the galah

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.

i never consider them if they are running on wet grass tracks.They never seem to go much good. And you have to factor in they don't travel well if going to places like the coast but the opposite applies when they go to southland,as they seem to go even better there. Theres been those patterns for some time now,obviously theres a reason,but you could only guess. Thats why i said earlier ,you would go broke backing them,even though they win so many races.

i see maurice mckendry driving most of the telfer horses today,instead of j dickie, who only drove the one from the stable who wasn't given much chance by the trainer in the preview. They certainly are different drivers. Mckendry tends to drive at a more consistent speed,but not very aggressive most of the time ,whereas dickie tends to put them up on the speed whenever he gets the chance. because mckendry drives them kinder and the horse doesn't bust a gut trying,the stable may improve,but then again dickie is the better driver if you are a punter. who knows its a stable i think you would go broke betting on,but they are nz 's leading stable on wins. Theres also seems a diifference in performance if north island horses transfer to the south island,they always improve,but then lose a few lengths when they go back up north. the horses in the north isalnd tend to go way from stands ,whereas the horses in the south island tend to always break in stands. Of course there are some obvious exception. then you also have the north isalnd horses go better when t williams drives themif hes up there. i find them a confusing stable to follow. but they look like they will break the nz record for number of wins.

majestic son has been the leading sire of trotters for many years in nz and his service fee is only $5000,so his horses qualify for todays races. hats off to Alabar stud who stand him.They seem more industry focussed with how they price their horses than money focussed.

wll i've tried getting on the hrnz website for a look at todays form with horse profiles and recent videos,but it hasn't worked all morning. its just reflects poorly on hrnz.

in 2023 hrnz made a big deal of announcing the base funding for low key provincial races was a minimum of 10,500 and provincial standard race funding of $11,500 minimum. yet,when on another thread this week,you had westview saying the reason methven paid out such low stakes yesterday was because hrnz only funded them $8,000 per race. so,if we assume westview's figures are accurate,then funding by hrnz for provincial races has already dropped by well over 20% in the last 2 years. Yet they still are throwing money at the elite level of horses. Like i have said many times,its currently all about prioritising stakemoney for small interest groups who have the ear of those in charge,then when the peasants in the cheap seats have a moan,they throw a few crumbs there way to placate them, while cunningly quietly,cutting back on the stakes they are paid elsewhere.Isn't that what is actually happening?

stopping the rebates must significantly impact turnover. Its just simple logic that it will be costing the tab/entain significantly in turnovers. the reasoning is simple. take every win and place bet that a person who got rebates makes.The tab take out of every $ spent is 15% on those bets and the rebated punter was getting back something like 1-2% at the end of each month,depending on what level the rebated punter fell into. so every $ a rebated punter spent,the tab was still receiving a minimum of 13% profit. then you look at the exotic bets like trifectas. i think the tab takeout % on those bets is 25%. They pay the rebated punters up to 3 or 4%. So the tab was still making at least 21% on every $ the reabted punter spent on exotic bets. So for every $1000 a punter spends on tritectas the tab is making at least $210,aving paid the rebated punter $40. so if you extrapolate that out,say the punter was a break even punter,which not many are,but say they were. Then that means every $100,000 they spent the tab got $21,000 and the punter $4000. But now you start to get real,and find that punter who was spending $100,000 was losing 4%,but was getting that 4% they were losing back in rebates,so were therefore breaking even. so now ,with no rebates,that punter is losing $4000 a month,or $48,000 a year. so very ,very quickly that punter will just stop betting or just cut right back on there spend.Its inevitbale.its just common sense. There can be no way the tab or entain could possibly have calculated the negative impact of taking away the rebates before they made the decsion to do so. The only indicator they could have used would be to compare the spend of punters who recieved the rebates before they got them ,against there spends after they got them.

