the galah

If hrnz weren't delusionla like you say,they should already had planned for and be implementing a strategy that would have seen north isalnd harness racing prosper in years to come,albeit on a smaller scale. The crazy thing is,current policy by hrnz means they are burning through a lot of money,money needed to provide that viable pathway forward. So, since they are stuffing it up,they won't have the resources in the future to restrucuyre north island racing to the level it could have been. And the worst thing is the impact current and recent hrnz policy for the north island ,will have on the south island. It seems inevitable sout island will get dragged down as well. the apathy and short sightedness of industry stakeholders who seem happy to live in the moment and support hrnz or say nothing is strange.I assume its because the biggest voices are the ones hrnz continues to throw money at.The smaller voices simply have decided to implement their exit strategy or have decided,i'm older,they don't listen to what i have to say anyway,they will reap what they sow, but i won't be particpating when things come to the crunch.thats reality.look around,it is. meanwhile people like the punters who contribute to this site,like nowornever, will do what he has just seid,Turn ther back on such a poor betting product that auckland provide as the punting rewards from supporting that north isalnd product,simply isn't worth the effort.Again,thats another reality.

rest assured brodie,the look north strategy is moving in the right direction. matt peden said so just 4 weeks ago. And the metro series,a key part of that look north strategy,well hrnz think thats working as well. just look at the 4 heats for that metro series last week,they had big numbers with an average field size of 7. that comes on top of their bright idea to get more mares to race at nelson by having a $35,000 final at addington.That got a 6 horse field for that $35,000 race. then theres what hrnz had been saying was good numbers of 2 year olds ready to race.Last week they scrapped 2 of the 3 races for them due to next to no nominations. have they mentioned how high the ATC debt has got in the last few months. Nah,whats a few million extra ATC debt. you know the thing about the turnover figures. the way they spin northern harness racing is..They pick out the racenights that they can point to turnover being up from the previous nyear. But ignore the fact that those meetings often still run at significnat losses, because even with wagering turnover up,they still don't generate anywhere near enough to cover stakes.Hrnz interpretation of that is spin to the effect,the look north strategy is working.You have to laugh.

i hope the chief takes up that offer. it would have to be a win/win/win situation.I can't see any down side to it at all. as to harnesslink. nearly all the new zealand content on harnesslink is just the exact same articles that appear on the hrnz website. besides,the reason your popular is you provide content that people are interested in. People are naturally inquisitive about the people they often see but don't really know,like they wonder,whats their background,what do they do,etc,etc. They see content that is relateable to themselves and because of that they see your content providing coverage that they believe is as deserving of as much coverage as any big timer.People believe themselves and others like them,as being valuable assets to the industry and your contentrewards and portrays that reality.After all,people of all backgrounds dedicate so much of their lives to harness racing. Thats not to say people don't like seeing big players in your content, ,they do,the thing is when you do showcase the bigger players,your actually doing them a favour because your not taking a kiss their your arse type of approach,that sometimes comes across with the liikes of m guerin.Your approach portrays the big players in a that people can appreciate,they're just doing the same as everyone and have the same love of the horse as everyone,just on a bigger scale.thats your content is unique in a good way.Anyways,thats my opinion.Tthe proof is in how popular it is. hrnz or even trackside,with all their resources surprisingly seem to be outplayed in an important part of the industry by one bloke getting help from his wife. as to the unhinged part,i don't think i've seen anyone unhinged on unhinged. I guess thats what you mean. in fact people are more likely to think some of us who post on here can be a bit that way sometimes,but hey, everyone is different,no point living in a fake world where people only say nice things.

the failure of hrnz to prioritise and maximise harness racing exposure by utlilisling unhinged content is one of lifes mysteries. for some time i have thought,wouldn't it be great if bit of a yarn had a forum,linked to the harness forum,where the unhinged post race interviews could be clicked on and viewed. you could guarantee it would lead to a very significant increase in people using the chiefs website and would expose harness racing content to all users of this website,including more galloping followers viewing harness racing content.. thats what i would like to see,forget hrnz,they aren't up to the job ,get it on bit of a yarn. i have no idea whether that is practicle or how it could work but i can certainly see the benefits for the chief,unhinged and harness racing if that happened.

