the galah

yes i understand that. The most talented horse we believe we ever had,was so big he used to hit the footrests. He was just so fast but then the faster he went the harder he hit them and in the end he just lost all confidence and went through a phase where he would bolt then panic and gallop. He was that big we got every bit of gear made for him and even a 76 inch hopple was tight on him. The racecarts simply weren't legally big enough and in the end,with all the bigger gear, he just learnt himself to coast around in 1st gear so he didn't hit the footrests. We qualified first go but then retired him as they didn't make shoes big enough for him and every farrier i spoke to,no one said they could or would make a pair of shoes for him. I knew one of them did,but he had seen him run fast in training and for some reason didn't want to help,so he wore an aluminium shoe that the shoe place said they imported for some clydsdale owner,but they were still too small and the day he qualified he came off the track with 2 quarter cracks bleeding.One time he had an injury and we sent him to a very well known vet for treatment for a week and his comment when we got him back was,you've got a very special horse here. I guessed he had checked his heart out or something but he wouldn't say why when i asked him,just repeated it. Obviously i'm describing something different than a horse getting a fright for a couple of strides,but i know how it can't scare them.

Johns boy used to be trained by a southland trainer.L veint and from memory kirk larsen used to drive him in his early days. K larsen recently has been driving a trotter,xerion for veint and its won a couple but it seems to have lost its confidence after jumping quickly in the ratings ,like they do over here if they win early in their career. L veint about a decade ago had a really promising pacer,it looked very good,but from memory it had some unfortunate accident or illness and tragically died. Johns boy was a horse that i always followed and was always consistent,reliable and gave his best and his trainer always seemed to have him ready to race.i wondered where he got to. Unfortunately,he was one of those horses that had got too high in the ratings and was at a point where he had to be run for 3 months each week to get back in a grade where he could win again. Doing that to a horse like johns boy, who tries so hard was just going to break his will, and i think they have done a good thing by the horse to send him out of southland and to aussie. Hopefully he can stay healthy and race for another few years and then they find him a nice home when he retires. johns boy was by simon roydon,one of roy mckenzies bred stallions,and would have been the last by that sire to race in nz.

tristan larsen did drive over here just a couple of weeks ago at invercargill. he was the only one i could think of when i started my thread about a year ago about children of southland trainers. maybe larsen was just home for a visit. While i like k larsens training, i'm not a big fan of his driving. He seems to think well ,but horses just don't seem to run for him like they used to. Or he just ends up in the wrong spot.. I did notice what i thought was a significant improvement in his sons tristans driving when he was back. He drove a horse for his dad,ward lamon,who to be fair kirk larsen has done very well training and driving recently. Having said that i thought his son got an extra length or two more than his father would have, out of that horse when he drove it. I think tristan larsen could make a living here if he came back,but maybe hes happier ,warmer and getting more opportunities in victoria. Southland racing,in my opinion,needs to revert back to closing down for 3 months over the winter months like it used to. Why,its just too cold and the numbers can't sustain year round races . If they have a horse they want to keep racing,then maybe there should be some type of travel subsidy and accomodation supplement for the travelling caretaker trainer,supplied by hrnz if they were to be sent to somewhere like auckland or canterbury. instead of putting all those millions into stakes for the high end,spend it more wisely. Like,did you see the hunter cup has a stake half what it was last year,and only1/4 of the nz cup,yet its giot the highest quality field of any race in australasia in the last 12 months. what does that tell you?

