the galah

i never said the letter was aimed at m house.Not sure why you said that bit to me. This is the only social media forum i'm on and the only time i've seen mr house make comment is on the unhinged content ,that i used to be able to access.. Everytime i've seen him comment over the years he has been consistent in what he has said. i've always interpreted his comments to be addressing what he believes is a priority for the industry.That is,industry policies which invest in and lead to maintaining participation in the profitable revenue generating sector of the industry,i.e. the races with the best turnover/stakes paid ratio ,where the bulk of the racing participants operate. like its just common sense to me that if you have someone who operates mostly within that sector and who is day in and day out, speaking to people who participate,then what better voice to listen to. Mark jones is another person who has a similar background and network of contacts, which keeps him in touch with the pulse of the racing industries wellbeing and participants thinking. from my observation and research over the years,companies who last and who generate long term profits,focus on maintaining and expanding the profitable sectors of their business.Thats not what nz harness racing are doing. Instead they are following the path of the ones who fold or who generate losses,which is to direct resources to areas that are unprofitable and unlikely to increase revenue,even with extra investment. just common sense and i think mr house and mr jones express mostly common sense and logical thinking. you may not have thought mr jones letter overstepped the line. If you think everything he said was acceptable,then fair enough.but i said at the time i thought a small part of his letter overstepped the mark and that as a result we will see efforts by officialdom to limit all comment.And that is exactly what we got,thats why we are discussing this topic. You may think its just coincidental,i don't and found the adherence to racing code of conduct response predictable.After all ,they are predictable. i think people should analysis why you areand they should ask themselves,why was there a need to try and limit public content. to me its an obvious sign that leadeship realise they are not getting the results hoped for from some of the policies they have implemented and have found by prioritising different sectors over other sectors,within the industry has lead to negtive impacts. and leadership are particularly sensitive because many of their critics said,do that and this will happen. And well,it turns some of their critics actually have a better understanding of what works,where resources should go to get the most beneficial results for the industry. the newsletter we.re discussing about code of conduct is just a symptom of poor decision making by leadership. That is where people should be focussing,not on code of conduct letters.

thats what they aare afraid of isn't it. as i said in a previous post about mark jones on the harness part of this website,expect to see them try and silence people like him who express opinions they don't want to hear. that latest press release,was easily predicted. Like i've said,its ok for high profile breeders/owners/trainers to gave public opinions and advocate to industry leadership for their special interests ,but its not ok for other individuals to do the exact same thing, if the special interests they advoctae for don't align with the thinking of industry leadership. simple as that.

It must be hard if your a tab bookie and your pricing the stonewall runners. personally its a stable who i simply can't predict at all. They either perform well above how i expect them to go or they are the opposite and perform well below what i have them rated to.To me they are consistenly inconsistent. i try and avoid backing them,but have occasionally and the last 4 horses i've backed from that stable,they have all badly dropped out.. I've found them like that since they started .although they do tend to be consistent when it comes to the younger age group races. Its a very baffling stable and always has been to me.Can anyone work out how to follow their form.

only stonewall,but they are multi millionaires. i can't think of anyone at all apart from them,whether big or small. some younger trainers just use racetracks that are full to anyone new,or the odd one training on someone elses property or a relation,but no new establishments. They are all disappearing gradually.people are getting older and younger people can't afford to set up themselves. just the way it is. the trend will continue.

so the hrnz website has a news story"adherence to racings codes of conduct". it says words that i think could be summarised as-no criticism is tolerated in any form,as you might upset someones feelings.lets just all get along . forget the, see something,say something type thinking. so,as i predicted,they appear to be trying to silence the likes of mark jones. Now as i said in an earlier post,i think mark jones,who is high profile within the industry,made a tactical error in making an unnecessary personal comment about someone,because what that did, was allow those who want to silence him,the opportunity to actually silence all of what he said. But,as i have said previously,this push to silence people is a very obvious indication that HRNZ is very touchy about the bulk of what mr jones said. In other words,the way the have responded is what you would expect . i.e. they have to attack the messenger (mr jones),if his message was accurate.If his message was transparently inaccurate,they wouldn't have responded with the latest news item.

