the galah

The people i know,that have spent a lifetime breeding,owning or training horses that don't go through the sales,have been sent a very clear message. Brad steele takes your participation for granted.Your not his focus. After all that money you put into the industry ,your not a priority,your seen as a second class citizen. Thats so obvious,when you consider some of the conditions imposed on certain qualifying criterias,even if the horse meets the number 1 criteria of being sold at the sales. 1)Why does his scheme reward syndicates and not reward individuals or say a husband and wife..... 2)why does his scheme specify 30% of ownership has to be under the age of 40 to qualify..... 3)why reward only horses purchased at the sales. 4) why is he giving preferential treatment to the trainers who have not trained a group one winner,thusdiscriminating against trainers who have. 5)why have the sires with 3 or less crops being given preferential treatment. 6)why have they capped the $5000 giveaway for starting just twice as a 2 year old to the first 90 horses that qualify. 7)why are owners,breeders/trainers of these sale horses considered of greater importance than the owners of 3 year olds and above. 8)why are some owners being given preferential treatment because they have not previously owned a horse. why,why.why,i could go on. Like i have said. i believe the scheme is hair brained. I was talking to someone tonight whos bred horses over the years and raced them with her husband. she told me to go read the hrnz press release. Her comment was just read it.I've told you, you should get out of the sport as they don't cater for people like you or i anymore. After reading the press release,i agree.

I've just read the latest announcement about a new 2 year old bonus scheme from brad steele,whom it says is the architect behind the scheme. I have to admit,i had to read the press release several times to get my head around it. it seemingly is targeting rewarding people who buy yearlings by certain sires,who have had 3 or less crops so far in nz,then to meet the criteria the pruchasers are to syndicate the horses and have a certain % of owners under age 40 involved. Then you line the horse up twice in 2026 and they will pay the owners $4000 and the trainer $1000. You can get around the stallion criteria ,to earn the $5000 for starting twice as a two year old,by apparently buying any yearling at the sales and giving it to a non winning group 1 trainer and getting them to line up the horse twice as a 2 year old. Theres other bonuses of $50,000 that will be paid to the first horse home in the sales final races,who meets certain criteria. What do i think? well to me its a hair brained scheme thought up by people who i've previously referred to as not very clever. This latest announcement does nothing to change that,in fact it just reinforces how i currently think. I know only a dozen or so owners to speak to,but i can't think of one that would qualify if the scheme was being run this season. Again i ask,what is this obsession HRNZ and brad steele has with 2 year old racing? Why are the owners,trainers,breeders of 2 year olds more important than all the owners,trainers,breeders of 3 year old and older horses in training. i would guess that if you were to say which part of the industry provides the worst returns profit wise,using the formula stakes,bonuses funded v turnover. surely it would be 2 year old racing ,yet thats what HRNZ want to have more of. Are these people stupid or what?

yes congrats to everyione who won the big money on offer. I had to laugh when then yabby farm trotter won.You don't see a horse get that much luck early in a race much,but both horse and driver were good enough to take advantage of that. I didn't mind seeing it win.But spatchcock,if you think they hadn't been struggling prior,apart from the horse that won last night,then your not much of a judge of form. They said they sent 5 horses over in september,yet the horse that won last night has been the only of those to win since arriving.All cashed up had done a good job for a couple of seasons,,but he was not one of the ones they sent this year. they had been earning well in australia the previous 18 months. a breeders crown winner,others all multiple winners before they got here. But hey,lets hope they keep sending more horses to auckland as auckland racing needs them. Obviously victorian harness racing is in a state of decline,with their participants expressing feelings of annoyance and dismay ,at how the industries finances have been handled by their administrators. funny thing is ,victorian racing seems to be the blueprint HRNZ is using. Strange but true. all the victorian stakes have had to be slashed recently,especially the likes of the breeders crown. Maybe i should look at the positives of last nights meeting. Brad steele can go to australia,drum up more owners willing to send their horses here using the bait of the million $ race night as the selling point.And of course the regular $35,000 heat/ finals and the fact that even their average horses can race regularly in low grade 6 horse fields at cambridge. Brad steele can tell them,nz and the auckland club have worked out how to turn the industries decline around.........spend your way out of debt.