So you give us an example of the dangers of a racing organisation(australian turf club) spending more than the revenue they generated,saying thats bad, then in the same reply saying your ok with hrnz doing that,because its good.. its seems a contradiction to me.. so having expressed opposite opinions,obviously your are at least half right. I agree with the half ,where you said racing orgainsations should not spend more than they can afford or they will end up in big trouble. that australian turf club story i followed a wee bit but it seems rather complicated and doesn't interest me much as its in australia and is the gallops Didn't they recently reject selling randwick for 5 billion. The VRC has had a few bad years as well and didn't they lose over 7 million in the last financial year?i haven't followed those stories enough to understand all the different possibities of how to deal with their financial worries. But hrnz,once they stuff things up for the future,they will have only limited options and none of them will be positive. most of us see that as the road harness racing is taking. Its just common sense that if you spend more than you generate in income,you eat away at your cash reserves and end up with a weakened business ,which is ultimately less apealing to customers,therefore contracts . There are those who spin that concern as negativity,but if you look at who does that,you will see self interest in benefitting as things currently are. Thats just the way it works with anything. Harness racing is no different.

at least your consistent gammalite. any time you see an inflated stake with a small field,you express the opinion its a good thing,while at the same time saying you see no problem with the plodders running in full fields for $6000 stakes. 1/3 of the races at ashburton are for 3 year olds and the field sizes range from 4-11. thats right,not one of the 3 year old races could get enough interest from the whole of nz to run anywhere near a full field and that was even considering they are paying $1000 for every starter just to turn up. they could very easily have come up with a concept with conditions that would have seen them get 12 full fields,but as usual they weren't smart enough to do so.Just dumb as really. and have you even bothered to see what the tab ff odds indicate as to the gap in abilities of those competeing. There are so many red hot favorites . The current prices of the favorites are $1.50, 1.16 ,1.30, 1.70, 1.50, 2.15, 3.60, 2.10, 1.50,2.40, 1.10, 3.20. So half of the races will have favorites paying under $1.50 and 10 of the 12 favorites come from stables whose trainers are in the top 20 on the premiership. Meanwhile we have another current thread about the stakes levels at methven. On that thread we have the methven man saying,well our club is the club that runs the races that generate the income to provide hrnz with the money to pay stakes. Then in the next breath hes saying,their stakes are low ,because thats all hrnz fund them. harness racing is an upside down world. As far as you saying well done ashburton. Whats ashburton got to do with whether it was a good or bad concept. They are simply the track hrnz decided would be used. Ashburton wouldn't be silly enough to use their own money to run a race meeting that will run at a huge loss financially for them. Thats what happens in the north island,not the south.e.g. cambridge and their slot races.

so what your saying seems to be methven will pay bigger stakes on the bigger days and underpay stakes on days like thursday. so how come clubs like timaru and oamaru pay good stakes all year around,yet don't have the assets ,cash in bank,investments within cooee of methven.. they too being run by volunteers. Just pionting that out. You seem to be saying 2 things. 1)because methven can create greater returns to the industry, it in some way justifies the paying of poor stakes on some racedays. 2)that there is no relevance to how much cash and investments a club may have just sitting around,in methvens case millions,its all about what you are funded by hrnz. Well fair enough,at least your up front about why the club desn't pay owners more, its just ,isn't it reasonable to ask,aren't other clubs who are also run by volunteers, trying harder to help out owners by returning more in stakes to the run of the mill horse owners,than methven. Just saying that appears to be the case as those clubs won't be getting anymore funding than the methven club for their low key meetings.. This post is nothing about personalities or how well a club is run on race day,its about the focus some clubs put on helping owners out through stakes compared to other clubs.

comparing the atc and the methven club is not a good example. Methven had investments of close to 3.5 million in shares and over $400,000 just sitting in the bank. their land and bulidings are also worth over $9m

its well and good to say they will learn from it and change,but when many of the issues seemed obvious in the first place wouldn't you have to ask,how much poor decision making does there have to be, before people realise there is a pattern. as to mr steele saying if things aren't working he will step in and change it. Does anyone take that seriously.What about the ATC?