i've just been looking at the price of bare land in canterbury. say you were wanting to purchase some land to train a couple or say you wanted to try and make a go of training professionally. well,half way between rolleston and prebbleton theres a 4 hectare block of bare land for $860,000 plus gst. then you could head out past lincoln way,rather wet out there so hope you like mud, and spend over a million on 10 hectares and get about 4 sheds with that as well, or head a bit further out and pay over 2 million for 30 hectares with a house.I think that may be a dual code trainer who owns that property,although could be wrong there. Or you could go half an hours drive from the southern side of christchurch and pay around $550,000 plus gst for 4 hectares of bare land on the outskirts of leeston, or pay around $750,000 for 4 hectares of bare land on the far boundary of west melton or you could head an hour north west of christcurch and pay about 1.2 million for 40 hectares of bare land. so,the 4 hectare properties are probably about right for someone who trains just 3 or 4 and could put in a small track,but if your going to train full time you would be thinking you would need at least 10 heactares. so thats just the price of land,of course you would have to add on the costs of putting in a track and building stables,appropriate fencing,power and those type of things. so,the hobby trainers in canterbury only need about a million in spare cashto spend time on a hobby they enjoy and the person wanting to make a go of it as a trainer full time,well they probably need to spend about 1,500,000 spare cash, before they even think about training a horse. so there are very few people,if any who are likely to set up new training establishments. And of course,people who currently have training establishments,whatever the scale,are likely to cash up as they get older. And theres a lot of trainers who are getting older in canterbury.In past decades land used to be much more affordable for horse trainers,which is why you had so many scattered around the boundaries of christchurch.Not any more though. it used to be those in the past who invested in land on the outskirts of canterbury knew they had a major asset(the land),to sell in the future whenever they wanted.those days are long gone as the cost of land these days means thats not even a starter. Thats why i always say,if hrnz doesn't invest in providing land and facilities,which of course they could run at a profit,then its inevitable harness racings footprint in canterbury will shrink faster than people realise.Then it will all be too late and all you will have is the big stables,who prefer to focus on udr's and don't run many horses at the meetings that currently generate profits for the industry,running in small fields on friday nights,dominated by team driving and low turnovers..

tabcorp had already stopped nz people accessing their account from nz since the beginning of this month. betfair i always thought dodgy as regards their in play betting on horse racing. for example there is an 11 second delay if you look at the sky tv coverage start time and compare it with the tab website. i often wondered whether there is actually a couple of second more delay with betfair. i once had an account on betfair and i learnt not to bet on in play australian racing because of the dalay.For example 90% of the time you could nearly always see who had won by looking at the betfair prices ,even though your tv screen showed the races still had 200m to go and they were all bunched up and you could still get a bet on (but only on horses who never won). actually if you did bet on something that turned out to be the winner in the last 400m,you never got it on as its odds would slash to below whatwas showing as available to bet on,you would drop the price you were willing to accept,again if it was to be a winner,someone somewhere else had taken what was available before you.I'm sure somewhere someone had an inside advantage,whteher it be the delay or the algorythms. I think nz punters betting on in play on australian racing was for losers. Actually i had intended to try out using the delay as an advantage and go sit at the races and bet here. But they closed my account before i got the chance. They gave no reason and i had made a small profit overall,but i had one bad night and that may have been a factor.i was just trying out a system i had and i had still made on overall profit though so that annoyed me as they simply just closed the account,refused to respond to requests as to why they had done that and when i rung them up the bloke actually said,oh we're doing that a lot to our nz customers at the moment,but he wasn't sure why. betfair,like tabcorp wered paying the nz codes for use of their product betfair obviously less,but i wonder whether any increased turnover redirected bu nz punters into nz pools will create much of a win for racing. sport i would imagine it will. Like,i'm sure a lot of the people betting on nz racing on betfair were new zealanders and they aren't going to invest much with our tab are they? i really only followed nz harness on betfair and found the odds were nearly always unders for everything. as to tabcorp,if you take out the nz people that were betting into their pools on the nz product,then that may well leave their pools so low they discourage australain punters to bet on a lot of the races. thats why i thought the likes of nz harness racing may gain next to nothing,even possibly lose with the new legislation.in other words the funding they lose from all the aussie bookies could be greater than what they will get from the nz punters whose only choice now is the nz tab. t will be sports is where the nz tab will gain.