thats very sad to hear. he seems a really nice bloke and a good commentator. He obviously did his homework on the likes of first starters breeding,often rattling off who they were related to,thereby giving recognition to the breeders,a very important industry sector,who nurture those families and never get the recognition they deserve.. he also always gave recognition to who the owners of the horses were that placed. Again,something which i'm sure people appreciated . i heard him say 2 or 3 weeks ago he was going to miss the trackside crew and wondered whether someihing was in the works. its surprising hrnz haven't had a story on it.i haven't read anything.They must know commentators are very well known people within the industry and there is a public interest in this story. The lack of hrnz or media coverage is poor.Harness followers shouldn't have to guess about something like that by reading the name of a race. i suppose the upcoming closure of the greyhounds was going to always impact commentator numbers. The likes of dan fogarty i think a very good up and coming commentator so you would think they will retain people like that. Just the way life works. but as i say,its very sad when you hear anyone lose a job,especially if they are good a it. i felt particularly sad when kevin payne and jason teaz lost their jobs. I really did believe j teaz,in particular had an empathy with how punters view a race and added colour. Thats 3 southern commentators who they have discarded now who all must feel how unfair it all played out. anyway,life aiin't always fair,but lets hope craig rails expertise is not lost to the industry

while on the promotion type thinking for that meeting. i think they need use the promotion of new zealands leading drivers being there. the point being,you've got a crowd ,many of who have probably never even heard of blair orange or zac butcher. what i would do is have hrnz fund the air fares of nz's leading driver,blair orange,new zealands leading woman driver sam ottley and new zealands leading junior wilson house. Then i would get 2 local classic car enthusiast ,with cars that can be driven with the top down. then i would have those drivers introduced,along with the leading north island drivers,zac butcher and leading north island junior harrison orange and leading new zealand female junior, crystal hackett and have them driven up and down the front straight.Maybe have a bit of music,say fly bye from blue playing over the speakers as they do that to add a bit of colour. Then i would have them go in front of the main stand and have a pre promoted as the biggest lolly scrambe in nz racing history,where they move around and throw lollys to the public. Amongst the lollies could be prizes of say 5 betting vouchers, inside a lolly papers.Get a nz candy company involved in providing the goodies and reward them with nameing the big races after their produucts. also i think the commentator could also be asked to highlight the horse who races on the day who has won the most money. For example romeo foxtrot could lead out the filed in his race and the commentator go through his record,highlighting how he has been such a good earner over a long period of time. Maybe the trainer and owners could get introduced as they lead him out in front of the field.the commentator could also,only pre race,give a mention of what those drivers are driving. I don't believe a whites mentioning of drivers nick names throughout races is helpful at all. People want him to commentate a race,which hes good at,not tell tehm what someones nick name is. anyway,the point is,these type of meeetings need to utilised to create that spark of interest in the sport and its people and horses,that seems to be totally under promoted on unique racing days,like taupo could become.

I think the racing at taupo has been a very good initiative by hrnz and the waikato club. Good size fileds and it looks like a nice crowd aregood to see. just a shame the weather not ideal,but still you can see a lot more people and kids than a normal north island race meeting. That has to be part of the strategy for north island racing going forward. Provide a grass track circuit with dates coninciding with public holidays.its just about getting the right number of racing dates that still sees the public and owners and trainers turning up in good numbers. the crossing may ned a little bit of work but its not that bad. some horses break on crossings no matter how good they are. i really like the idea of having the rail out as far as they have.It means the horses are getting to run on the parts of the track that the gallopers won't have used as much and therefore it would be smoother.I'm not sure about right on the outside of the track as far as that goes .. and the fact that the horses are actually racing closer to the public due to racing wider on the track,really its that closeness to the public which is a major part of the appeal of grass track racing for the public.Thats where people can get a feel for the buzz the sport can provide when so close to you.Only thing would be maybe a passing lane,even if only for 1 horse,would help the punters. another positive for sure is the 25-27 minute intervals between races. these sunday meeting where there was 4 nz meetimngs and when they had some 40 minute intervals are a a real turn off for on course patrons. today taupos got it spot on. My only suggestion to promote that may help that meeting is to promote it as a bit of a market day,where you work with local authorities and interest groups to coincide with promoting their things. It would get even more people at the track I've seen where a club had a market day every month on course,then one day it just happened to coincide with a race meeting,and the number of people who attended was quite substanial. It just provided the meeting with an extra buzz even if those people weren't punters,you could capture the childrens interest with a kiddie tote or something.Even the likes of those travelling gypsy perple who turn up with there caravans and trucks and read palms and sell there goods and all that type of sttuff.I'm not into it but i've observedwhere a town where they turned up every 3 years or so,and half the town went for a look.Anyway,just a couple of ideas. But what we see at taupo i think is what the industry needs to capitalise on and the decision makers and club officials and track amnager who made todays meeting happen deserve much credit. Its just a shame the weather looks a bit dull.Still if i was young,a we bit of drizzle wouldn't stop me from having a good day out.