just read that decision and i found some of the stuff in there,well,a bit amusing. the decision wasn't a long one but it included these colourful snippets. when paying an appeal filing fee he labelled the payee details as yesberg corruption. then thereafter consistently referred to the proceedings as corrupt. told RIB representatives to go and get stuffed,that they were a dishonest bunch of henchmen,little henchmen,couldn't lie straight in bed,even sending emails to some media outlets. Then he seems to think"theres a fat porn star working for the RIB". All i would say about that comment is,whats wrong with having a second job. and then they were also doing a bit of money laundering. And to top it off,he thinks the RIB are antisemetic. and to think he put that all in writing. now theres a bloke whos upfront about what hes thinking,even you could say, one of a kind. i think its fair to say,there won't be many dull moments when hes around.

i've nothing against the methven club,but simply are pointing out they really aren't doing the owners of horses who support their club any favours with the poor stakes they often pay out.. why does a club that is so asset rich run such poor stakes. 3 x $10,000 non win races and 9 $8000 races. Would it not be better for clubs like oamaru and timaru to run more meetings and give those clubs extra days,as they pay out much higher stakes for mid week meetings, and take a day or 2 off the methven club who often pay the poor stakes. Owners would be better off or is methven simply taking for granted the support anyway because the horses won't have to travel as far. its bizzare. And how come cambridge are running a meeting with only $8000 stakes on a thursday as well.At least cambridge have the awful financial state as an excure,what is methven'ss.

so i didn't think the harness 5000 was a bright idea from the start and its proved worse than even i had anticipated. A 4 horse field running in the 3 year old fillies race with one of the starters not having run any better than 10th in non win races in recent starts. a race where a couple of horses that ran in the trotting derby can race against maidens. A race where a rating 82 horse takes on a 10 horse field which includes a totally out of form non win southland horse. the idea of including 3 year olds was dumb,,but not even i realised just how comical it would turn out. anyone with any brains would have realised that you would get full fields in the 5 year old and older,because that was for horses aged .5,6,7,8,9,10,11 plus . So all those grouped into one. But the 3 year olds, who already are getting preferential treatment with their penalty free wins and age group races they can run in,supposedly considered to deserve their own race .. there was many things that this series of races had wrong with it concept wise and they have just played out pretty much as expected,if not worse. So you've had this harness 5000, the 2 year old bonuses and the harness plus schemes and the promoting bonuses that you knew would be cancelled in the future like the nz bred based sire bonuses. everyone of them anyone with much sense could have told you beforehand, there were major flaws in the concepts. this is yet another,i told you so moment. why should people have any conficedence in the decision makers when they get it wrong all the time.Beats me.

