the galah

I hope for tabmans sake he is someone different. But after reading the obituary on the hrnz website he just sounds so familiar to the person we discuss things with on this website. the similarities seem rather long. for example he always such a strong defender of the ATC,like yourself gammalite. But it was more than that,i got the feeling he had real personal relationships with people from that club and he did say a few times he was a regular there on racenights.The thing is,when it came to the ATC,even though he was pro the atc,he never disputed any argument we made based around their financial postion. And this mr williams was an accountant. One time i drifted off in some posts i made on the topic of air quality. i referred to invercargill,timaru and nelson as having poor air quality and how it was reflected in stats relating to increased lung and heart issues for people from those areas. He had replied that i seemed to know what i was talking about as far as that went and mentioned he had lived in a couple of those areas and mentioned he had coached sport,inferring it was nelson. In his discussions with mikeynz he also more than once referred to himself as a former southern man.i hadguessed he was a ex dunedin person, although when we discussed the air thing i wondered,maybe he's worked in invercargill as well. There was no mention of invercargill in mr williams obituary, but he obviously had a long association with otago. Then there was the tone of all his replies.He always tried to be upbeat and positive and that seems similar to what they say about him in the obituary. there was the occasional time when i got under his skin and he wasn't quite his cherry self in how he replied,that was uncommon,but after one of those rare occasions i said to him,well you may not agree with what i'm saying but i could tell a bit about him from how he had worded things,telling him i thought he came across as someone who had wealth and that when it came to his work background,he would have had positions where he was the decision maker.Reading mr williams obituary,his working background sounds famliar to how tabman came across. And from his replies ,you could tell he had a good sense of humour. then their was the reference to him using social media. Like i've said before,when we post on this forum,we all,every now and then,tell people a little bit about ourselves.Its just what we do,even if we use pseudonyms. and for regular contributorslike myself,it feels like you have a connection with some people you don't know,but do know so to speak. And its that connection,through this forum which we enjoy having,most of the time anyway. So,i hope i'm wrong about my assumptions and tab man makes a comeback. Wouldn't that be funny if he did.But if he doesn't i'm sure,even though this is a forum where we don't actually know peoples real names,we still know them well enough to miss them when they stop contributing.And the point of my posts about tabman is,its nice to put a face to a name when they stop posting.

.

i was listening to trackside today and they spoke a lot about the life of a man called gary williams who had died and some of the things they said about him sounded similar to what tab man has told us about himself. So i googled gary williams auckland harness racing and it came up with an obituary on hrnz which when i read it,had even read more similarities. if he is the same fella,then i'm sure we will all be saddened. i do hope he makes a reappearance on here,but maybe someone may know whether hes the same man we often debate . its one of those things ,when you contribute to a site like this. You can tell so much about how the person you discuss things with,without actually knowing who they actually are. i had recently been wondering what had happened to the man who called himself walt ,as he discussed he had health issues at one point and we haven't heard anything from him foer a while.i hope hes doing ok.

the aussies i think are just driving a little bit better than the new zealnad drivers. i've always thought taragindi is the best nz 3 year old and i thought today it went the best in that race. They obviously had decided to drive it from behind because it can run around but those tactics back fired and he missed the boat down the back and then ran into interference. All the while the 2 aussies had the uninterrupted run in front. Habibi pat is a father patrick and as i've pointed out many times,they are good young horses but as they age their manners get more and more inconsistent.Obviously thats a generalisation but theres heaps of examples of it. So habibi pat is good one week but not the next and punters should never be surptised whatever happens on any given day.

can you believe that start. 2 horses wiped out a good 50m before the start and no false start. Whats going on with the starter?

the offical stipes report says "a better jackalack broke in the score up and shifted inwatds checking sweet reine,losing fround" You can see that from the video. so the stipes report acknowledges what we saw happened,but thats it. How can the starter not be questioned as to why he did not call a false start. its dumbfounding. The stipes hold the drivers and the horses responsible fot their actions,but the starter can stuff up big time and they just brush over it.Punters who backed sweet reine deserved better all round.

