the galah

moran i would give a 3 week suspension and $500 fine,but leave the horse as the winner as i believe,after taking taking into account the winning margin,relegation was not warranted. And i would have used an alternate rule to the ones the victorian stipes used. cam hart i would give a $500 fine given the significance of the race pete mcmullen and dexter dunn -nothing -i would boot that one upstairs for the rule makers to clarify if i had concerns. the victorian stewards i would call them in,tell them ,look at all the crap publicity which resulted from the poor use of their discretion relating to what rule they used to apply to captain hammerheads race,tell them,if you think what your doing isn't fair,then don't do it.use your powers fairly.Then i would say,i'm heading across the road for a subway for lunch,care to join me,i'm paying...(i'm not a big spender) what would you have done?

fair enough. so if you look at the blown up picture on the peter profit website ... c hart has definitely breached rule 170(1) a and possibly b as well. And breached rule 170(2). The focus all coming about as a result of the moran case. Thats what happens when you open a can of worms like the victorian stipes did.

not sure what your on about.But i'll answer it based on whats in the rules. everyhorseman shall drive throughout the race with both feet in the rests of the sulky designed for that purpose.

Consistency in the application of the rules. i've never said i expect all penalties to be the same. in fact i keep telling you the tasmanian case you often refer to,is an example of a breach of a similar rule,but the circumstances are chalk and cheese and deserve different outcomes. so really your take on that part of what i've said, isn't accurate . the consistency in the application of the rules is just a basic in my opinion. I don't understand how someone can say,harts foot being in a different part of the structure of the cart and not the footrest, complies with the rule which says the foot should remain in the footrest except when activating gear. on the moran thing,i think your instincts are good and i think what you posted early on m was fair comment,in my opinion. as to harsher penalties. i get what you say there. but reality is anyone who gets a perceived harsher penalty can appeal and the appeal process is based on ensuring a fair and consistent penalty,based on each cases unique circumstances. so really,i have faith the appeal process of the harness system can deliver fair penalties. but i get what your saying and would agree that penalities in the courts place far too much significance on the criminals rites and too little emphasis on the impact of the victims and the detterence factor. They make out they do,but you only have to read the court news to feel that the justice system is often out of wack. calling peter profit a woke activist on a mission to destroy the sport is not in any way how i view him. You say hes ripped into robert dunn at times. well maybe he has,i can't recall that. i recall him saying negative things about john dunn,mark jones and andrew fitzgerald. Well,in my opinion mr profits negative articles on those people actually undermines himself a bit. He opens himself up for criticism drawing conclusions that aren't obvious,i think he needs to focus more on the obvious,thus should move on from his focus on the aforementioned personalities.Still hes entitled to his opinions,i often don't share them,but hes the one with a successful journalist business.

many,many times mr profit has written factual stories about both australian and nz harness racing, which you never get from the rose tinted nz/australian harness media. examples like ...whats happening at the auckland trotting club,whats happening with the yoles in tasmania, stories about integrity issues where he reveals evidence given at hearings,etc,etc . His opinion pieces he states are just that,but reality is he has a knack for writing about current discussion topics and personalities,which reflects he has many sources who are tapped into the latest gossip. his factual stories are facts and his opinion stories are opinions. i don't know why people get upset about what he says,as reality is,why do they care what he says when they don't value his opinion. he is media,and look around,media everywhere is rubbishing politicians,religious groups,conservative values,etc,etc. As to you suggesting theres nothing wrong with cam hart putting his feet where do does sometimes. Well,to me its a good example of the type of thinking ,where one rule for him and another for everyone else. Just because hes a super talented driver does not mean he should get special dispensation. As i've sdaid before,your comparing moran to the tasmanian race is like comparing chalk and cheese. And like i have said before,horses have not always been disqualified ,in fact its very rare and i have given examples of different outcomes..