No. The example i used was the punter was breaking even with their betting and the rebates were the profit they used to justify the time they spent betting. I'll give you an example that related to myself that i have used previously to illustrate the point i make.. When covid hit and nz harness was temporarily suspended and the job i was doing was not paying as well due to covid,,i thought well i need to generate some more income from betting so i thought why not expand into doing it on queensland harness racing,who at the time were still racing through covid. so i spent 3 months analysing the queensland form every harness race run in queensland.then started betting. The plan was to generate a profit in the betting or at the very least break even and get rebates.So i decided to do that for myself and had 2 accounts and contacted the tab and said,how much do i have to spend to get rebates. They said over $90,000 in 12 months. I said so if i do that in a couple of mionths you will give me rebates. They said yes. So i did. it took me 3 months to reach the $90,000 level on each account,about $1000 a day spent on queensalnd harness on 2 different accounts($2000 a day total). well the profit i had hoped for from the betting was not as good as i hoped,it was only around 2%profit, but i thought once i get the otherr 2%from the rebates it would make it worthwhile. so what happened. I rung up the tab and said to them,when are you going to put me on the elite punter rebate thing like you promised and they said maybe next time when they look at who new they invite into the elite punters thing. Well when i still got nothing the following month and was still spending my $1000 a day on both accounts($2000) on queensland harness racing i rung them up again. There response was words to the effect,go away,we aren't interested in you as an elite customer even though you have reached the spend threshold to qualify. also the % rebate for betting in australia i had been told by the nz tab would not have been as high as betting on nz racing. But anyway i said to them,,if i were to qualify for the rebates it would make it worthwhile for me to spend the time i do on betting on queensland,but if i don't it won't. i said that to them,wouldn't it make sense for you to give me the rebates you promised of about $400 on each account per omth and you keep receiving the few thousand amonth in take ou %.The take out % would have been about $12,000 per moth for them,but i don't know for sure how the aussie and nz tab broke down who got what of that. Anyways they rung me back and said,words to the effect we don't care . so what did i do,of course i stopped betting. so for the sake of paying me about $800 a month like they promised,they lost out $12,000 in profit. the moral of my story is people who bet,especially who bet larger amounts than i used to,factor in the rebates into how much they spend in total and very obviously how much it effects their profit/ loss figure. thats why i call people who work at the tab and make the ddecisions like they are on rebates dumb. they seem to want to treat every customer the same,where as in reality every customer is unique and has their own betting habits. A clever business would factor that in and operate in a way that generates the most profit for that business,a dumb business would do what entain and the tab before them have been doing. like i have also said of others and just how much the recent dcsions will impact turnover from the punters i know. the only logical explanation for the sheer stupidity of it all is maybe there is different departments/divisions(whatever the word may be) within the tab where you get people getting bonuses based on their department. And those in one department only care about the bottom line for their department because thats what effects their bonuses and couldn't care less about the overall bottom line of the business.

haven't you just said they are making dumb decisions,without actually using the word dumb.

obviously not,but if you do the maths ,its easy to understand how entain is run by people who are just dumb as. i cant remember the exact rebate rates, as i never got any,but from memory if you were getting a 3 % rebate per $1000 spend on tote betting and you spent $100,000 a month,then your getting $3000 a month in rebates. and if that punter was say breaking even on his or her punting,they would be getting a $3000 a month profit due to the rebates. now obviously,the rebate rates varied depending on the type of bet.E.g. you got higher rebates for the bets in exoctic pools like trifectas first 4's,quaddies than say the win/place bets. and it depended on your overall spend,hence the level you fell into. but the example i've used of someone getting a $3000 rebate each month is the type of thing that was happening. the point is,the tab is receiving % take out on each $ spent through the tote,about $20,000 in the example i used and they are paying the customer $3000 back in rebates. So in the example i've used the tab is getting $17,000 profit from that punter every month in take out %, so what happens when the tab take away the rebates they are paying the punter. That punter now is spending their $100,000 a month for no profit. So whats the point in spending so much time doing that,if theres nothing in it for them. so what that punter do,well thats easy,they will reduce their betting significantly or just stop totally. So the tab in effect,will be cutting their nose off to spite their face by around $17,000 a month in profits they will no longer get,in the exampkle i have used. how does that make any sense. i knew a bloke who at one point was getting rebates of up to $10,000 some months.,over $100,00 a year in rebates. Now why they would want to spend so much time betting i don't know,but they did and it was their choice.You can work out how much they had to spend to get that. Then you factor in that these same people who they are taking the rebates off,they also have stopped linking accounts. In other words ,until recenetly ,some of the elite punters had dual accounts they operated and the combined spend was what the rebate payout was based on. The dual accounts were say if they had a syndicate and bet fior that syndicate.So they have hit that big punter with a double whammy in the reduction of rebates already.then add in the tab ff bookmakers already restricting or putting algorythms on punters accounts to further linit their profit.So really its all been a triple whammy to some punters in just the last few years. so whats the upshot,the punter who in my example may be spending 1.2m a year in turnover,generating the $17000 x 12 profit($204,000p.a.) for the tab in $ tote take outs,well they will have to stop betting because without the rebates they can't afford to as they will be losing too much money. now as i say,i know what the result will be. Turnover from those people will completely dry up.so the tab will be losing tens of millions in lost turnover and several million in profit from the % take out from betting on the tote that they got. So how does make sense. Only if you worked at entain could you think that makes any sense. Entain obviously are full of really dumb as people,. They have to be to shoot themselves in the foot so bad.