Thats roughly 80-90 million left over after all debt repaid.Heck they could even put some in the bank if they wanted after relocating. when they do relocate,it should be to somewhere where the racetrack and the training complex are one and the same. Imagine that. No transport costs for the owners whose trainers are based at the new racetrack.

oh,i think we all realise that to go somewhere else ,they would have to have something like a 5 year plan to ensure continuity of enabling racing and training to continue before a new complex opened.

its not all doom and gloom gammalite. as i've said before ,never let a crisis go to waste. i know we all think we are experts on aucklandt,but really any half wit can see they should cut out the dillusional thinking and start talking about where the auckland club will relaocate to. As soon as they do that,they can then start talking positive and selling the future. I wonder,are some people making decisions hanging onto to auckland at alexandra park because they see their own source of income being reduced.who knows but some of the things those people say are odd. but anyways gammalite their last annual report(2024),which came out in november,said they had net assets of 93.4 million.At that point they said they only owed the bank $76 million,so that loan would may have gone up a bit,but say ,hypothetically they were able to sell everything they had tomorrow,they would still have ,at a guess get between 80-90 million. so instead of making it all a long painful death of alexandra park,they should start thinking about the bright furure they have somewhere else.. hows that for a positive spin. that should qualify me for a job at hrnz or the atc.

obviously no one is listening. I suppose thats predictable enough. Todays races all seemed to try and start on time.Invercargill especially don't like to grab a few extra seconds of turnover. the only thing i notice is the invercargill starter likes to drive the mobile really slow which can cause the odd galloper and possible false start.Don't think hes doing that to increase turnover though. Actually the 2 races that had delays today,i observed and saw there turnovers increase by over 25% of the figure that was on the website a minute after the delays happened.So it could well have been more. imagine that. all someone has to do at hrnz is say,lets introduce some pre race start procedure for most races or delay the start by between a minute or 2 and hey presto a 20% increase in turnover. I would imagine they would get a pay increase,an extra weeks holdiay and since hrnz love the bonuses,they could throw a $4000 bonus as well. Maybe they could do what those aussie gallops meetings do,just walk the last horse or two,to go into the stalls for that extra minute or two.. seems simple enough to me.

I don't doubt what you say about mcmullen being a very good driver. Its just the way he consistently drives gus which i lack confidence in. I saw him interviewed before last nights the race and he said the interdom final has been there aim all season with gus and i think that shows. Its a bit like marketplace using lead in races to have it peak for the big races.And i think like marketplace,gus is deliberately being underdriven and punters can see that and when they see it happening over and over then they think thats just a bit dodgy.thats my opinion anyway.the all stars were our best example of trainers who could perepare their horses and drive them in a way where punters had confidence they were always trying.,unlike the way i see gus. i'm of course looking at it from a punters perspective and how that impacts whether people bet on the races. i woulldn't be surprised to see him make a move in the final. That may turn out good for him if he doesn't have to work too hard after making the move,but it could also turn out bad for him because his horse has been conditioned to be a softie recently mentally and it may just say,this is harder than normal and gallop. i actually think p mcmullen is the reason a lot of those races at albion park are a bit boring. Hes a clever driver who,if he drives a favorite with a nice draw,likes to position them on the front end,whether it be in front or parked. And when he sits parked,he dictates the pace to suit him and the rest of the drivers seem to get intimidated into worrying about having to work too hard to get past him if they make a move and simply just wait and in effect throw away there chances. that of course also comes back to the factor of faster tracks being more boring because its too hard for those at the back to make a move

i just watched another race before i go to bed and the commentator said the same,just a sprint home,the backmarkers had no chance..

good tipping there gammalite.Once it got the run behind its stablemate it always looked good.the dixons do that a lot,the slightly more favoured runner does the work and the stablemate gets the economical run. The draws meant they could do that and your tip was good enough to capitalise on the nice run it got. the horse quality is high tonight,but the racing i thinks not been very exciting. it seems in every race tonight they settle in their positions,no one moves up,then only go average speed, then they sprint home from the 800m and the ones up front naturally don't stop. it was like in every race the drivers were witing for next week. a bit like watching racing at auckland,but just had more horses in them. acrually you mention gus. I watched some of his runs before and after you tipped him a month ago. I'm sure hes the best trotter there,i just don't have much confidence in the driver,p mcmullen.He just keeps getting beaten by just following them around ,seemingly waitng for next week.Again he drove a poorly judged race tonight.i'm sure if he had say b orange driving he would have won all his recent starts,apart from the one he galloped at the start in.bet and win the only other chance in the final. the way leap to fame won,it looked like he might even be getting better,if thats possible. anyway,you've got the first of the three legs in.2 to go.

so according to tonights results, they aren't paying any extra for running 5th. So maybe that does mean they will lose a point if they run 5th?

i guess that $550 would be the equivalent of about $2000 today. i think if they end up racing for that as a winning stake,then that would mean what you describe as a slow horse,which i guess means the majority, would have to win about 15 races a year to pay for its training. somehow, i think thats not such a good plan.