so it sounds like your agreeing that he doesn't have his foot in the footrest? hard not to agree with mr profit when the picture shows he doesn't.And he did move it around,no denying that from the video. mr profit is stating a fact.He had a blown up picture of where harts foot is. Personally i think the position of harts foot looks a bit odd,but i couldn't care less what hes up to as nothings obvious to me other than his foot isn't in the footrest like the rules say it should be. But ,i believe the photo of what hart did and the inaction of the stewards strengthens the argument i have been making all along. That is, the double standards of the application of the rules by the victorian stewards and the can of worms they opened by the precedent set ,when handing down the penalty for morans horse. and of course ive pointed out that drivers can unintentionally and intentionally drop their feet from footrests. anyway,from your post above,it sounds like your agreeing with most of that. i did note back at the start of the moran thread,that you said it was a possibilty that moran dropped his foot when becoming unbalanced when driving his horse with the whip. also,i don't think mr profits an idiot at all. His publications are more like tabloid racing stories,or racing gossip columns.. Some are very accurate and informative,but others are just opinions and you can agree or disagree with him if you like.he has his detractors for sure, but I think hes a clever man the way he has built up his business.Thing is,he may not always be accurate when expressing his opinions,but there is enough overall truth and good instincts to give him credibility with many.

i see peter profit has a photo of swayzees driver,cam hart,with his foot not in the footrest when winning the hunter cup. Hart has his foot further down the structure of the cart. In fact you can see from the video of the race,that harts foot seems to move around 4 or 5 times around the vicinity of the horses hocks. Hard to tell whether any contact is made,but going by the assumptions the victorain stipes made about moran,then i think mr profit has a good point ,when he asks why didn't the victorian stipes pick that up and have an inquiry. it actually looks like its something hart may do a bit as he appeared to do the same thing in his latest nz cup win.He didn't do it in his 2023 cup win. maybe theres nothing to it,or maybe mr hart is just a bit more cunning than mr moran.

I don't know. i was using the harness rule and giving an example of imagining what could happen if a similar rule was applied to cars on a 3 lane highway. obviously that went straight between your ears and out the other side. drug testing not required for bit of a yarn,like you suggest. For you , instead of a drug test,i would prescribe a lay down and taking of 3 panadol and 2 prozac if you see the galah has replied to one of your posts.

well,the easiest analogy would be to say,if your driving down a 3 lane highway in your car on the outer lane,next to someone in the middle lane,with no one on the inside lane. And you get even just a small portion of your car in front of the car to your inside,your deemed to have an advantage and you are fully entitled to manouvre into the middle lane in which the other car is in.if you wish. You don't have to indicate. as to the point you make,You can just do it,as long as you just don't veer in sharply. You can continue to move in irrespective of whether the car inside you is still there as you make the manouvre. legally if you clip the car to your inside and that car veers off the road and crashes,well its that drivers fault and he will get a ticket as the law says they would have seen you coming into their lane and therefore should have braked to let you in front of them or gone to the inside lane. Like i have said, the driver in the inside car knows the law and should concede.Irrespective of whether he ends up following granny who he knows always drives slow.

2 drivers refusing to supply a blood sample tonight at auckland. When there were probably only about 30 different drivers competing on the night,thats not good.. Interesting that both drivers/trainers use the same training complex.D balle and z meredith. Z meredith now likely to have 3 breaches within the last 4 years.

i know it looked a bit dangerous the way her cart hit the legs of oranges horse,causing that horse to break,but the rule says shes allowed to manouvre her horse in like that.and mr orange should have just gone on the fence,even if it meant he effectively was diminishing his chances of placing. That is why i've started a couple of topics on it in the past,saying its a silly rule because it can result in potential danger if a horse breaks,as horses being knocked around tend to panic,especially if their legs are hit. the rules been like that for decades. i believe the reason you don't see drivers pushing in all the time is ,i think,drivers have their own standards of safety for themselves and others and their horses anddon't bother to do it. . It can get dangerous when you have drivers who ,when being pushed in,actually believe their horses have a slight advantage so resist the driver outside and jostle,often relating in one breaking. also,in years gone by,i'm aware of cases where the jostling has happened on the bend where the trackside coverage is difficult to say who was slightly in front of who,and the stipes have used the position of the carts to say the outside horses cart was in front of the inside horses cart,therefore that meant the outside horse was in the right.They said the size of the horses was irrelevant nor would they factor in the fact that the much bigger horse who was on the inside,and was not only bigger,but had a cart with cart extensions on. In other words you can have one cart in front of another,but that doesn't necassarily mean the horse who's cart is in front actually has its head in front of the other,given the size of the horse and the length of the cart.So sometimes drivers had got blamed when they shouldn't have. so,i agree with you,its not a good rule,if reducing interference is what they are trying to achieve.