no funds left after putting it all on that one

well that was a debacle of a start and i hope they fine the starter,as punters who backed sweet reine were robbed blind due to his ignoring an obviouse false start. How the starter didn't see what was happening was ridiculous. The horse that galloped drew beside sweet reine and took sweet reine out of the race 150m before the start drew a position right behind the mobile where the starter sits . And he surely should have been looking there ,because there was also another horse directly behind where he sits, preventing sweet reine taking up its position before the other horse wiped it out pre start. sweet reine was at least 10 lengths off the back of the field after the interference. Then driver l o'reilly understandably just seemed content on following them around as he had no show . But then he actually pulled it to the very outside and flew home from last and goytt up for 4th. And becaus eh e got up for 4th,that meant he couldn't be late scratched because he finished in a dividend bearing position. So,in effect punters who backed it each way or in quinellas and trifectas and first 4's or quaddies ,well they were robbed. the whole thing was an absolute debacle.

Well the race wasn't run quite as i thought. I know they had said republican party was going to stay in front of leap to fame, but i have to admit,as i suggested earlier,i thought that was just talk and that they would realise they would undo themselves if they did that.So it proved and i think republican party went a very good race under the circumstances,just over driven.. Leao to fame went great,very courageous, but maybe just not at his very best, but tried his heart out. Kingman simply the best there on the day. Akuata,well he had every chance. I know they are nz's best trainers,but that horse had a vet exam last month that they said "detected a degree of internal pulmonary excercise induced haemorrhage". In other words he bled but not out the nose.So he was never going to have the lungs to keep going in a hard run race just a month later and so it turned out. But overall a great race,won by a really top horse. Leap to fame certainly great in defeat as well.

The crowd size does seem to be disappointing.It will be interesting to see if the numbers confirm that. Personally i think cup day is on the downward spiralSeveral reasons,but thats just being realisitic and will gradually get less people as the years progress.Some may say that is being negative,but i say its just being realisitic about something that is obvious. several reasons.Can't be bothered listing them but they are obvious. The racing has been entertaining.. there has been quite a lot of horses whose drivers have overdriven them by a long way and they have paid the price,but you get that on cup day i suppose...Its no wonder horses careers don't have the longevity that they used to as there was some gut busting racing. the trackside coverage. well the presenters are good but they have not done the runner by runner analysis that they had been doing on friday nights and i think they simply have talked too much about some horses and ignored so many that were there as well. And personally i really dislike the drone coverage . Its ok when they show them after the finish in a replay type shots but i've never liked it . So i've been a bit disappointed with some of the coverage. But as i say the racing has been good.

My wife insisted i watch tonights show as it was about mark purdon. She really has enjoyed watching guerin's recent interviews so i thought why not and sure enough it was very interesting. Greg o'connor was also very good when he did some interviews like that in the past. I also watched the box seat. The 4 presenters,cross,guerin,o'connor and graham all are very good at what they do and i think when it comes to coverage of the races we are fortunate to have people of that calibre doing the raceday coverage and commentaries. i like the way o'connor and graham have been doing the runner by runner comments in recent times. I think giving recognition to each runner is important myself and a very positive move. I wonder whether they will have graham doing any pre race interviews with the drivers as they circle just before race start time. The aussies do that well. I hope the weather is ok. It looks like it may be,although that wind can be a pain if it picks up. persoanlly i don't really have any picks for tomorrow. 11 of the 13 races seem to have reasonably hot favorites. i see guerin seems to think arcee pheonix should win the domnion for australia. That will be an interesting race.Lots of chances in that race. I had liked mr love a bit,but his wide draw puts me off a bit as he may get a bit far back from there. i suppose leap to fame wins. They say republican party will try and keep the lead if he gets there ahead of leaop to fame.. I don't know,i wouldn't be doing that myself.If leap to fames at his best he wins whether republican party is in front or not. If hes not then republican party could run past him from the trail anyway. Having said that,i personally think republican party has been winning its races here oky because they have allowed dalgety to dictate. that won't happen tomorrow.I think his recent form is being over rated a bit. Still he is a wondrful horse and nz's best chance.Kingman i think is the main danger to leap to fame,but it does seem odd to give a horse with so little standing satrt experience its first stand in the cup. But drawing near the outside i think could play into its fabour and i think it will pay around $2.80-$3 a place so that seems reasonable. Who knows

