the galah

billy. I will just stick to your question and not the intent of it. i use the editing in about 90% of posts My normal practice is to type out my reply,have a quick read,then push submit,then use the 5 minutes available after posting that reply to edit any spelling mistakes or add anything that i may think relevant. So everyone has 5 minutes to edit their posts. i do not have spell check on my computer and 3/4 of my keyboard has the letters missing. I did twink them on one time,but the twink disappeared pretty quick anyway. So i often have typing errors in my posts for a start and edit them when i read them. And because my posts can be rather long winded ,i sometimes still have the odd spelling mistake or words joined together. being billy connolly i will throw in the first scottish joke that comes to mind. did you hear about the scotsman. He was that tight he only breathed in. oh,i've re read this post a couple of times first,so as to avoid the edits for you.

obviously your both entitled to your opinions,but theres no doubt whatsoever the stats show you are both well and truly off the mark. Prior to today,her last 50 rides had resulted in 8 wins,7 seconds and 2 thirds. today she rode 2 more winners with 2 2nds. I too watch the south island gallops and to me she is clearly the most in form jockey in the south island. as to the comaprison with o bosson. what a silly comparison. Shes an apprentice, but even having said that,your comparing the 2 ignores recent results. o bosson had prior to taday, 8 wins 7 2nds and 5 3rds in his last 50 rides. And of course he would be riding more favorites than bakker. So really her stats are very obviously just as good as his. Sure he had a good day today,but so did bakker. personally i think the reason bakker has become so successful is simple.she ihas become a go forward jockey and horses run fior her because she doesn't fight them and she allows them to run at a consistent speed. The mr pacquio ride was an example of her using the go forward tactics that are the reason for all her recent success. It may not work sometimes ,but it doesn't change the fact it is why she has become so successful in recent months. oh,and did you bother having a look at her ride on mr pacquio the start before. Perhaps you should.And did you ever think the reason it got keen at kurow was because the trainer added some new gear.

trendy van gogh, ran 6th,rather surprising since it wasn't even a starter according to the hrnz website(was scr according to them)

at least we didn't have the drone

probably good advice as far as chilcotts horses go,but i don' follow hers much anyway and am betting less and less on northern harness racing these days anyway.At least when chilcott drives,you know shes trying. With many of the drivers up there,i'm not sure whether they aren't trying sometimes or whether they just are poor tactically. But the village rebel drive. I found it funny strange type of thing, watching, as i thought every driver in nz had seen tyson race and would have been happy to sit on his back. But obviously not.

race 11 you had them run a 65.4 middle half and the horses 3,4 &5 back the inside all just sat on the marker pegs and the 65/1 shot driven by h orange was the only one to show he could judge pace,as he made a move from behind them while they just sat there asleep. then in that last race.you had m mckendry make a good move mid race as the pace slackened and you would have thought village rebel racing parked, driven by s abernethy, would have welcomed the perfect 1/1 position,but no,that made too much sense. Village rebel actually may have won with a smarter drive as it stuck on. I didn't back abernethy,i hardly bet on auckland racing anymore because i never know what some of the drivers may do,but that was auckland cup night, so you would think they would be trying. i can see the funny side of it,but why would any clever driver do what abernethy did.The answer has to be, no clever driver would,so theres the answer.

i'm not sure whether anything exciting happened in races 6,7,8, & 9, as i didn't bother watching. But i did tune in and catch the auckland cup and agree it nothing a non win race at motukarara didn't have. Only difference was the auckland race had a very messy start with 8 runners whereas they have much fairer starts with 14 runners at motukarara . Rather strange if you look at the video. Like you say brodie,just a fast last 800. Akuta probably could be called unlucky as he didn't get a fair start.

blaming poor programming for westports small numbers seems misplaced to me. Isn't it obvious,the reason you the bigger fields in canterbury and the numbers are dropping off in westport,is because people are just racing where they prefer to race.Thats the way programming should work. Provide races where the demand for them is. then,isn't accomodation very hard to come by over the coast.Of course theres other other factors as well. so the small fields just reflect the supply and demand thing. as to saying nelson wasn't happy with timaru. What were you wanting,another methven/kaikoura type thing where they don't hold a canterbury meeting so as to get more horses running at nelson.Suggesting that suggests you want owners options limited so as to encourage them to spend big bucks travelling to race where they don't want to race.That just makes no sense to me. the mares races that hrnz have been promoting for nelson.big deal,so they may get another 1 or 2 starters in those races. What a waste of sdtakemoney that could have been distributed to more needy industry participants in canterbury racing who provided the horses that resulted in the big turnover at motukarara.Maybe nelson having a moan about the dates like you mentioned was why hrnz came up with the mares races thing. Thats the way hrnz seems to work.Through money at whoever it is having the latest moan to placate them.