Well thats what you think. I think your "Doubling down on stupid" there chief. The victorian stipes have never said his foot hit his horses hocks and the video shows his foot never hit his horses hocks.... The stipes say there was contact with the horses hind leg on a couple of occassions. my advice to you is just look at the video again and you will see the stipes are saying leg,not hock, because the contact is around the bottom of the leg(the hoof of the horse),no where near the hock. I keep saying,if you want to put up a video of hocking,put up the video of the queensland driver who's penalty was quashed 3 months ago. I gave the race,track,date on the other thread on this topic. It will show you where a driver places his foot to make contact with a horses hocks.

i fully understand what you are saying and totally agree with the thrust of your argument.. about a year ago i started a topic along the same lines in respect of families involved in harness racing from southland. There hasn't been the passing of the torch to the next generation to the degree you may have expected there either. But of course theres reasons for everything. I remember working in a stable in southalnd and going to the trials and there were 244 horses that started at the trials. I still have the programme. 244 horses with owners paying the club to start,drivers earning,trainers getting float fees,etc ,etc. Just at the trials. I remember one junior driver i once spoke to said the trainer he worked for had 20 in work but had only had just the one win in the previous 5-6years. That professional trainer didn't line many up and drove most of them,he was not a good driver as he neared retirement,but he still had 20 horses who's owners paid to have their horses trained.He actually not long after won a race with a promising horse and then they sold it and became a champion in australia. At that time dairy farming in southland was not on any big scale and you would drive around and so many of the farmers had sheep and a racehorse or two,whether they be hobby trainers or just mostly sending them to professional trainers. Then within 10 years the dairy boom came and so many of the sheep farmers cashed up to corporations or converted to dairying and next thing in the areas where there weresheep and horses,there were none. it was amazing the transformation within such a short space of time and the flow on effects on the harness industry in southland were very significant.Just something outside their control and dairying has had such a huge impact on land prices throughtout the whole of nz,and harness racing has been a casulty of that industry. As far as generational passing of the batton,often a common denominator is the next generation of children of small time/hobby trainers were the ones to get more involved in a bigger way,so many examples of that,but then their next generation doesn't. But,given the numbers of hobby/small time trainers is steadily declining and little is being done by HRNZ to incentivise the continued particpation of this group of people,then that will obviously have an impact on the sport in the future. Theres pathways forward to everything,but first you have to understand how the industry got to where it is ,otherwise you just keep making the same mistakes.

So hows that playing out for auckland harness racing? If you were to look a graph showing the increasing population growth over recent times in auckland and then look at a graph showing the declining number,within the auckland region, of racegoers,owners(thats not counting people like someone in a syndicate who owns a 2% share),trainers,breeders,etc you would see that the rate of increase in auckland population has similarities to the rate of decline in auckland harness. Is aucklands population growth the sole reason,obviously no,but is it a factor,very obviously yes. Urban sprawl,significantly increasing land values which have devoured areas once used for the training of harness racehorses and the caring of harness horses not being raced(e.g.bred/grazed) which has lead to it just being impractical,costly,time consuming to commute,etc. Put simply,its no longer practical for anyone to invest a million $ in a property just so they can pursue a hobby of training 3 horses.Nor can any young person go to a bank and say,give me the million i need to set up as a trainer and that i can show show you my books that show i have 10 horses in training. They would be laughed out of the bank. The same thing is currently happening in canterbury,just the dumbos haven't cottoned on to the future significance of its impacts on the sport. I've given my vision for auckland before and canterbury for that matter. Others have too. reality is,people first have to recognise an issue and its cause before they will take steps to make different plans,thats why you get so many negative comments that you refer to . Just people bashing there head against the wall on social media ,pointing out the obvious in the hope someone in power may change things.Thats not because someone wants someone to fial or an industry to fail,its the exact opposite but people just don't get that ,for some reason.

