top of the list for a guest appearance at the Bathurst 1000 and the organisers have a helicopter on standby to whisk the MotoGP hero to the spiritual home of touring cars.
Stoner is on home leave before heading the MotoGP turnout for the Australian Grand Prix at Phillip Island on Sunday week.
The visit could give him an insight into a possible future in racing V8s.
Stoner has been given an official invitation to Bathurst, and perhaps even a role as chief marshal, and organisers are waiting for a reply before activating a plan.
"Absolutely. We want him there, if he wants to come," V8 Supercars spokesman Cole Hitchcock said yesterday. "If he’s at home at Kurri Kurri (near Newcastle), we can easily get him across. We can chopper him in, no trouble.
"We have our own helicopter service for VIPs at Bathurst or one of our team owners, like Craig Gore at WPS, would be happy to give him a lift."
While Stoner is still only a potential visitor, Shannon Noll and Jimmy Barnes are confirmed.
On the political front, V8 Supercar organisers are expecting an onslaught, including Prime Minister John Howard and Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd.
"We’re not sure which politicians will attend, but we expect a swag of them," Hitchcock said.
Source: Casey Stoner
The Ducati Team enjoyed its greatest day in Japan today, Casey Stoner securing Ducati’s first MotoGP World Championship and Loris Capirossi winning the race, run in tricky conditions on a drying track. The result triggered scenes of unbridled joy in the Ducati Marlboro Team pit, in the more than one thousand fans who watched the race in the Borgo Panigale Factory with the CEO Gabriele Del Torchio among them and in all the Ducatistis around the world.
Australian genius Stoner had to finish today’s race ahead of Valentino Rossi to wrap up the title with three GPs remaining, and he did that, no problem, finishing sixth after leading the early stages. The race couldn’t have been more nerve-wracking: it started on a slightly damp track, most riders choosing rain tyres, then the circuit dried out enough for riders to swap to slick-equipped bikes. Capirossi was one of the first riders to switch, at the end of lap nine, and his strategy paid rich dividends, the 2005 and 2006 Japanese GP winner going on to score a Motegi hat-trick, 10.853 seconds ahead of his closest rival. Stoner swapped bikes at the end of lap 14 and maintained his renowned cool to become the second youngest premier-class World Champion, after American legend Freddie Spencer. So far this year Stoner has won eight races, taken three further podium finished and scored five pole positions.
Source: The Maitland Mercury
Maitland Triathlon Club is poised for another big season, with new members encouraged to turn out of the club’s first race of the season on September 23.
The Maitland Triathlon will be held on October 14.
Now in its 14th year the event will attract more than 350 competitors to Morpeth to complete in a choice of two triathlon race distances.
The event includes a 1km or 1.5km swim in the Hunter River followed by a 30km or 55km cycle ride around Morpeth and Duckenfield and an 8km or 12km run around Morpeth.
Meanwhile, the Maitland Triathlon Club is once again gearing up for another jam packed season of racing and social events.
Source: Andrew Stevenson, Sydney Morning Herald
LISA Randle is a long way down the thoroughbred food chain from Arrowfield Stud’s John Messara and the Magniers, owners of Coolmore.
But she shares their pain as the equine influenza outbreak wreaks havoc on the thoroughbred studs of the Hunter Valley.
Randle, owner of Pine Lodge Thoroughbreds, breeds only a couple of broodmares a season but has a thriving business – or had – hiring out foster mares to wet nurse the offspring of some of the industry’s finest breeders.
Global racing and breeding operations often wish to send broodmares offshore for the next season and use Randle’s horses to raise the foals born here.
Except this year they can’t.
Normally, 70 mares are sent out but with the ban on horse movements still in place only one mare – an exception, allowed to go to an orphaned foal – has left Pine Lodge this season.
"We’re basically shut down," Randle said. "We’re sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place. Our foster mares are here foaling, but we can’t get them out, and we have really no other form of income at this point in time.
"We’ve been applying for permits basically since the day of the lockdown, and we’ve had requests for 20 mares in that time."
Source: Andrew Eddy, The Age
AUSTRALIA’S $3 billion thoroughbred breeding industry was officially in crisis last night with confirmation yesterday that leading Hunter Valley broodmare farm Segenhoe Stud had three cases of equine influenza.
John Messara, chairman of the Thoroughbred Breeders Association, said yesterday the outbreak at two properties in the Hunter Valley was potentially lethal for an industry already on its knees.
"We worked out today that if none of the walk-in mares are able to be served in NSW this season, that would be just under $1 billion worth of horses that will not be born and not be sold," a deflated Messara said. "It’s hard to see how we would ever recover. If this gets into our foals, it could get even worse as there is a reported mortality rate of up to 40 per cent for infected foals. The effects could be felt for years as our stocks could be depleted in numbers and quality to the point that the (racing) carnivals will not be worth having."
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