having watched the first 5 races,you can't help but think racing at any south island grass track is so much better than anything auckland ever delivers,even on their supposed best race day. and that is where hrnz is pouring all the money into. those last 2 races have been totally ridiculous. in race 4, only 3 went away then they ran what the commentator said was the slowest mid race half he could ever remember in 30 years of calling,yet no one at the back showed any intent to improve.. then that race just run,i thought a bit of a joke myself. Sure david buthcer won,but anyone watching the race must have thought what a ridiculous spectacle. David butcher just drove to block anyone behind him. He moved out then in then out then in then out then in then finally out again, whenever anyone behind him tried to move up. None of that rubbish ever happens at a south island track .

motukarara had no nz galloping meeting to compete against ,as had been the case in previous years,so that would have helped the turnover. westport had several false starts and that would have helped boost their figures as well.

the tote turnovers for todays motukarara meeting appeared to be very good. The turnover will have been miles better than they will get for the upcoming auckland trotting cup metting. you would know more than me about the ff restrictions they put on people,but as you mentioned in a recent thread they seem to be accepting big bets of $5000 on horses that you scratch your head about. back to the hrnz website,it really is poor when you comapre it to the galloping website. They can be an hour or two putting up replays yet the gallops website always has it after about 10 minutes. the continual breakdowns of the hrnz website must be costing the harness industry in turnover.just how much,you could only guess,but you would think quite a lot. Its really strange that hrnz has not fixed it as its gone on for so long now.Most would think it should be a top priority,but i guess it is hrnz.Thats part of the reason people wonder about them. But its not just hrnz. i was a customer of meridian energy in recent years. i chose them because their website was so easy to follow. well about 3 months ago meridian energy said they upgraded their website. What a disaster that was for meridian energy. their new website i couldn't follow at all and to top it off,a few weeks payments just went missing in their system. When i rung up and complained ,they just said,yes we know,we are gettiing on to it straight away. Apparently the payments had disappeared into a black hole in their new system and they took a couple of months to work out where and how to get them back on peoples accounts.. I just changed power companies. i wonder if hrnz uses the same website making firm as meridan.

groundhog day again. Hrnz website not working as per normal. HRNZ would have to have one of the worst websites in existence.. the love racing galloping site never has those type of issues. Hrnz must cost the industry lots in turnover.

yes,if you slow down and stop the video prior to and as the tape was released,the horses weight was clearly on the back foot,but it was the releasing of the tape that triggered the backward movement from the horse. Similar to what we saw with evangilist who reared at westport. The concern about the hobbs decision is it indicated the stipes in charge were influenced by the fact the horse was the hot favorite and driven by nz's leading driver. They should not in anyway be factors that influence the stipes in determining whether a horse is late scratched or not,because if they are,you get inconsistency in stipes decisions which leads to discontent amongst punters and licence holders who are treated differently,depending on who they are or what horse they drive. sure,hobbs backing away straight after the tapes went wasn't a good look,but everyone should have the rules applied in the same way and preferential treatment should never occur. That should be the aim in an ideal and fair world.

the westport cup was a strange race. a false start was decleared because the starters assistant failed to release the hand held tape fast enough the first time,causing the backmarkers to be slow away. the stipes report noted she was spoken to advisedly. Maybe something like,next time do it with your eyes open.The result of the restart was evangilist got annoyed and reared up. The horse had its chance to go away,simply had decided not to after the false start. at least they didn't have the vet holding the tape like they did a couple of years ago. I remember starting a thread that the vet was too slow in releasing the tape and cost a backmaker some ground and wondered why a vet was holding the tape in the first place. then in yesterdays westport cup,the eventual winner jumped what appeared to be some white paint markings on the track and lost ground.That seemed very odd,why were there two very obvious white markings on the track close to each other.How does that happen. strange. my skatjie was denied a chance to line up as there was another horse in its way.I've often wondered if they pay the connections the starting fee if they are late scratched.

just the luck of the draw betting on the trots sometimes. If you slow it down you can see the horse had its weight on the back fee, but only started going backwards after the tape went. It was never going to go awaya with its weight on the back feet,but you see something like that in almost every non win stand ,especially in southland. So an inconsistent decision but thats just the way it goes sometimes. a recent example,hacksaw ridge at wingatui, was actually going moving backwards for some distance and the starter still let them go,no money back for punters. I think they contact the tab straight after it happens,if i've have bet on them they deem it a starter,if i have bet on something else that has run a place,they late scratch the horse concerned so as to cut my price.At least it seems like that sometimes.