Its not like you to have a defeatest attitude gamma,and i'm sure if you focussed, you could come up with as many ways as anyone to turn the female factor into positives.(consider that a pep talk to get bit of a yarns most positive thinker back on track). Now i'm not suggesting at all that there should be preferential treatment for anyone based on gender. I'm pointing out how male particpation in the sport is declining and that to some extent that void is being filled by women. the industry has to recognise that trend,properly understand the reasons that is happening and capitalise on the factors whcih has lead to that trend. Of course NZ's current leading trainers are a male and female combination.4 of the top current 7 leading trainers have women in the partnership. 2 of our top 6 drivers are currently women. But heres where its most obvious that there has been a trend which has been happening within the industry in recent times. Of the 38 drivers currently listed on the junior drivers premiership,there are more women than men. I'm sure if you go around stables you will see this same gender trend . Younger women employed in stables,trainers at every level ,listed as the trainers but in fact having so much of the work done by their partners. Same with owners,wives supporting husbands. Look,i think theres many different factors why there is this growing trend to see more women,things like their love of the horse being more a focus when they start in the industry than long term financial reward or stability. I really don't know why there isn't a womens group ,backed by HRNZ,getting the message out there that racing can be about families and horses and fun and that woman can come and go as the circumstances in their lives change,but will always be welcome back when the time is right again.So many ways of promoting the sport using the female angle which would allow them into areas which generate positive exposure. look maybe there already is such a group,if there is,i've never heard of it,but really its something that hrnz should be capitalising on.

maybe your right about the bookies nowornever. they don't seem to assess the form too good sometimes and really have ony themselves to blame for what appear betting plunges. last night at cambridge,Niamh in race 1 opened at $23 nd closed about $5. ii looked at that the night before and thought,23/1,what were they thinking. unfortunately it was down to about 9/1 by the time i looked at it and even though i selected it based on its previous run,thought $8 was about the right price and just backed it close to race start time on the tote,where it only paid $6 and $1.30. The place price again showing it doesn't pay to back anything on the tote because the tote place pools are too pathetic and you reduce the price with only relatively small bets.. I haven't studied these really big price drops on the ff enough,but from what i've seen it appears that the ones that they have way overs and get a lot of support early on,actually are noticed by all punters and they just jump on the band wagon anfd the horses eventually start slightlt unders,even if they do win. i know some punters have computer algorythms and use them to bet on based on win movers,i'm just not sure if that happens much in nz. apparently,going some people make a lot of money off racing making bets just based on that.if someone in nz was doing that,they would do ok on harness racing. mind you,if i had a computer algorythm,which i don't,i would make sure i hasd a part which excluded the whales tips,so as to avoid losing money betting on any of them. Not that he can't tip,he can,but his tips always pay unders. Like he tipped tuareg and i'm sure he was the reason it dropped from about $20 into around $4 last night.That made no sense whatsover based on recent form,yet punters seemed to latch on to that one. Having said that,it being so heavily restrained at the start like it was,meant punters who did back it would have lost hope after 250m.

I fully agree thats the horses and the people invoved could be better promoted in a way that maximises adding value to the industry. Theres a reason why the unhinged content has such a following. Its because he does exactly that. Yet HRNZ won't even put his content on their website.Sort of an own goal by hrnz. Unfortunately if your not on facebook,its down to only his last 2 unhinged posts that you can watch these days if you google it. it used to be about 6,then 3,but now 2. If the stakes eventutally drop,which seems inevitable with hrnz happy to continue having expenditure exceeding its income,then there will be even greater future need to add valure to other aspects of horse ownership and promotion of the people involved at all levels(including volunteers). Thats why not that long ago i was suggesting they should have policies focussed on the intergenerational transfer of interest in the sport through family and friend orientated on course attendance,for those who own, breed,etc harness horses,including things like financial turnover based rewards for clubs who participate.Thats one way of adding value,just as an aspect of unhingeds content is the recognition people get from success or particpation.Its the recognition that adds value. Another thing is they don't promote the level of participation of females in the industry and foster that more..