i agree with brodie in that the tab should accept larger bets from him. I believe,the tab/entain/betcha should be able to adjust their fixed prices,to reflect the support each runner has recieved from larger bets and therefore balance their books and not fear anyone. Of course they should have some limites,but not as small as they do. Of course they should have a time limit on when a larger bet can be accepted up to pre race,e.g. 15 minutes,so they can adjust their markets accordingly and limit any risk. i also believe they should reward people who put money through the tote pools by allowing them to get on more on ff.But they haven't,because they are dumb.I've explained many times how they actually cost themselves tens of thousands in profit from some punters because of there stupidity. people must understand that a winning punter on the ff,can still be a punter who's overall turnover on ff and tote,generates a profit for the tab. if people can't understand that,then they should apply for a job at the tab ,as that lack of understanding will fit in nicely at the tab. people who say the out the gate crew should not get preferential treatment,i don't agree with that. betcha giving bonus bets and accepting of the larger bets by the out the gate makes perfect sense to me. and the reason is simple. Its all about the big picture. Just as i have pointed out the tab are dumb as sometimes,the betcha out the gate model is smart and business savvy in my opinion. dividend (or payouts) from participation in each weeks out the gate show,are paid into peoples betcha accounts. betcha would recognise that the out the gate promotion is all about promoting punter participation,getting punters money in their betcha acounts ,knowing the punters will then themselves spend any payouts they receive from their weekly out the gate payout,and will very likely lose that over the following week or two.And its model that gets that punter particapiation at levels people can afford to lose,in other words a reasonable model for responsible gambling,making punting about what it is supposed to be for most,a bit of fun. at the end of the day,entain/tab/betcha should all be about promting sustainable turnover so as to generate profits and give returns to the industry so the industry can maintain the likes of stakes. in my opinion,some of what betcha does is smart and some of what the tab does is stupid. Theres an inconsistency in how they do things which highlights they can be clever,but they aren't as clever as they could be.

yes. I think they do it every 2nd year and the sulky would have been inspected at the start of this year.

hasn't been working for me for over an hour at the moment.Often the way on sundays.

I've been following the south island gallops closely for a year or so now and personally i think the overall standard of riding is better than it was a year or two ago.From a betting perspective i think the tactical decisions of the jockeys is easy enough to follow and your not left disappointed like you used to so often be in a riders decsions. all the riders seem to be more consistent. The apprentices seem to be showing a bit more initaitive and the older riders seem to ride the same each week. There are some of the older riders that do seem over cautious in what they think may be going to happen in front of them and seem to ride like they are worried a bit about their safety. B Murray in particular. You can tell the horses he rides get the message to switch off mostly when he gets amongst the field,but also the likes of T mosely and even the souths best jockey k williams i think does if she gets amongst the field.She of course is so good in getting handy early or positioned on the outer that you don't see it as much.And when the gallopers are getting that message,they tend to run accordingly.Both mosely and williams rode winners yesterday and rode them well,just the one i backed that mosely rode you could just ignore it went around. Hopefully he gets them next time.Its very obvious too that the better riders are the ones who like to race handy and show a touch more aggression early. K bakker and f moerman both went from being quite average to being the better riders recently. And it simply seemed to come down to them having gained enough confidence to trust in their own abilty to judge a race and i think not worry about a trainer having a moan about not getting the perfect run sometimes.Their recent results cleary show that. and i think invercargill is a track where they have too many in some races. Its a track that ii think should only have 12 starters at most. Run another race instead of having 14 starters. having said all that,yesterday i had just the 4 bets,all 4 missed the start and settled last,3 chose to go on the inside and simply never got a run or got out far too late and the other resented being restrained when on the outside,but at least the jockey tried to give it a chance and made a move,unlike the other 3 who early on you could tell had put themselves in a position where they couldn't. actually the jockey,y yeatchamach,no idea whether i spelt that correctly,i had commented about a year ago how poor he rode and how poor the a carston horses were ridden tactically and that i thought that was because they maty have been getting instructions that were making the riders more worried about doing nothing wrong than doing things right. Well, y yatchamah has improved in a big way and seems to be thinking for himself since not riding as many for carston.. And a carston has gone more into putting jockeys on who ride to win than wait for next month and his results have improved again. He is a very good trainer. anyway,thats my thoughts for a sunday morning.