I watched that and thought straight away mr orange would get a suspension. The rule is ,if the horse outside him has an advantage/slightly ahead,then if it wants to push in then the driver on the inside must concede and go to the inside,or as normally happens,be restrained to race behind the horse moving in. i've always thought that rule is not in the best interests of safety as many times you see drivers failing to concede their position one off the fence and consequently they break and then the horses behind them get checked.The thing is often the driver trying to maintain their position one off the fence can manoeuvre their position enough to get the advantage back and leave the horse 3 wide. i've actually started a couple of topics on it previously,suggesting its not a good rule, giving examples of how interference occurs when both drivers think they are entitled to be in that one off position. but as the rule stands currently(and has done for some time),mr orange was always going to be found guilty,or plead guilty like he did. i've often wondered if the rule in australia is different as you hardly ever see it happen over there.

next time you see alan pyers or wilson house ,ask them why it happened in the final 450m at hawera over the weekend.

I was saying the chiefs suggestion that you disqualify everyone,whether it be accidental or not ,would be a consistent outcome. I was not agreeing with the chiefs suggestion,quite the opposite. So yes gammalite ,i agree with your point that every case is different. i actually referenced the tasmanian race you refer to and suggested someone put a video up of it to show an example of hocking. i did that when i started the topic about the moran drive,on another thread, about 2 weeks ago. If you saw the video of that,there is no way anyone could ever compare what moran did to what the tasmainain driver did. i also have referenced the queensland race from last year and suggested that video be put up. again that was an example of hocking ,but it could only be compared to the tasmanian driver in that he hocked for 3 strides,nothing anywhere near as bad as the tasmanian driver. And of course,as i've said several times now,that queensland driver got off on appeal ,despite it being acknowledged that he made contact 3 times. you see the appeal judges found it may have been accidental. Just like at hawera at the weekend. anyway,i did like the photos of the galahs you posted. and i could see your little dogs face in the side mirror watching them. I enjoy seeing those type of posts. it reminds me of when we had a wonderful wee dog. He was like a son in a lot of ways. keep up the good work.

i just finished my post about bird flu,turned on the tv 1 news and there you go. The very first thing that i see is a segment about unemployment and they interview a maori man who goes on about how it is the maori and pasifika people who seem to be impacted the most.Then they show the PM luxon,making out its somehow his fault. of course i said to myself,why do i watch this crap and why does our media continue to sow division and tell the maoris they are always victims of governments decisions. our news media really are pitiful.

Maybe they should do some gain gain- of- function research on the bird flu,just in case there is a pandemic in humans. Maybe get dr fauci to fund it and have the wuhan lab do it.? hang on,that type of research on the covid virus didn't turn out too well i suppose. Actually i had read recently many scientiists are advocating for exactly that to protect humans down the track..Others aying,well duh,haven't you learnt anything. some countries are actually stockpiling a h5 vaccine for use on humans,should there ba an outbreak effecting humans. the likes of the Uk,usa,eu,japan. I was reading a week ago about how some countries vaccinate their chickens for the bird flu and some don't. sounds exactly like covid or the flu though. vaccinate for one variant then the virus mutates into another variant making your vaccine not as efective. I wonder if chickens could be mandated to take the vaccine. probably i suppose.I wonder if they could just give up there jobs as a laying hen if they didn't want to take it. chickens don't really have freedom of choice. actually they do vaccinate the chickens in lots of countries to protect agianst the bird flu,and in lots they don't. theres major trade issues and some believe the vaccinations could do enough to hide symptoms enough, to allow it to spread,(e.g exported birds) and then kaboom.I used that word kaboom because i used to be a batman fan. then there seems a school of thought that the vaccinations are directly linked to how the virus is currently evolving.Some uk research found the unvaccinated got the virus more,but in countries with the vacciantion, the virus just mutated and evolved,making the vaccines less effective. Meaning, the chickens really needed to keep getting booster type jabs to keep up . I wonder if the chickens immune system was effected. i wonder how many suffered side effects. Hang on,doesn't that sound fimiliar. I may give robert kennday a ring to see what he thinks. i think he talks a lot of common sense. gee,what if they did start vaccinating and boosting chickens,would that put me off eating them. I'm beginningn to think i should not have replied to your post chief as its causing my brain to hurt. i need to spend some time on my perch contemplating what is ,in reality, a very serious subject.

