Just lots of hot favorites in the short distance races. .

tonight at least they have a couple of trotting races and the older horse race,but so many hot favorites in the other races. Pretty much the same every week.

and i've noticed auckland seems to get better odds .

tonight pretty much the same with onty the one short priced favorite at auckland at this stage. Yet they have smaller fields.

as i keep saying,the friday night addington meetings may have good horses racing,but to me you simply can't compare the harness betting product to the south island galloping betting product.

The gallops at the likes of riccarton or invercargill or where ever in the south island ,you always get reasoanble value if your backing anything. The trots,the short prices just will be turning people off betting on them.

My suggestion is they bring in more pbd over 2600. Not sure whteher it would work,but they need to be doing something different,otherwise people won't bother.

Thought they may have changed the format seem they had a month or so off, but no just as bad!

Idea is good, the format is shocking and grown men acting like PLONKERS!

I also note that the NZ Warriors are playing at the new ChCh stadium, One Stadium and that game is a sellout and guess what?

That game starts at 4.0pm the exact same time as Addington starts!

Now I am not too sure why they would want to run the meeting at the same time as the league game, not sure it is in the best interests of the Club?

Why can they not start the meeting at say 11.00am and be finished early enough in the best interest's of racing?

Anyway, just seems a bit odd?

while i've always personally believed the closure was very forseeable due to so much bad publicity its own small % of licenceholders had created for their  industry and i always thought there incentivising the factory farming type approach was a big mistake.It led to such dominabce of the indutsry by a small number and the inevitable wastage of actual living dogs that creates when you mass farm and base what you do aroound the $. And even though few seem to admit it publically within that industry, i think there was a failure of many to push for greater accountablilty of those who brought the bad publicity upon everyone.

 I'm not a hypocrite,i view horse racing has the same problem when it comes to horse wastage after racing,but unlike greyhound racing,the horses have a much wider base of owners. Actually harness racing is currently rewarding and pushing policy that encourages and provides incentives for large scale breeders at the expense of the small scale breeders.i've always thought that is a very short sighted current policy,but thats another story.

anyways,back to the greyhounds,i like so many,fondly remember the days when a night at the greyhounds was an entertaining and  enjoyable way to spend time.I spent many a night doing so at qe2.Not now though,addington  the dogs are so far away and no atmosphere whatsover. Such a shame,but thats why no one goes,but i do assume tracks like manakau are still good to go to.

but  the dogs and all the people associated with the industry now are coming to an end. I've read and seen interviews where all the racing dogs rehomed will have to be desexed and that means the greyhound breed will disappear. I just find that so sad as their has always been something majestic about watching them run. Still is.Thats never changed. And on our daily walks wei pass people walking their greyhounds  and it just seems unfair that people won't get to appreciate them in the future. I feel quite unconfortable with thinking thats what our government has done.Then ,having watched as many dropped out of the horse racing industry due to differing reasons over the years and how sad they were when doing it voluntarily,you wonder how bad one would feel when being forced to do it due to a governmental decision.i really feel for them and their dogs. The fact i can still watch and bet on the aussie dogs i think is a good thing,although perplexing. Shame nz people can't take their dogs there unless they pay for a chartered plane themselves. I wonder how many will move to aussie.i watch r evans sometimes form here. He seems to be going fair enough,but not as good as he was when here. But thats just a casual observation based on watching his dogs run in queensland on trackside. Maybe its harder over there.

so the point of this post is,what is the harness industry doing to help everyone involved.I do get the previous lack of public support from the horse racing industry when the greyhounds got the hard word. Arguing against something that was to ones benefit wouldn't have made much sense,but then again was it the right thing to do nothing.Again that is something i never quite agreed with,even if i understood it.

lets hope tracks like addingtojn,who benefitted financially from the greyhound industry do something on a regular basis to show there appreciation and empathy for the greyhound industry and those within it.There must be a few ways the addington club can do that. lets hope they do something,as easing the pain for those within the greyhound industry who will feel lost and a little betrayed in some ways,will be something that the racing industry should at least try and help. After all,they are the same industry,albeit just a differecnt code. Only a little over 2 months to go for them.

"its flying.The stakemoney here is unbelievabkle and what the babies can race for is probably as good as anywhere in the world.Sustainabilty is the key,but we need to have faith in the administrators.I can't believe it has so many knockers.Its not that i get on facebook that much,but it always has the same 2 or 3 people bagging the industry.They want to go to aussie and have a look at whats going on over there."

now i respect mr butt,he is a smart man,but are his comments accurate.