Interesting thoughts. Kind of ironic that HRNZ and auckland trotting people seem convinced that theres a link between the significance of the future survival of harness racing and the most populated cities. Any moron can tell you thats not the case. the most populated cities in nz are,auckland,christchurch,wellington,hamilton,tauranga and dunedin. Christchurch is the only populated city where harness racing is still doing ok,but mark my words,i can see all the signs that harness racing is on the decline there as well. four of the six most populated cities in nz... wellington,hamilton,tauranga and dunedin..what do they all have in common. Duh,can those in charge not see a trend,population size has proven to not have been a positive factor,yet they try and convince everyone that swimming against the tide will work for auckland. Its a bit like this push to get more young people working in the industry.Subsidise them for this,concessions for that.. I would say the whole time i've followed harness racing,i've heard the same thing. you would think after all these years people would realise what the reasons are that harness racing struggles to retain participation of the younger people once they have worked in the industry for a few years and got a little bit older.. but no,the attitude of the so called clever peoplce ,those who make the policies,is we need to focus on getting more young people.And all the current clever people think their ideas will be better than the ideas of the decades of administrators who looked for solutions to the same issue. i'll give another example of dumb as thinking. A year or so ago i read an article which said 93% of breeders were over 40 years old. It went on to say we need to focus on coming up with a way to increase the 7 %. Just think about the logic of that type of thinking,because it permeates the whole of the industry. Your figures show what your key demographic is,and you then interpret those figures to say, well,our focus and resources should be spent on increasing the 7% and not the demographic which make up the 93%. Just think about that. Itsall so very,very,very dumb. theres a reason for everything. if you ignore the reasons,then you will always fail.

there we go tabmanforever,just one of many ideas posted that you supposedly haven't read. many have posted a lot of different ideas about what the future should look like for your beloved auckland. Not just me,lots of the people who post on here have. like you said in a recent post,no one in charge takes any notice of the keybopard warriors(as you call them). tabman,rodney,old son,matey,... you say that,then wonder why people don't post as many constructive ideas as they once did.

Actually no chief. as i've said many times. the victorian stipes never ever have claimed that. the victorian stipes say morans foot did not hit his horses hocks. They say for 2 strides it came close to his horses foot. you kindly put up the video previously,just watch it.

good points. The only point i think i would clarify from my perspective,is when you say the queensland case is different,because,you say, moran drove with his foot down when in a race winning position. Actually thats exactly what the queenland driver did,40m from the finish he dropped his foot and it made contact with his horses hock 3 times and hiis horse got up and won by a nose. His horse was relegated to 2nd on the day,but the penalty the driver was given was quashed on appeal.I have previously given the race,the date and the track and the driver concerned, if you wanted to watch it.

you missed some good ideas. I know that,i just said that as well. see,we can agree sometimes.I think we may be on the cusp of a major brealthrough. if that puts you to sleep,then you need to have some of those enegy drinks placed right next to your computer,and have a swig on them everytime you see the name the galah. that should help. or maybe use my posts in a way that is beneficial to you. Like,give up counting sheep or 2 yld bonuses,to fall asleep and bring up bit of a yarn on your phone when you jump in your bed.It works for me ,my head hits the pillow as soon as i read something you've posted. i've always been a tomato man myself.I have at least one a day.They are known to be good for your skin,hair and nails. Given i can just picture you pulling out your hair and bitiing your nails each time you read a post from the galah,i would say to you ,embrace the tomato. Remember the old saying ,a tomato a day keeps the keyboard warriors away...or something like that.

good point,but i would say thats not comparing apples with apples. after all,the HRA rules and penalty guidlines would be the same throughtout australia and not different between states. And i wouldimagine Harness racing australia awould not expect different states to be dishiong out significantly different level of penalties. That would be like saying the hrnz stipes in the auckland province can enforce the rules different to say southland.Thats not how its supposed to work.

That having your leg down at the start is how drivers are taught. ive never heard of that. Not saying its not true,just obviously only a handful of drivers do it that way. if it made sense,then why do 90% of drivers never need to drop a leg to maintain balance.. As to being allowed to have it down until the first bend,then how come i've read many times of drivers being spoken to about the length of time they had it down early in a race. So i don't agree that has been acceptable for years. Actually now you are saying its acceptable,i'm beginning to think whats to stop any nz driver taking advantage of that and thereby gaining an unfair advantage. Thats seems very,very dodgy to me,because,lets face it,everyones arguing a foot down can make a horse run faster if contact is made,so why on earth would the stipes allow some drivers to get such an unfair advantage in the first 200m of a race like yesterday. I'm being serious when i say that. Now you've said that,i think its fair to ask are the likes of john dunn and john morrison being a bit too cunning for the stipes,as they are probably in the top handful of drivers in getting a horse to pick up speed quickly early in a race,and they,along with ben hope did the same in the other mile stand race yesterday.

