the galah

gamma,do you think swayzee will be able to get the lead ahead of leap to fame in the hunter cup. i guess leap to fame may press forward and hope someone crosses swayzee early and gets in his way,while leap to fame comes around them after 300m,that way leap to fame will then get the lead. i'm not sure whether swayzee at his best but did look very good when winning recently. I think it was beating don hugo after sitting parked outside him. Just wore don hugo into ground then looked like he could have run another round at the same speed while don hugo,even though game in defeat,looked like he needed a lay down. if swayzee ended up in front, then and in that form hard to see leap to fame sitting outside him and winning,so it may come down to the first 300m. republican paty they say has dropped to $4.20. I guess the bookies must think he can hold the lead then trail swayzee or leap to fame. i find that surprising as it appeared war dan buddy was able to cross easily to lead republican party last week without really trying too hard,so even if republican party were to show more gate speed you would think the driver of war dan buddy will burn early thinking he could cross.Whether he did or not,either way,that would mean $4.20 for republican party to win seems too short. Maybe if they do go mad early it may suit kingman . Interesting race with the draws the way they are.

well you know the aussie form better than i ,but i have watched mynameisjeff and always think hes been the most talented miler at menagle, but his form,even when hes winning can come and go a bit.If he was just aimed at the miracle mile and got an inside draw i couldn't see him beaten. i think if he won at albion park like you mentioned then gee he must be in career best form. Without having seen the albion park race,i assume he lead all the way as i have seen him a handfful of times on smaller tracks and i had always thought he struggled unless able to lead. also,if grimson was to have 3 or 4 in a race like the miracle mile,he would be able to do the team driving that would assist his chances.

i get the impression from watching menagle mile racing that the likes of leap to fame and swayzee will normally get beaten over a mile at menagle,no matter how good they are,if they try and sit parked and wear the leader down. . if they are handed the lead early then they will win. i'm talking over a mile.remember cya art did that last year in the len smith mile when kingman was poorly rated by r morris and had the foot down the whiole race and the likes of swayzee was always strugglng. pinseeker would have to improve to be able to sling shot the better ones,but grimson improves nearly every horse he trains so logically he would be likely to do the same with pinseeker if he were to train him.Personally i think pinseeker best kept to sprints. better than cash was a good horse here but not as good as pinseeker. captain mistress to me has improved quite a bit since going to aussie. The evidence was there the way it won its last start,beating mccarthys good mare who i thought was australias best. Captain mistess just jogged really,really fast last part of race and looked like it could have gione another round at the same speed and beaten the others by half the length of straight had the driver wanted to. It was very good here,but never that good.Thats my opinion anyway. personally i think were they tio run the miracle mile this week my nameisjeff would be the obvious winner. He ran the 2nd fastest last 1/4 ever last week and had no trouble picking up don hugo who also flew a fast last 400m/ Laep to fame or swayzee and even kingman not as fast as himynameisjeff. His form seems to have been up and down for grimson but he ears just a big track horse and i don't know why they try him on small tracks as he never seems comfortable on them. personally i think grimson has something that makes them run faster. some of those times at albion park do seem amazing.but as you say,lots of horses there seem to run them.

hadn't realised you had answered that already gamma before i posted. that captain hammerhead race was a really great contest last year. the draws for this years hunter cup will be a major factor i think. amazing grimson has been able to get swayzee to be going so good again. the recent nz horses he has got,rakero rocket and captains mistress,were both very good but have improved since grimson got them. Obviously he makes previous trainers look like amateurs the way he gets them to run.. my wife said she thought they said on box seat pinseeker may head over there for a bit. if they gave him to grimson that would be another horse that could beat leap to fame at menagle over a mile.

that should have read the figures in brackets were from the year before for Harness racing victoria.