Like the number of horses being bred was the 2nd lowest ever last year,if the number of licence holders wasn't at an all time low last year,then it had to be very close to it,the auckland club is 77 million or some crazy figure in debt,cambridge is in a financial hole,group races for 2 year olds are being cancelled and so many 2 year old races have ridiculous low numbers that they sometiome only have a win tote pool. If the former ceo of hrnz was doing such a good job,then why are they saying he was asked to leave,the number of race meeting programmed fior the northern region over winter was halved as they don't have enough horses to run the meetings programmed,turnovers are not looking good,etc,etc,etc.He makes no mention of the massive cash injection of entain money nor how that guaranteed income from entain will only last a couple more years.

obviously to mr butt,despite all those things,he thinks the industry is flying. 

I have no idea who mr butt is bagging on facebook.

but clearly there are two different groups of thought as to how things are going.

mr butt is clearly saying things are great, so stop moaning. And  some are saying,things are not  being run as well as they should be,we need to tighten our belts and live within our means and that special interest groups are being given preferential treatment..

My question to mr butt would be,how is the second group bagging the industry if they believe what they say and all the indicators ,that i listed above,indicate what they say is accurate.

really,if i was to analyse mr butts comments,i  think they are those of someone who personally is more than happy with where things are at for himself. he obviously values his family time and hes working for a stable whose needs the administrators prioritse. The type of stable who,as mr butt notes, current hrnz policy allows their young horses to race for what he calls as good as money as anywhere in the world.

in other words,mr butts  at  a good place in his mind and he can't see why others shouldn't be as well.

well,of course,not everyone has the same reality or current mindset as  mr butt has currently.

anyway,good to see mr butt is in such a positive frame of mind,lifes always better when you can be like that.

the thing is,what we on forums like this do,is we look back on peoples /administrators past comments and we highlight whether those past comments were acucrate and whether the people who make them have a good track record to indicate whether we should look to them in the future for guidance.

To be competing at his age is inspiring and of course we should consider all he does health wise for others.

Some dear friends of mine have been very close to the whole Chin family for decades and only ever speak of Luk with genuine warm, admiration and affection.

There is often negativity in our sport about one thing or another so to see such a special moment with Luk is pretty special 🏆

They know that Steve Stockman is the one that backs them most of the time despite what they are paying!

He would be better to concentrate on the racing stable bills rather than punting them!

too many of them are just unbelievably too short!

Tattica in the last race just run at $4???

Had no chance at winning!

hes apparently quoting a post on x from mikey g

brad steele now the ceo at auckland.

hard to take it seriously, as we had been told steele needed to go back to australia for personal reasons and the other side of the story was he had been told he was no longer required because HRNZ was making so many obvious dumb decisions.

But it is harness racing in nz,so i guess in some ways ,it probably is true.

either way,its still hard not to laugh out loud.

at least thats my opinion.

For example.

1)What is HRNZ's future strategy to assist the auckland club.Are we going to see the continued HRNZ policy of trying to resurrect interest in auckland racing through things like preferential stake funding,based on the fact they think the area with the highest population should have more people interested than actually are.

What is HRNZ"s thinking around what they will contribute to the proposed new training facility in auckland ,given the auckland club don't have enough money to build it.

Do HRNZ even have a strategy.

2)The government last month releasing a detailed statement on the proposed possible changes for online gambling.

Seemingly the preferred government option, being that the tab's monopoly is extended to cover all online betting by new zealanders ,thus excluding betting with overseas agencies.While it obviously would be a complicated thing to enforce,the clock is ticking.

In 2028,Entains guaranteed minimum return to the tab nz,of $150 million a year,runs out and theresfter return to the tab,then to the racing industry, would be based on actual turnover which is most likely to fall short of the $150 a year minimum.

Its also important to have the ban on betting with overseas providers set up and being enforced by 2028,as entain pay another $100 million to the TAB,plus another undisclosed figure which would also see an uplift in entains guaranteed monthly from 2028.

Can HRNZ inform us about that? 

3)Then you have the greyhound issue.

How is the harness industry going to be effected(benefit from),due to the redistribution of funds that the unfortunate greyhound industy will no longer be there to receive in a couple of years.

HRNZ doesn't seem very forthcoming in disclosing information about things that could possibly lead to any negative dissection .

The above are subjects which obviously are huge as far as the industry goes.