So your saying victoria and queensland operate under the exact same HRA rules,but that its ok for both states to have a different interpretation of the same rule. Actually ,gamma,pretty sure thats not how it works. Besides,in my specific example of the same rule in queensland and victoria,it was interpreted exactly the same by both authorities(as it should be),but both authorities came to different conclusions as to the penalty on the night. I'm also pretty sure gamma,that when an appeals heard,the judges uses the exact same rules,as after all they are the same,whatever the state,then they make a decsion and that decision sets a precedent which all future cases can use to as a reference to an example of being a fair and just outcome.

your a funny man chief. So,if you have the same rule in nz and australia,and one country enforces it differently than the other,then you can't ask questions why,given both countries have the same punters. Consistency is the whole point. Look at the remits and reasons given for some recent hrnz rule changes..

Like i keep saying,just put up the video of that queensland race ,where the driver got off on appeal,3months ago. I don't know how to,but the proof is there of a precedent . of course what happens in nz is relevant to australia and what happens in australia is relevant to nz. Just look at the rule changes nz has made.And the rule in nz will be the same as australias rule for the matter being discussed. Just common sense i think.

Of course if they operate under the same rules. Why do you think new zealand has changed several rules to fall in line with the australian rules.

I saw that race and thought grant dixon just keeping a bit of petrol in the tank for next week. Yes tact macleod went better. Hes a hard one to follow sometimes,not always at the same level,but i put that down to the type of runs he gets. I believe if leap to fame does the grind it out thing that hes capable of,then tact macleods only chance of placing is to be on theinside somewhere without having done any early work,in other words i think a strong staying contest would find him out more than some.. The again,thats not to say he isn't a very good horse. The connections of tact mcleod took the gamble of going to australia and chasing the big races,knowing they were forsaking winning chances in the 3 big races in the provinces close to where he is owned.lifes a gamble sometimes. That menagle race with don hugo,i thought the first 3 all went well,especially don hugo given the run he had,but they all had a tough run,especially don hugo. who runs in the oplacings behind leap to fame really will depend on the draw.Republican party a place chance with a better draw.

And i agree with that. i assume when they turn in that they have a leg dropped for the balance thing,as they are slightly on an angle when turning,but the rules say drivers should have their feet in the footrest the whole race. Thats my point,the nz stipes have just shown common sense application of the rule. Its so obvious from that methven video that drivers can regularly drop their feet out of the footrest,with no intention of gaining an advantage. I have never said moran should not have been fined. I have said the level of evidence to say moran dropped his leg deliberately or to gain an advantage,wan't enough to justify the victorian stipes actions. In my opinion, its obvious,that if you are to argue a driver can gain an advantage by dropping his foot and making contact to encourage a horse to run faster at the finish,then you can't argue that the same thing can't happen at the start when you do exactly the same thing. In the moran case ,he dropped his foot for 9 strides,with the stipes noting only 2 strides was his foot near his horses feet. At methven j morrison and b hope dropped their feet for 9 strides,but their feet were in a position near their horses feet for all 9 strides.(clearly 7 strides longer than moran) John dunn,18 strides.jim curtin 7 strides,ian cameron 3 strides,wilson house still had his foot out of a foot rest after 300m. I think,if moran does get found guilty,then he will obviously appeal, then if he shows that methven video and shows that methven stipes report,then the odds of him getting off will be shorter than leap to fame went around in that race at melton on saturday where he only paid $1 to win and place. And of course,theres the queensland driver who got off 3 months ago, when he may have put his foot down deliberately,making contact with his horses hocks to get up and win by a nose.

Actually just read the stipes report for race 5. Not mentioned at all. One driver had his foot down for over 300m. I see no problem with the stipes not noting it happened given the numbers that did it. it just makes me have a wee chuckle when thinking about the recent victorian controversy.