imperial command just won by a nose at geelong. $2.50 the win price. Pay the believers

you called it gammalite. charlie brown needed the help early. our mate mounga no luck early. mikey macquire got in the way of pinseeker and mounga at the start. Just a bit frisky at only his 3rd race in 2 years. Got $1750 for running,but was gone a long way from home.He apparently was a $250,000 liabilty for the tab.That means someone must have put close to $1000 on him. maybe some small bets.i think those punters should stick to working for their money. republican party back in his nz cup form.carter dalgety on a roll. sam ottley no wins today. I wonder if she will make it to 100? Muscle mountain good to see win. I just don't think hes as good as he once was and was helped by early gallopers,but to win from 30m still very hard at invercargill and nice to see ben hope basck in form. The hopes always go well over the coast and he may be the man to follow.

nice to see bounce n beyond get home. All a cunning plan that came off.

Do you reckon s ottley has been watching liam lawson. I don't think wilson house speaks japanese or spanish. i don't think sam ottley did a liam lawson and gave wilson house the one finger salute as she passed. Instead she just smiled as she went past him on her way to the winners circle. talking about sam ottley. I don't think HRNZ or entain are maximising her attempt to be the first ever woman to get 100 winners in a season. I can think of many ways they should be maximising the positive exposure she could bring to the sport. for example,every day HRNZ should have a pendulum arrow type thing,(like my car battery charger),that shows the % chance she is rated at the start,then end of each days racing between now and 31 december. Beside it should be he latest tab odd's with a link to the tab where you can place a bet on the option they have running on her attempt. the tab/entain should be doing the exact same thing with her photo and it should appear as the first segment of those 8 or 9 things that float along the top of the page when you logon to your account.(the bit where they promote bonus bets,Boys get paid boosted odds,etc,) thers lots of other ways as well.Why haven't hrnz got her on mainstream media?

Odd isn't it that some are arguing on the other channel that the million $ racenight is all good,because HRNZ is only contributing $250,000 and the ATC is putting in the other $750,000. The Auckland trotting clubs annual report said "the club technically has a $54.5 million negative working capital position as at july 2024." but it went on to say,"this situation does not impact the clubs ability to finance it immediate operational needs." In the ATC's annual report they were still thinking positive about the chinese sale,now thats fallen through,they still are thinking postive and hoping they can get another buyer to pay $90 million for franklin park. They had said if the chinese sale went through, they would have $9 million as at july left over to build a new training complex once the leaseback of the old training complex runs out.The one HRNZ will need to top up if racing is to continue in auckland,as HRNZ seem committed to do. Sounds like anything less than $90 million means less for the required new training complex and more needed from HRNZ to contribute.. At one point the annual report said the ATC "expects to recognise a gain on disposalble of $67 millions following the final settlement of the purchase price ..."fair valuue less costs to sell" Obviously the costs to the ATC of getting that property ready for sale have been substantial. Sort of makes you think,gee they sure would want to get something somewhere near what the original buyers offered them,wouldn't they. from what i can make out,the book value of the land being sold in 2024 is a tick over $30 million. But of course,as noted in its report..."the book value of assets being sold are significantly less than this debt"(Its quoted at one point in someones report they owe $76 million to the bank as at july,then latter it shows they owe $79m as at july.. The ATC's problem seems to be cashflow. They have significant assets obviously with the likes of alexandra park. The Auckland club employess sure know how to spin and are good sales people ,given the support HRNZ is showing them.you can also see that in thier annual report. at the end of the day,its just so hard for anyone ,with much sense,to look tomorrow nights meeting and not think this will create a financial hole for both the Auckland club and HRNZ. And wouldn't any funds the ATC loses on tomorrow nights meeting mean they will have less money to go around,meaning they will have less to contribute to any new training centre,meaning HRNZ will have to increase the amount they take for their bank to make sure the auckland racing continues,meaning HRNZ will have less money to support racing in other areas of nz. So people minimising hrnz's contribution to tomorrow meeting aren't including the big picture.