i believe swayzee won half a million last year in bonuses for winning 4 of the 5 nsw country cups. He missed out on the full million when beaten by captain hammerhead in the final cup race. this year i believe captains knock has won the first 3 legs and earned a $250,000 bonus already and if he wins the last 2 legs can win a million.Hes won the wagga,newcastle and bathurst cups so far. the victorian bonus i believe is for any horse who can win 4 of the 6 victorian cups races and one of those wins must include the hunter cup. kingman won the first,then bulletproof boy won the second beating the likes of kingman and himynameisjeff then leap to fame has won the next 3 so he is in with a shot at the milllion dollar bonus. i don't know,but i would guess nsw managed to arrange an insurance company to sign some 3 year deal to pay the bonuses and would guess their premium wasn't too over the top.The insurance company obviously made a terrible decision to take it on and no doubt the success of swayzee and now captains knock will mean any insurance company would have to be crazy to do that again on the same terms.Still who really worries whether the insurance compnay m,ade a poor decision,apart from them.. as to victoria. well since they announced the bonus only last year,after swayzee won his half million,you would guess the premium they paid would have been much more. it seems the focus on both sides of the tasman is to look after the high end horses and the owners who are already mega rich are certainly reaping the rewards.Theres never been a better time to be an owner of an elite harness racehorse in australia. reading the victorian annual report the 2024/2025 season saw them only lose $11.6m after losing $25m the year before.Because the victorian governmant bailed them out so they could stay solvent to the tune of $13.4 m,hrv was able to return a profit of 1.4m but was told by govt they were expected to live withing their means from now on.the govt funding was the final part of a deal worked out in 2023.There was significant savings with staff cuts,stakes cuts(10m less than paid out the year before) ,bonuses cuts,no new projects,cuts to develpment fund,cuts to marketing, to achieve the improved,if you can call it that,result.Turnover was down 8% but so was the number of races so turnover about the same per race as the year before.wagering on all racing is down over there. other indicators were 3282 (3652)..the figure in brackets being the year ,drivers 475 (529),trainers 896 (939) stablehands 857 (922),sires 34 (52),foals 1306 (1396),namings 953 (1044),services 2521 (2855). the end of a distribution deal from turnover with tabcorp saw a $12m drop in income from that source. i don't know how the recent deal they did with the governmant changes things where the govt took there spare land in exzxchznge for wiping hrv debt to the government. you know,you read the above figures from the annual report and you would get the impression ,things have got so much worse over there. But then you read what the current administrators and some higher profile trainers are saying and they will tell you things are on the up.Gee,how bad must they have thought things had become,because all data in that reprort from august last year don't indicate things a going too good. My impression would be,they all must jhave thought harness racing was stuffed but because of the government riding in and taking their main asset and giving them a final part of their bail out,that things havre gone from disaster to ,hey just bad.Hence,it can be said things have got better.

oh well. my multi went down the tube when mithali only ran 5th instead of placing. my wingman won paying $1.85 and hes a loch won paying $41. i see just easy scr because of an incident with the float coming off but apparently horses ok. Whats the bet jr toilen runs a place as i normally just miss 1 when taking a multi.

leap to fame didn't have the foot down all the way last night. Dixon happy to treat the race more as a training run with $85,000 to add to his kitty. republican party went a nice race for 2nd but did get the perfect run and never looked like getting past leap to fame. Still 2nd to a champ like that pretty good. C dalgety, quite indecisive early and checked a couple of others and copped a suspension. Probably lucky the horse that got checked badly ,managed to stay pacing,obviously it was good on its feet. i still think the hunter cup will come down to draws. Swayzee still can win if he draws inside leap to fame.Kingman possibly as well. leap to fame chasing a $1m bonus. whoever the insurer is of that bonus can't be too clever,ever if leap to fame wasn't to win it. Still ,hopefully leap to fame can win it while it exists. mynameisjeff is very,very fast. don hugo set it up for a sprint home and was very good as well,but the other horse just too fast. mynameisjeff would have beaten any horse in australasia in a race that developed into a similar sprint up the straight the way he went.He needs a big track though.

i like that you've thought about think about it but yes i think your over thinking what you think i may be saying about think about it. the money part was reference that money unfortunately can't guarantee life or quality thereof,but that was not my main thought. i hope that clarifies things fior you but maybe it will confuse you more.

you've lost me there. I'm talking nz,not australia.

the life of a racehorse.He wins 12 million,the everest,suffers a massive bleed,survives that against the odds ,retires to be looked after by his everest winning jockey,then a year later,blow me down he dies a couple of weeks later after what had been described as successful surgery for a colic attack. theres a lit to tthink about there. why,life,the fleetingness of it,money.

australia really does sound a wonderful place the way you descibe it and its animals and other nature things . i once came across a wallaby in the middle of the night about 10 years ago,when just out of town. Spotted him just in time in my headlights to slam on the brakes,still hit him,not hard. He was knocked forward a wee bit. Got up and hopped off. Hopefully he was ok and learnt not to sit in middle of a country road.

why not?

of course. why else would i say it. but of course,you have to move with the times chief. i haven't mentioned ped use in nz harness for a couple of years now because i don't think its as relevant. I certainly think it still applies to some in australia. and of course,you and the media,rambled on for years how the all stars were so dominant because of blah,blah,blah. So what happend chief. What happened when the connections needed for that aspect dried up overseas. They came back to the field didn't they, as i predicted at the time.funny that. Why did hrnz never do anything about the person with the overseas connections and who was on the client list of the jailed vet in the usa.. Funny that. anyways,i'm not going to go over that again as we've argued about it enough in the past. besides.you do know,i only believe in conspiracy theories if they are true.Time has proven me correct hasn't it.

fair enough. I thought you were meaning on here mainly.I don't think it accurately described what i see on here. bit of a yarn is the only social media i do.i don't do facebook. and i always think bitter is a word used with negative connotations, to describe genuine feelings people may have about something they have experienced ,or someone,for which any reasonable person could often view having said negative feelings as fair enough. Not always,but often. But anyway, after rereading what i posted i think perhaps i over reacted to what i thought you were trying to say anyway. actually about half an hour ago i googled what best describes a person who makes 3 or more socail media posts a day.It gave 7 traits. Not 1 of them applied to me. not that i believe in putting labels on how people think. anyways,not to worry,i still made my point.