Perhaps people who have labelled david moran as obviously guilty,should watch the start of todays race and ask themseves this question. How many of the field do you think the victorian stipes would have disqualified and how many drivers would they be trying to put out for foul driving.? You had 7 drivers driving with a foot out of the foot rest for a start,after 50m about 4 still doing so,then after 100m still about 2,then one driver went like that even longer. Noticeably,none seemed to position there foot like david moran did. Anyone comparing todays video to morans,would have to say moran at least was trying to avoid his horses foot after 2 strides,unlike the drivers today. Noticeably the driver of the first 3 after 100m,were 3 of the 4 to leave their foot down the longest. did they do that to gain an advantge at the start,well i would say obviously not,but if this was victoria well they surely would be in trouble, as gaining a perceived adavntage at the start is just as bad as gaining a perceived advantage at the finish,is it not. Now,personally,i think its obvious from todays race that drivers,do accidentally drop a foot without any intention of gaining an advantage. Perhaps someone should put up the video to show what i mean. David moran should just show that video at his appeal. Case dismissed .

Of course everyone thinks their ideas are good,but some of us,myself included ,have given different ideas hundreds of times,on how to future proof the sport,over the years when posting on here. I know i've put forward so many ideas of how to address and promote specific issues and specific regions,including your favorite region auckland.Did you miss all that,as there was some really good thoughts posted in the past,in my opinion. Reality is,after a while,people actually get tired of posting positive ideas to the level they once did,because they have woken to the reality,that they are only creating social media chatter with no concrete impact on anything,as people in power take little notice,so then they move on to a different phase ,and its in that phase that they analyse not only the impact of what decisions are being made,but also who is making the decsions.Then they start commenting on that.Previous life experiences is a factor in how ones thinking has evolved.Using those steps ,i've found,is the best way to see the big picture. anyway,like i've said before,you start with a vision of where you hope the industry is in 10/15 years from now and you develop a realsitic,believable/sellable,fiscally sustainable plan,then you take the steps to start you on that journey. In my opinion,from my life experiences,what you don't do is cater to special interest groups,you bring everyone on that journey as without everyone,your business is not as strong and you also get division. What you don't do is take a patchwork type approach to problem solving as issues pop up,instead you address the root causes. I'm also a believer in "never let a good crisis go to waste".Thats my thinking around auckland and where next to for them.And of course they have a future,just not in the shape of the future being sold by the atc and hrnz. And also,i'm a believer that administrators can come in more than one category. You have those that will stick around and make plans and decisions which will be based and how they want to be judged in 10 years time,then you have those who come into a job,and see that job as a stepping stone to another in 5 years. They are the ones who apply the patchwork problem solving approach.

probably. but even combining the 2 meetings, they would have only had 75 horses total running anyway(55 tonight and 20 extras on monday),as 18 of the 38 running on monday are running tonight... how about they introduce a golden gait series at cambridge. We were constantly told that was a great success for auckland,so if that was actually true,then why not replicate it for cambridge?lol.

I think trainers who had horses rated 55plus,and were considering starting their horses in otago and southland in december or january,would have looked at the conditions of upcoming races and thought there were more realistic winning options with their horses,than running in a race where high class horses could start as close as 15m. It seemed both a programming and rating issue. I think horses like one change would be suited to having races programmed like they do in western australia at the gallops. They are always running 0 metropolitan win races,or 0 metro wins in last year,or two years or whatever,or use stakes instead of wins. As tabforever has said,its important horses like one change are able to run in races where they can still earn.Horses like him are the type that are needed to get the high class races off the ground.

Yes well done to one change.It was good to see him get a win. Mikenz comments were about small fields,low turnovers you get as a result,the impact the handicapping system has on the progression through the grades and a he expressed a view that money spent rewarding age 2 and 3 year old racing could be better spent on promtoing particiption and retaining 4 year old and older horses who are needed to fill out fields. he gave a specificm example. The fact you have to imply he resented one change winning,when he clearly never said that,indicates how defensive you have become when even common sense views are expressed,in my opinion..