your saying theres no difference between, someone who has for years,on this forum,highlighted issues and advocated for change to address those issues...and someone someone who sees the same issues,does not advocate for change,instead advocating for shutting down the industry.. interesting logic

so they put the numbers in the hat and .................... and they drew out 1. just as i predicted. And as predicted that horse has now been added to the scratching penalties for yesterdays stipes report,now showing the 1 day stand down..

He was a bit unlucky in that respect. The leader was getting away from the field,as the horse in the trail appeared to struggle to go fast enough,but when he made his move,the horse in the trail seemed to concentrate better and just did enough to keep him parked.Tactically i thought he drove it ok,sometimes things just don't quite work out in a drivers favour and that was one of them. But i was entertaining to watch. i'm in total agreement with brodie in that its easier for an informed punter to make money on lower grade racing than the racing you see on friday nights where the fields are more even. to me its just logic. when theres a greater difference in abilty between each horse,as you normally get in the lower grades,then its easier to make money. for years now,the races i can make the most money on are the likes of non win trots or non win pacers.

You've hit the nail on the head

So hes no longer on the HRNZ board. is he still on the auckland trotting club board,if so then one would assume jamie mckinnon doesn't come up with these ways to spend hrnz moneyfor the benefit of auckland,without input from atc board memebers like dunn. What has robert dunn done to ensurea similar type series that auckland has been getting funded ,are run in canterbury.Didley squatt by the sounds of it,yet most of his owners would be based in the south island. I'm not anti robert dunn,he seems a top bloke,but i do think he has double standards in who's agenda he pushes. At least thats what it appears like form everything i have read. when you say you support this series over the slot races,that doesn't indicate you support auckland racing getting preferential stakes funding treatment over canterbury or southland. South island horses have been sent to auckland for north island racing each and every year in the past.My guess would be if i went back and looked at the results from 2 or 3 years ago,i could name just as many,if not more mid grade south island horses than what you have that raced in auckland in december. Those aussie trotters. They really have struggled. I watch them each week go around,always expecting them to gallop. I know between the 6 of them they have what,won one or two races.. The point is.Is what they funded in stakes been a financially wise decsion. HRNZ have announced not that long ago they were spending a significant portion of their cash reserves to fund meetings like this. Once the money runs out,then what. Is the plan ,with the gallopers,to share the turnover money that the greyhounds will no longer be getting in 2 years to plug the big financial hole they are digging for themselves? like i have said before,HRNZ leaderships motto seems to be..plan to spend today and just hope something turns up tommorrow. also,are we suppose to forget just how much HRNZ will need to put into auckland to keep it going after they their training facilities. Who are HRNZ going to reduce payouts to when they do that?