i'm sure everyone who watched it ,whether it be owners.trainers,drivers, punters and officials ,all would have had the same awful feeling watching williamson fall from his sulky. Its not like if you watch or pass a car accident ,where you can soon enough detach yourself from feelings of concern and relatabilty. Seeing a harness driver go through what williamson and his family is going through somehow seems more relateable,mostly because you sort of know the people concerned,even if your relationship is just through the tv screen. But everyone who follows harness racing closely ,across the whole spectrum of people who do,will have williamsons well being in their thoughts. As to how it happened. Without knowing the exact damage the sulky suffered,it seems on the face of it reasonable to assume, that what happened was consistent with some catasthropic failure in the structure of what holds the sulky seat in place. and i think its reasonable to point out that when that occurs,because of the design of modern harness racing carts,the consequences will be so much worse than they were,had the racecart been an older design. These days if you walk around a racetrack or you look at the racecarts for sale on the internet,you ill see the modern day seat for the driver is positioned,extending beyond the solid framework of the racecart. In other words, it sticks out the back with nothing underneath,held on by i assume strong welding. Theres a difference between the race carts most trainers use these days and what some of the more old school trainers and those smaller trainers who have had their carts for years use. look at them and i'm sure you would conclude,the older style racecarts,when it comes to the position of the seat, are built placing safety of much greater importance than the modern racecart. The modern racecarts are simply built with the focus more on speed. Thats always been my opinion anyway. And thats how it plays out on the very rare occasions like what happened on friday. The older style racecarts seat is positioned directly over the solid framework of the back of the sulky structure,so if their was a breakdown in the seat structure,or the seat comes off,or moves due to not quite being tightened enough when put on,the driver had the large structure underneath the seat to sit on,albeit uncomfortably,should something happen. And of just as great an importance,theolder style races is designed so the weight of the driver is distributed over a surface where he or she is far less likely to lose their balance in a way that will lead to a fall from the cart. with the modern carts the bulk of the drivers body weight is weight is above nothing but the seat structure and if ,in the unlikely event the structure or welding hold it in place crumbles,its virtually impossible for any driver to hang on as they simply are sitting above thin air,and they have to tumble onto the track. thats what it appeared to happen,it wasn't anything williamson did ,nor was there anything he could do when it happened. also,the footrests where the drivers position their feet for balance are far more substantial in an older type designed cart than a modern one,again leading to greater stability for the driver for their feet,should something go wrong and the older style carts also have straps attached to the main framework of the cart as a back up should welding fail. anyway,thats just the way the modern racecart is built.Obviously it shouldn't fail ,but when it does,the helpless driver can't do anything about it and would be totally unaware of what was going to happen and it happens so quickly. as to the trackside not showing what happened. It may just be me,but i think it doesn't help by them not doing that. Everyone ,including his family,would have been trying to wrap their heads around what had just happened and would have better understood things had they got to see it again,but instead trackside just left everyone wondering. To me,that just makes things worse for those wathcing.. i know they have mentioned williamson being worried about the knocks to his head, but the rest of his body would have suffered badly as well. from such a fall As i said earlier,i know we are all hoping he heals andrecovers quickly.