Sure some ofwhat i've raised are recent and ever evolving.

But isn't it reasonable to expect better communicatio from HRNZ than they give.

I do see the latest press release from HRNZ seemed a typical one from them.

Its the one from matthew peden.

Its like you have to read between the lines as to what they don't say,and then just left to guess.

Heres an example ,he says"given the enormous uptake we saw in the entain bonus in 2024".

whats that mean,afterall the bonus only started in 2024 and they gacve it to every 2 year old getting its first win then changed it to make others eligible if they placed.

Then he says"larger number of 2 year old pacers and trotters lining up to race in 2024..

Well if he wanted credibilty he would have given the figures. He didn't,i would suspect because they aren't what he infers.what are they and what was the average field size compared to previous years.I can't remember so many 5 or 6 horse 2 year old races being run in previous years. Besieds they only changed the birthdate from august to december a couple of years ago.

And mr peden refers to a draft 2 year old rAacing date schedule.

he specifically said in the press release"we expect to see a continuation of trends we saw in 2024,with a larger number of 2 year old pacers and trotters lining up to race".

Is he expecting that increase to aplly to only the north island ,as the number of scheduled races for 2 year olds in the south island is down 1.

He must think the growth area for 2 year old racing is to be in the north island ,as they go from 21 in 2024 to 26 in 2025.

Who missed out?

2026.27 Final Racing Calendar - TAB NZ.pdf

That of course is going to impact everyone in the harness industry as travel is a significant cost for anyone who is taking horses to the races and owners will pay more as well..

then you have the discretionary $ available from punting households. That must be impacted by the extra they pay for petrol and the inevitable rise  other costs.

since the war started,iran have stated over and over ,that they will not end the war until they are ready,not when the usa says.And they have repeatedly said their strategy is to create economic turmoil that exposes the usa  for the instigators of the worlds economic turmoil and that way they the usa will never come back whenever they want to bomb the hell out of them and that they want reparations and one or two other strategic things. So that strategy makes sense when you think about it ,so its irrelevant what trump says about the war,even though trump seems to haver lost his marbles.I used to be a trump supporter,but what a hypocrite he.'s turned out to be. Went on and on about not wanting death and destruction in ukraine but then goes and does the same thing. And what about what hes doing to the cuban people

Anyways,the point is,this war is going to impacteverything and its going to be long term impacts and the harness industry needs to start thinking of strategies to ensure they operate within their budgets going forward. We all think they aren't currently,so they really need to start thinking ahead to limit the impacts of the war. Because this will defintely have an impact.

what a brilliant idea to have discussions about the future of racing in NZ and how it can be viable in the future !!

Seriously well overdue and possibly too late, shouldve been done 3 years ago or earlier as the cash splash from Entain has been wasted big time.

With harness everything seems to take far too long and correct decision making has been lacking unfortunately.

Those that have been making the decisions at HRNZ and those signing off on them should never ever be allowed near the office again, but we know that it is mates looking after mates.

Already the HRNZ Board should be cutting the current stake money being paid on a lot of the current racing until it is under control, but this is not being done because they are getting paid.

it is going to have to happen as the purse strings tighten, so why not Now?

Since the new website for the TAB was taken over by Entain, Sports and  Racing have brought out some different features!

Does anyone know how this Money Tracker thing actually works?

You look at it and it will show that horses have more bets and more money wagered on them and yet the bookies price lengthens??

Then other horses prices get slashed and you look at the Money Tracker and according to them very few wagers compared to others and far less money and yet they slash the odds??

Seems a crazy situation and no explanation apart from them taking the proverbial and having us on??

Also, regarding Tim Butt, what is he up to now? What a great run stable had a few years back. 

the bookies have the best chances too short,then the tote just follows the prices of the favorites in. Then if you get matt cross tipping the same horse,they end up paying even less.

been following my wingman,only paying $1.85 to win today. should win,but $1.85.

the best value always seems to come at methven.

my tips for methven are race 2. Mithali for aplace at $4.80,race 4 hes a loch at $41 w $8 p,race 5 just easy$26 w and $6 p and race 11 jrtoilen at $2.90 p.

so i will tip a multi of my wingman/win,mithali/p,hes a loch p,just easy w  and jr tolilken p. For a $1  investment i expect to get $5356.  Maybe i will do just easy for a place multi as well and collect $1236.or throw in hes a loch to win in that first multi to win and get $27,451 for my $1.

don't say i didn't tell you beforehand.