Interesting that australian press release emphasis they don't have the deadly strain(h5n1) causing most of the current issues in the usa. i had read Victoria did have an outbreak of the h7 avian bird flu mid way through last year and they culled 1.3 million birds.They had the all clear recently.But you would think its inevitable there will be future outbreaks.It had been reported there were cases in nsw and australian capital territory last year as well. i agree with you gamma when you suggest that authorities must be more worried than they let on,given it can jump species and has been found in 48 mammal species,including even dolphins and polar bears.They are worried in the usa about it having shown up in dairy cattle.It seems to spread by hitching a ride with migrating birds,especially ducks and geese. Interestingly they reckon the first time a strain of bird flu was detected was 30 years ago in china. The lack of media content around the topic is interesting. In the usa,its predicted egg prices may get to record highs in the usa. I even saw one programme the other day where it said a dozen eggs were $19 in one state. (Thats USA $).the price seems to vary an awful lot ,state to state. being "the galah",i am taking particular interest.

None of that is necessary. No point in changing something that isn't broken. Just keep applying common sense as has been. Mandatory disqualifications would just end up with situations where such an outcome would be unfair. e.g. someone accidentally drops a leg when winning by a margin. The victorian stipes used a sledgehammer to crack a walnut and left the perception of fairness and balance squashed for many. but hey,it will all be sorted on on appeal i guess,but perceptions will remain. I'll move on now from this topic. All those chickens that are dieing or being put down because of the bird flu, in the usa, is something that interests me.Quite an amazing story that our media seem to be ignorining.Every time i turn on our tv news,its always about how bad the coalition governement are treating the maoris and also a story about how bad something donald trump has done.No wonder people don't watch them like they used to. In the usa its being reported 17 million chickens died or were put down because of it in just a couple of months. That bird flu seems to be sending panic around many parts of the world. A lot of the talk about vaccinations to protect the chickens,although i recently read the vaccine they are considering doesn't work on the stain of bird flu killing everything.I read about one big egg laying company who has 6 million chickens who is seeing ten thousand die every day as they try and implement putting down so many of their chikens. The ceo of that company saying what they are doing to halt the spread isn't working anymore. Apparently some of the big companies changed things about 10 years ago ,when they had an outbreak,like busing in workers,workers showering before and after work on sitye,all vehicles coming onto the site of the factories being washed and disinfected. If i was a chicken or bird living in otago,i would be feeling a little bit concerned about my and my neighbouring featherr friends welfare. coincidencwe they put down all those laying chikens at that big pultry farm and then not that far down the road,as the crow flies,they have had all thsoe birds die of what they say is botulism.

Harrison orange seems to be a special talent. Surprising someone so inexperienced can drive with such confidence and skill.Horses just run for him. A harrison i see is still a junior driver. She drove like she was on a mission to get that first win back yesterday with akatea and her tactical confidence proved accurate.The sport is one where things happen where you question ,how is that fair,but she overcame the hardest part,which to me wasn't the winning,but was in fact showing she had overcome such adversity,just to be able to compete again. also,I wonder what she thought, when at her first drive back,she copped some interference when a driver got tipped from the sulky just in front of her.Life has many twist and turns ,we think we know whats just around the corner,but do we really?

I guess that would be consistency. Only problem with that is ,using your policy,once a driver does drop a foot from the footrest,why would they keep trying, as they know they are guaranteed disqualified anyway. and exactly what point in a race.and why. Just a note. Alan pyers again dropped his foot from the footrest yesterday,this time on a different horse to the first day.He actually did so for over half the length of the straight, at the finish of that race. No foul driving charge again. Just a common sense approach with a $100 fine. You see,although he was in contention at the time he dropped his foot,no one really could say, that he intentionally did it to gain an advantage.Then again,hes lucky hes not in victoria i suppose. Also i note the same driver who drove with his foot out of the foot rest at methven for the whole length of the straight at the start of a race,may actually do it regularly as he did it again yesterday.No mention again as ,once again,i think people know it wouldn't be intentional to gain an advantage. What would victorian stewards make of his driving?