If your going to dismiss yesterdays racing as "poor racing' ,i hope your not someone who promotes the sport or is an administrator. it was not poor racing,it was lower class racing. Theres a difference and you seem very dismissive of the segment of the industry who competed yesterday,who's numbers are disappearing, many due to administrators making decisions which many of yesterdays participants would percieve as highlighting they are considered of no value,or deserving of fair treatment. as to your comments about certain races. if you value all participants within harness racing,you should be able to look at any tuesday field and come up with ways the interest in which the viewing public and punters can be stimulated,ways which build on the knowledge of those competing and giving those associated with them reason to smile as they enjoy a small,sometimes fleeting moment in the spotlight. i will give an example of what i mean as regards the races you specifically described as poor. these are things that the commentator,trackside presenter,HRNZ racing promoter should be discussing each meeting,pre meeting. Other media should be given talking points as well for publication. race 2.certainly wasn't a field of high grade horses. Buts its was one similar to what you get at cambridge on tuesdays or at the west coast over christmas,just westport get more there. i saw race 2 as an opportunity to put some focus on Hoofn it.Thats who i watched. There you had a Trotter trained by someone called Mr Trotter. Now Mr Trotter,not sure his age,but i don't think hes any spring chicked and he was going for his first ever driving win.He has trained just the 1 winner from 105 starters and he has a horse by ohoka arizona,not known for siring trotters and he was driving an 8 year old.Hoofn it has come into some solid form at these tuesday meetings and everything about this horse and trainer epitomises the very peiopkle the industry is losing. people watching are interested in things like that.With Mr trotter driving,there were lots of easily made puns for the commentator to drop into his commentary and comments. The commentator could easily have talked pre race about likely tactics and added ,you know it makes sense. After he ran second he could have said,another $1200 in the bank,cushty or lovely jubbly and of course there would be places for h who dares wins and this time next year.. He could easily be made into one of the most recognised horses running,even if its subconciously for some, and with it people recognise the role people like trotter play in the industry. race 3 you called it a woeful field.That is such a negative comment. No need for that type of thinking at all. instead of looking at it negatively,it should be approached from a perspective of the race being for horses and connections looking for their first raceday cheques. race 5.you said a 38 start maiden killing the favs /leaders chances by attacking twice. you previously commented how race 2 and 3 had no moves,but you don't seem happy when there is some action. Besides,if you wwatched he race,you should have seen the favorite go rough in its gait as the 38 start maiden was being restrained to trail,so the driver of that horse obviously thought pulling back behind a horse half galloping not a clever move,so pressed on again,only for the favorite to settle down and again be pushed to lead. the amatuer driver who got hurt in race 1 was very unfortunate. surprisngly he was shown on trackside turning around and giving the thumbs up as he got into the ambulance. Also,you describe the standard of racing as poor. New zealands leading male,female,leading 3 juniors all were driving in most races. Their skills are nearlty always on display at the tuesday meetings in canterbury. As i pointed out earlier,race 4 had a particularly good battle between new zealands leading driver and otagos leading driver.

the conditions of the golden gait racenight ,virtually meant the south island horses were going to be excluded. Anyone who doesn't believe that,the proof is there if you look at the fields. to be eligible to run in most of the races on friday,a horse has to have started 6 times at auckland. Those who came up with those conditions specifically said auckland would get south island trained horses being sent to race in the north island multiple times through the year, so to become eligible for this racenight. these are the same people who said the 2 year old bonuses would see an increase in 2 year olds starting and more breeders breeding and the same bright sparks who said the $20,000 christian cullen bonus would see more starters and the same people that think having a million $ new zealand cup will create more turnover than a $750,000 nz cup. you get my drift. at least the decision makers are consistent.Wrong all the time.. So you have to ask,why did r dunn help promote the million $ race night. well self interest of course. He saw himself getting a cut of the bigger stakes that hrnz have sent aucklands way ,but primarily of course he was the auckland representative on the hrnz board. I don't know whether the still is,but robert dunn has done a good job from their perspective,but,i would argue, at the same time seems to not comprehend that hes doing it at his canterbury owners expense. Like i said earlier,even robert dunn has only about 3 extras that have island hopped to get enough starts.,2 in the same race.Those 2 may be chances as they have dropped back through the rating system as they struggled to get used to the auckland way around,but are getting better lately.

