Certainly a local legend, trained many over the years, with his share of winners, few good horses over there around that time, Steven John won the 10k coast bonus, back in the early days a trotter call Charlie Lincoln used to pull the hearse in his down time for the hagedorn brothers, another owner said he had the best bread horse in the district, he pulled the bakers cart, oh the memories, but those ones before my time.
I read recently that Aussie and NZ are hoping to work together better in regards to setting the calendar with the main races............I believe the Auckland Cup should be in March, in the lead up to the slots, that allows aussie to run their circuit of features in January culminating in the Hunter Cup, and maybe dragging in the odd kiwi runner too the New years eve races at Auckland should just be a regional meeting, that allows Omakau to bump their meeting up stakes and then the numbers, for both the trotters and the pacers, it's a feature meeting and should be treated as one, better co operation can go a long way.
If you are going to change anything, this is the time to be doing it before the dates setting process gets under way in the new year. Once those are finalised in May, it's too late.
As to who benefits from it, I have no clue and can't think of any possibilities.