Just tuned in to watch ex nz horse,Laver at menagle,one of my wifes favorite horses. A very courageuos horse over here. Unfortunately it looked like he pulled up with a very serious injury. Hopefully its not as sad as it looked for laver.

who can really know? its too hard to tell from the video,just you can see the drivers feet down near the lower part of their horses leg. its a bit like watching a jockey strike a horse with his whip,when viewing the inital trackside race video.Then,even if you have the right camera angles,its still hard to tell. I guess they are similar in that there is an assumption that it may have happned. i think the key is applying that asumption consistently,either way,is the only way to be fair.

yesterday at hawera. Race 1. a driver warned for driving with his foot down for about 9 strides(same as moran), with 500m to go,then in a race not long after a driver did the same thing for about 4 strides with 350m to go,but no mention at all in the stipes report. i guess the fella in the first is a small timer,but it seems strange to treat them differently.Why did that happen? both horses placed. Both drivers i assume just lost their balance a little when pulling the ear plugs. mind you ,would others assume differently going by some replies on this thread?

you make a good point about how carts these days have been modified from what they once were.. some are marketed with specific comments like, the viper race cart,it says "no trouble with horses hitting footrests...widest wheel span on the market when fitted with viper speed wheels"...and these days sulkies seem designed better to help keep a horses body straight which helps as well. Really i suppose its an advantage in having a horse trained by a big trainer who has all the flash sulkies and could use trial and error to work out what sulky worked best to avoid a big strding horse making contact. Harder for a trainer with just a couple in training to go and spend a few thousand on another cart with no guarantee it will solve the issue..Occassionally some may still have too long a stride or they may still swing their back legs out further and get close to the wheels at speed or whatever. actually its very interesting to note the different actions of each horse when they show the head on films of the final stages. you wouldn't realise how different they can be unless you were driving or positioned next to them. I guess what type of footrests are on a cart can figure into whether a driver is more likely to drive with his foot out of the footrests if unbalanced.

i've always found it very interesting watching the reactions of horses who make contact with footrests. Not all horses react the same. But they all initially seem to get a fright ,which is totally understandable. I also believe contact is a factor in horses breaking,more than is officially recognised. I think its especially stressful for big horses when they are early in their careers as the reason they are making contact is because the length of their stride is so big. to me ,heavens rock was the perfect example of the stress caused by making contact and the long term psychological effects on a horse ,who go through the worry of encountering that stress every time they run at speed,especially early in their careers when they are getting used to the stress.i think it can be mentally traumatic for some. I assume that is what heavens rock went through ,they said that was his issue and i had seen the horse we had react exactly the same previously. Reggie golightly i think is another example of how it effects a big horse. Reggie golightly,a r39 horse who has not won for 2 years ran 2.56 in a trial at ashburton 5 months ago ,running his first mile in 1.54.9,the 2000 in 2.25 and running an overall time of 2.56 for the 2400m,fresh up in a trial at ashburton about 5 months ago. He did it seemingly under restraint the whole way ,winning by a huge margin,at one stage being almost being half the length of the straight in front. . I assume he was running so fast because he is such a big horse and his feet were either touching the wheel or footrest or some contact was being made. i believe that trial was a good example of just how it can mess with a horses head to have that happen. And if you have followed reggie golightly,you would say,well hes won 4 races but he doesn't seem to try very hard moost of the time. But really,if you think about it,its not because he didn't start off not wanting to try,its because ,i'm guessing the experiences he would have had due to being so big. anyway,i have gone off on a wee bit of a tangent and maybe no one is interested,but i think,a lot of traits horses have are a result of their breeding,but horses mindset is also shaped by the experiences they have had.We say this or that about their attitudes and habits,and maybe its true ,but also maybe we should realise we are judging some harsher than is deserved.