I see mr wood from cambridge is again suggesting things are not good at the cambridge harness club,on the other channel. lets just remember ,it is david branch from cambridge, who the nz harness media would have us believe is the leading nz club ceo/administrator. I mean ask yourself this,we hardly ever hear the names come out of the mouths of the nz harness media,of those that run the clubs in canterbury and elsewhere that return profits,yet they are always promoting the likes of david branch and j mckinnon as being the smart ones. So it appears the 2 people who run the clubs with the self inflicted worst financial states in nz,are who the nz harness media continue to say they are the smartest ones we've got in nz. it just makes no sense and is what i have always said,the nz harness media lack credilbilty when it comes to discussing some of these sensitive subjects. simply put,don't trust what you hear . And lets remember it is brad steele who has thrown his full weight behind the running of the slot races at cambridge,illustrating this with his many press releases on how important they are. He must have known that they had resulted in cambridge digging an even bigger hole financially for themselves ,as he would have had 3 years of the state of finances to analysis and knew hrnz had already had to significantly bail out the cambridge club previously. why does hrnz like throwing money into financial holes without and direction to change those clubs finances. i don't know,it just seems they know the truth is bad,so to hide the truth they talk things up to make things look better than they really are,then they box themselves into a corner and can't let the truth come out because everyone is going to recognise that their previous narratives are false and that what they say can't be trusted. Thats about where we are at i think at the moment. But back to what mr wood had inferred about cambridge. well very obviously its not well run financially. apparently they can't even get right simple things like running the sportbar they took over. Mr wood saying on saturday,he went into the tab in that bar,10 minutes before the first race at riccarton and he couldn't depost any money as they hadn't even logged on the machine to allow him to do that,despite 3 staff being there and next to no patrons. then he pointed out the lack of promotion for the drivers champs they had on course this week. then there had been when cambridge incurred $50,000 in extra debt eariler this year fighting cambridge raceways ceo,david branch's suitabilty for a managers certificate and the police ,licensing inspectors and the medical officer of health had all opposed the granting of a liqure licenses to allow this years grins meeting to proceed. they had objected because of the unruly behavior of patrons on course the previous year. in the end it obviously was allowed to proceed and in the end the police withdraw any objections to branchs application for a managers certificate.. Branch said he thought the police had unfairly interpreted the law as to who to blame for patrons unruly behavior. but $50,000 more debt for a club already in heavy debt. is that the sign of a club that things are running well. Is not promoting the world drivers champs a sign. Is not running the sports bar properly a sign. anyways,of more importance is i like mr woods horse that he has in the nz galloping cup later this week. I think its place price of almost $4 seems very nice myself.

i'll have a guess. is it one of your favorite horses Gus? Bred and trained by n williamson early in his career. It looks like o kite driving and the trees look like the picturesque course at wyndham.Looks like t may have been a drier summer than normal.

i see at auckland the reason d butcher sacrificed his own drive to assist his stablemate was because his stablemate got a penalty free win if it won.

the final heat another ripper of a race.Some of the most competitive race driving we have seen in nz for quite a while. mats djuse seems to have been the dark horse and has slipped into 3rd and pushed orange back a place. he has a couple of handy drives coming up so you just never know. Hall keeps nipping at the heels of mcdonald. so iit will be interesting to see how it all plays out.