i watched it tonight and i thought it worth the watch. just the right amount of mick,take the vaccine, guerin. I find him good in small doses. at one point they asked what did viewers think of the golden gait racenight at auckland on friday,then they asked micky g. well,the golden gait racenight is something i started a thread on a month or so ago,so i took notice of what micky g said. well,he specifically referred to eagle hanover and said something like when would he ever get to race in a $100,000 race. well micky g,last week actually was the answer. and given eagle hanover was mentioned,i will use him as an example of just how much better north island horses and connections are treated by the HRNZ funding model,than south island participants. eagle hanover is a rating 39 horse who has had 2 wins and 9 placings from 33 starts this year,for $37,836 . Because of the preferential treatment given by HRNZ,eagle hanover this year will have started in 2x100,000, 1x35,000, 1x$30,000, 1x$25,000, 1x20,000, 1x$18,5000, 4x16,000, 2X$15,000 races. so theres your answer mr Guerin. Had a horse of eagle hanovers class been racing in canterbury,he would have been lucky to get the oppotunity to start in 1 $20,000 race all year. Eagle hanover is proof how HRNZ is screwing over the south island people ,especially those in canterbury who run the meetings that generate the profitable turnovers ,that fund the stakes for the north island. Also,didn't they say when they first announced the golden gait racenight,that it would attract south island horses. well did it-no it didn't.Theres about 4 south island horses there,3 from dunns and another trained by mccaffery.and most likely a couple of those would have raced at auckland anyway,without any golden gait.

today race 5. almight clever. scratched. doesn't even get a mention in the stipes report,why,because its running on friday at invercargill. now i've mentioned it on here, they will probably stick it in their report and go to the special hat,put numbers 1 and 2 in it,then pull one out and then amend todays report to show he got a stand down.Just watch. why,because the alternative is to give almighty clever connections not only the special treatment ,but the special ,special treatment.. note:the horse in question isn't named after the stipes dishing out the scratching penalties.

some of these races can be just as exciting,if not more,than the big race nights. That last race,i never had a bet,but found a great watch. The winner kawhi,had been bought off gavel house about a month ago for $8501. now trained by darren keast. Hes the first trotter keast has lined up at the races this year.Looking at his record i see hes only lined up a trotter 6 times in the last 4 years. I think he may have won a race on cup day with a trotter in 2020. Today driven by matthew williamson,he went straight to the front from the stand and ran his rivals ragged,but with 200m still to run he went from looking the winner to looking rather tired. Blair orange was the only one within cooe,but blair orange being the man,seemed to get his drive ,crown the moment to lift and with 100m to go,he looked like he was going to go past kawhi quite comfortably. But then,under vigorous driving from matthew williamson,kawhi turned his head and peered around the blinds he had on,and recognising he may get beaten,and alamost said,not today sunshine,your not getting past me,and kicked again to win. every harness race is a different spectacle,some are more exciting than others to watch,but for me i get just as much a kick out of watching tuesday meetings as i do cup days.

I agee with what you say about Hewitts drive in the pacers final.He took his horse and another out of playwith that move on the first bend. yet no action by the stipes for some reason. i think if we were stipes,we would have the odd argument but agree on 90%.lol. i would call wilson house move to come off the fence in the race being discussed,as one from a very switched on driver. Opportunity there to get a better tactical position there for just a second or two and he took it.Whoever wins that junior title,whether it be house or dalgety or thornley,they will have achieved it through skill and natural talent shown consistently throughout the year.House has really gone to a new level in the last 12 months.

having said all the above,its just a talking point. i see the tab has reduced her price to drive 100 winners in a season to 2.25. I think i heard the whale say a week or so ago she was at $3.50,which he thought was a good price to place a bet on,at that point. its under the banner senational season for sam on the tab website. theres only 8 more meetings in the south island ,so if she were to turn up at them all, she would have to drive an average of 1 winner per meeting. thats still a big ask,but she sure has been driving well all year.

If you apply the thinking, that there has to be contact before someone can get penalized for squeezing up another driver,then yes she did nothing wrong. but i think that logic is flawed and sets a precedent with dangerous flow on consequences.But,hey, that seems to have been the stipes thinking,which is why i have pointed this incident out.Is that their standard for safety? I can stop the video at the point where W House is 1 1/4 lengths in front of s ottley ,at which point hes half way out,then i can stop it again when hes still 1 length in front of her,fully in the one off line. as i say, video can be stopped showing hes hard on the back of the horse in front of him with s ottley a full length behind him. so given he clearly was allowed to be where he was,the stipes agreed with that in there summary,so ask yourself this,why did W House pull back and let ottley take the position he held, 100m later?. S ottley has done a lot of driving for the houses over the years,so i guess w house didn't say much,but the video tells the story. i highlighted it,because you don't see that type of intentional driving much and theres a reason for that. like i have said,if that was someone less prominent ,doing exactly the same thing, then they would have got a holiday for sure.