just watched that interview. Orange saying he was surprised go home denise was favorite and thought pre race she was a false favorite.Orange such a good driver you can never discount anything he drives,that being the mistake i made on this occasion. on the positive side,while i have only been able to watch the last 2 unhinged posted contents on my computer for the last year or so as it would not go back any further than that,i was showing the wife the unhinged content on my phone last night and discovered that if i go onto unhinged via my phone i can see all the recent things that have been posted and got to see all yesterdays interviews.Im pleased i found that out.

interesting. coalition for the protection of racehorses,i didn't even know there was such a thing. I guess they must have moved on now the greyhounds are going to be shut down. peter profit website highlighting this race as well. the most disappointing thing,as i keep highlighting,was they have ammunition to fire all because the horse fell .. and just imagine,if these people criticising the harness industry,cottoned on to the fact the stipes decided there was nothing wrong with the 2 juniors knocking over the driverless horse,yet incredibly instead chose to speak to j dunn,the very driver who showed common sense and drove in a way which protected the safety of the driverless horse. thats been the point of my posting. I find the whole thing rather incredulous really. Had the stipes not turned a blind eye and green lighted the dangerous driving,they simply could have replied to the criticism by saying,its not the sport that is dangerous,it was inexperienced drivers poor judgment that was the casue of the fall and that the stipes have penalised those drivers,taken steps to ensure they didn't drive like that again and by doing so had made ensured the safety and well being of both driver and horses,going forward....But they didn't,instead choosing to think solely of the junior drivers and not wanting to upset them,giving the impression that drivers feelings are more important to the stipes than safety. so all this bad publicity is a self inflicted wound due to north island stipes incompetence.

have to laugh. good thing im not a bookie. after 200m i was thinking to myself,well i was right about go home denise,but then takes short cuts,gets the gaps and wins. helped a lot by the leader falling in a hole at the top of the straight but still went better than i though it could. Thats the problem when prince teka in the race. He always stops quickly with 400m to go if the race is further than 2000,so when he was in front i knew holly highlander in a spot of trouble,still it probably got out in time to win anyway. matt crosss aying pre race holly highlander was far and away the better horse in the race and its tote price dropped to $2.60 but mark cookson picked go home denise so its price only went out to $3.60 on the tote. oh well,i suppose prince teka will win over 2 miles next time now i've said that.

well ,since i posted about go home denise its dropped to $2.40.I obviously don't have any followers,unlike the whale.

just watched the whale tip holly highlander on whale watchon trackside and immediately it price dropped from $4.80 to $4. I think it will drop even more myself.. the whale has his followers.

i see the bookies have go home denise a $2.50 favorite. Occasionally you see some at unusual odds,but go home denise a $2.50 favorite takes the cake.I think it should be paying $15 myself. Holly highlander,a horse who has won 7 races and over $100,000 should really be the $2.50 favorite. Oh well,we will see whether the bookies get it right after race 5 is run.

the horses i have must be smarter than the horses you know as mine are quite smart.I've got one that smart that i always tell my wife,i wish it had been around when i was doing my school homework as i would have got better marks ,had it been there. then we have another one. the last time i had one get loose,i was out of the cart adjusting some gear and then i half tripped when it pulled foward as i was swapping sides . I just let it go as i thought i'm too old to get dragged and no big deal,it will just go back to the stables and no one else was there. But instead it went and did its fast work against the pylons,running the 2 rounds like i normally did. I have to say it didn't over exert itself.Lazy bugga.Then as i waited near the entrance thinking it might run off when it was finished,but it pulled up just after the post,like i normally did,turned around slowly and just stood there facing me, waiting for me to take the reins and jump back in the cart. gee that was a bad accident your dad had. that must have been a frighterning thing for your family. what happened with your horse sly davita was an example of just how horses can be impacted by falls.Life isn't always fair. thats why i feel for the connections of the horse becker. Who knows,the horse may be ruined for life,then again it may bounce back as it was a fall on grass. we had one,the horse we were following got badly checked , almost went down and then we got ploughed into from behind. My horse did a remarkable job not to fall,but she pulled some muscle in her rear end and it took 8 months before she came sound again. I myself had a sore neck for a year . Horses are fragile when they fall. people are fragile.safety should always be prioritised.thats been my point

yes that lee stable has a couple of really good short course trotters. i watched leap to fame win last night.Simply much too good.you would have enjoyed that gamma. kingman hung terribly throughout and really did well to hang in there until the last bit although laep to fame well clear from the rest.. kingman really needs to be in front and on the inside dictating his own line as he simply couldn't beat a champ like leap to fame hanging like he did.He did hang when he won the nz cup,but last night he was much worse.