Chief Stipe

Really? Where do you get these so called PED's? Swayzee has always been an exceptional horse. Running 1.54 in its first race as a 2yr old is top drawer. In my opinion he was poorly trained until Grimson got him.

So you would have us all believe that Grimson a few days before Tuesdays race sneeks into the country some secret undetectable PED and injects the horse which then performs exceptionally. Well it doesn't perform exceptionally and certainly not a career best. If this mysterious PED is so good why didn't Cya Art run a career best performance and actually win the race given the run it had?

It wasn't a particularly fast time. Nor was the Junior FFA. You don't seen to assess race by race performances.

Ben Yole wins the Tasmanian Championship year in year out based on sheer numbers.

How long was Swayzee here for prior to the Cup? You have no idea about Grimsons travel arrangements and can only speculate. The Telfers may have given the horse regular vet checks but not many trainers do full blood analysis and adjust feed and supplements relative to those tests. Pre-race blood testing was done and the horse was swabbed. It is a nonsense that there is a mysterious unknown drug (restructured peptide) that is freely available and cannot be detected. What experts? As I've said you can test for everything and anything especially when you have a reference sample. As they did in the Fishman case. @Archie Butterfly is talking nonsense when he posts the Horse and Camel Supplies website as a source of these injectable drugs. Do you really think these so called experts you mention can't source samples from Horse and Camel Supplies?

But it wasn't a significant rise in performance and the race was run well below the standard for the race and its class. I estimate about 30m slower.

AM Butt was once too. They don't have a particularly high UDR the Telfers which would tend to indicate that their premiership win is based on horse numbers.

I would have said they bought the horse after Kaikoura and were running tests on it before then. So at least 2 weeks training and other information longer. 99% of the time as I've shown with Swayzee the improvements aren't all that significant. Arguably you can say the same for Cya Art. With no evidence for performances that based on the horses previous form is attainable. Do you really think that given all the publicity, innuendo, inference and accusations of wrong doing that Cya Art and Swayzee weren't being closely monitored by the RIB over the last two weeks? Pre-race blood testing was done and both horses were swabbed.

Explain why the performance was exceptional for Cya Art? It had the run of the race, spent nothing from its draw of 1 and sat behind the winner for the entire race. They really only sprinted home the last 800m - another top drive by Mark Purdon. When Cya Art came off the winners back it just kept up beaten 1.3 lengths. Cya Art ran a near identical race in April at the Met in the same time but was the performance of that race. Sitting parked for most of the first lap. Then shuffled back a bit before running the fastest last 400m of the race to finish second. That was an R55-R67 race and he ran up to that performance in the Junior FFA which arguably was run well below its normal standard. They've run two seconds quicker in the Junior FFA in the previous two years.

Well done @JasonTeaz

I also notice that Swayzee had a 10 month spell between September 2021 and August 2022. He then had 19 starts to April 2023 when Grimson takes him on. He had still been winning and running good time but below his previous form prior to that. Grimson gives him a month off racing. The horse comes back and improves by 1.5% I.e. about a second. His races under Grimson have been well spaced by comparison to the previous trainer who in my opinion thrashed the horse. I see a similar pattern with some other trainers where a good horse who shows talent early is raced hard and not placed well. Subsequently their form drops off. Harness horses that can run top time as a 2yr old don't get slower they get stronger as they age Grimson is placing Swayzee very well. He could have undone everything with the horse if he had backed up in the FFA.

I have a suspicion that detail on what happens to each horse is now being done in the bunker post race or even well past the race meeting finishing (bit like Rugby's TMO). The delay seems to be variable relative to the importance of the race meeting. Big Saturday meetings fairly short time frame. Sunday meeting not so quick. Probably not Oathams job anymore either but the bunker Stipe. I'm not defending him I just suspect the process has changed. Don't be surprised if you see a "Stipe Comment" sneak into the form line I'm the next couple of days. As a slight aside I notice from time to time there is a bit of a Government bureaucrat mentality with regard to work time. If you watch the trial videos upload you'll notice that trials at a major venue are uploaded easily inside 30 mins except there is a delay which corresponds with lunch time which can be as long as 90 minutes. Videos from a smaller venue can take 1 to 3 days even though we are led to believe that every official venue must have a data uplink. As the saying goes the more things stay the same.

Swayzee did run 1.53 as a 2yr old. Bolted in in his first race as a 2yr old at Menangle winning by 14m. Trained by AM Butt and driven by Jason Grimson. Perhaps the questions should be asked about what has gone wrong at the Butt stable? https://www.harness.org.au/racing/fields/race-fields/?mc=PC210420 1.54 maiden winner running last 1/4 in 27. Looked a potential champion on that performance.

Don't forget Moroney and Stackhouse winning the Blue Saphire with Run Harry Run.

Not so sure. She needs a perfect run an her style is to be held up with cover for the last dash at them. Te Akau haven't had their normal weekend of success.

Trackside Premier (64) is BS. 3 mins out from NZ Cup and we get a drone shot of tents and then a shot from 1000 feet in the air of Gulliver's Travels size horses walking around the back of the starting gates.

Woops my mistake I was on Channel 64.

Is this an Aussie cheer leaders Topic?

Why? Every horse gets a chance and the track surface is impeccable.

Although the Steward report says he got a hopple shortener cord caught in a hopple. I reckon it was related though to Mark's reaction.

I saw a close up replay of that incident in the FFA where Akuta bobbled for a few strides. I think Mark caused the issue when he reacted to the horse in the trial trying to chew his collar off. When it happened Mark moved suddenly and I think he dropped tension on one rein for a tick.

FFS I want to see the horses in the parade ring and the preliminary. Optimally coordinated with the horses details and price. The lead up to the 1000 Guineas is all over the place. I don't want to see a bloody drone view from 500 feet!!! Nor crowd shots of kiddy kastles!

Why would you expect them to have the same penalty outcome when the facts are different?

Geez I know, contrary to your own self belief, that accurate statistical analysis is beyond you but it also seems so is literary comprehension The cases were different but I know such nuances escape you and your agenda to slag off Greyhound racing at any opportunity. I've consistently raised my concerns about the inconsistency of the RIB Judicial decisions both within a racing code and between codes. I've also been consistent in my criticism of the RIB AND Code management to address the elephant in the room which is environmental contamination. If you don't believe there is a difference between environmental contamination and deliberate administration of a prohibited substance then you are clueless about the challenges facing the racing industry. Granted there is also a difference between a licensed person themselves returning a positive and their dog returning an environmental contamination positive vs a drug free trainer's dog returning an environmental positive. The RIB are taking the easy option by treating it as being no different. If a dog returns a positive at a level that can only be reached by deliberate administration to the dog then the penalty should be different for one that has a low level non performance enhancing positive obviously caused by environmental contamination.

I prefer Moonee Valley way ahead of Rosehill or Randwick.