it looked like he could see he had 2 choices, either pull back and prevent his horses legs from making contact with sam ottleys cart ,or stay where he was and have his horse potentially take the knock and most likely break and interfere with many in the field. He chose to take himself out of a potentially dangerous position he had been put into. if you look at the head of piccadily pete,that indicates the couple of delicate changes in the direction he was being steered in. these days the stipes seem to have their focus on penalising the whip rule, than actual driving indescretions.

It looked like the stipes gave sam ottley an early christmas gift when they only gave her a warning for her drive on piccadily pete. Seems thats all a driver gets when they deliberately squeeze up a runner inside them. the whole thing seemed quite unusual. Clearly wilson house made a perfectly legal move to come off the fence,but even if ottley didn't agree with that,you can't allow drivers to react as she did. if that was a low profile driver,i'm guessing they would have got a long holiday. sam ottley has been driving extremely well for a long period of time,but that drive looked potentially dangerous. It was lucky the horse who copped the squueze was such an experiencced horse and didn't panic.

i'm guessing there have been occasions over the years where people in the know have taken advantage of pre race knowledge about a dog having an injury.Then back the dog on betfair to lose or back another from the kennel;knowing the more favoured dog had an injury. while unless your in the know,you can never be sure,but i have seen instances of very unusual betting moves in dog racing ,both here and australia,only to see the big drifters seemingly sore from the jump. i can remember one involving a dog that was placed in a derby,at wailkato i think it was. Anyway,it started shortly thereafter back in canterbury,addington and drew 1.Trackside highlighted the top derby run and the commentator went on about how the dog looked a sitter on that form,yet the dog continued to drift from hot favorite to about 4 in the end. The commentotor,like i think many punters,seems dumbfounded at the drift,given its form and surprised at the money that came for another runner,ifrom memory from the same kennel. anyway the derby placegetter jumped out ok,but clearly had some sort of injury and looked uncomfortable in its action and gradually drited,i think finshing a well beaten 6th..While the one who the money had come for won.Then ,from memory,i don't think it raced again. I had been told about that type of thing,a few months before,and funnily enough it was the fella who part owned that dog that told me.i was silly enough to back it early,and remember that one well.

i guess they were looking for some good press around that time.. they have a greyhound welfare and integrity commission over there and it is them who are running the inquiry. given the commission has been heavily criticised by some for failing to enforce integrity rules and the former chief vet accused the commission of "obfuscating the facts',many are saying how come the commission is getting to investigate themselves for those claims. the racing minister,at the start of the inquiry says he wants the greyhounds to keep operating and that they had made progress and that the inquiry was to get the nsw industry to stay focussed.. That comment coming at the same time the commission said injury rates were at there highest since independent reporting began in 2018. politicians,aye. the likes of edward rennell and michael dore gave evidence early on. Michael dore discussed the likes of preferential draw races. He said the data showed they helped reduce the injury rate for a start,but then last season the injury rate went back up as dogs habits changed when they realised there was more space on the inside after all,due to the intial effect of the pbd. I think thats what he was meaning. he discussed lures. he also said Preferential box draws were what they used on the straight tracks. I guess thats part of the reaon the racing is so clean at the wanganui straight track. Anyway,saying dogs are clever,try to avoid injury but want to chase and win is not telling anyone anything knew. But he showed the stats indicated that anyway. Rennell discussed nz breeding numbers ,saying due to the indutries uncertain future, the number of dogs being bred dropped 38% in the 2022/23 season,from 744 to 471 but how they were back to 548 in the latest season. It seems NSW sends many of their rehoming dogs to america as well.