that was very good selecting by you last week,hard to top that. i'm not sure what you mean when you say-the appreciation of the main player,the horse does drop significantly as seen on bit of a yarn. Nnor where you say- people stop recognising the participants. i've never read anyone say that on here or in general elsewhere. if you listen to what that man said on that show,you can see everything he said is reflected in turnover figures,when those factors he mentions are at play in nz.. so,for the sake of the people and the horses in harness racing that you mention,,you need administrators implementing policies and procedures that maximise returns for industry participants. and when you say,its only a money making exercise if people focus on how to maximise turnovers,well that seems to undrervalue the importance of that somewhat.

His conversation was about what the industry and tracks over there needed to do to be sustainable-basically he was talking about how turnovers dictate tracks either turning a profit or loss. How tracks that turned profits can prosper and tracks that didn't don't.And how he seemed to think it inevitable and just realism that the not profitable tracks would and should close. Just market forces. He obviously has been a highly sort after person and been involved in implementing policies at tracks which have turned around turnover and profitability.He has been involved in that for decades and had all the stats and numbers in his head. the the fast tracks tyhing was one of several the factors he gave-he explained front end horses have an advantage,that fast tracks with bends make it too hard for backrunners to make moves and that was a factor in whether punters bet or did not bet.I mean isn't that obvious anyway. at no point did he say anything about quality of horse being a factor. In fact he often referenced how clubs could make profits from a programme of lower grade claimers because the purses were not as significant-and how that was an important thing for thos tracks sustainabilty. he actually mentioned some things i've mentioned before.e.g. he said,timeslots can make or break a track. reducing purses for small fields. delays in races starting push turnovers up-that factor is a bit more complicated when it come sto nz as we rely on sky racing coverage in australia to boost turnover and as nz harness have no leverage due to it being tabcorp who run the racing channel,nz racing sometimes may lose coverage if races were delayed. he refers to the meadowlands recently running racing with 20 minute gaps and running on time and saying how that was a bad decision. He said they should have known to delay the start as its what has always worked to get the turnover up-of course their coverage wouldn't be jammed in between a gallops meeting form taree and a dog race from ballarat like happens with nz harness. But what i do think nz harness should seriously look at is eking out just a minute or so delay to the start of there nz races. Thats what they could do to help turnover. Sky racing will still keep covering a meeting if it starts around under 2 minutes late if they can see in that last minute the horses are starting to line up and l begin within that time frame.Its not an over complicated thing. They could do things like have the mobile up the track from the horses a bit more and at the point in time he would normally start,he puts on a light on his mobile,backs up ,stops and then blows the whistle as per normal and only then do the horses start coming up. All tjhat would take up to a minute,people watching can see the start is happening and the clubs get an extra minutes coverage and turnovers increase. Or with standing starts,they revert back to what worked for 100 years,the horses starting on the front line form only 1 circle,thus i takes an extra 30 seconds to a minute to line up ,and you get more people betting. and they should never be running meetings with 40 minute gaps,nor 25 minute gaps. they should be a standards 30 minute gap. And when running 2 harness meetings they should never run one meeting with 10 minute gaps from the other meeting. As i said last week,auckland was not confirmed at least a couple of times before addington started.Do the people not understand how punters work if they are say sitting at a pub tab. They will not,go up to the machine,keep putting the betslip that had a collect form the previous race until it clears ,hoping they can hold up the que long enough for it to do that and them get a bet on the next race. I mean i know when the races start but i regularly get shut out myself because they either change the gaps between races of they haven't confirmed the previous harness race.

actually ,one thing i've observed over the last 25 years, is how stakemoney on south island nz harness has gone from being more than the south island gallops,to now being much less. And the more i've thought about it the more its obvious why that is. they get full fields becuase the horse population correlates with the number of races run. that leads to a far more attractive betting product,which results in increased wagering,which leads to more returns to the industry which leads to increased sustainable stake levels.(and they always get good timeslots and coverage).

i just had a listen to this show and i think everybody should listen to it if they are interested in what harness racing can do to prosper. obviously the usa is different with their simulcasts and so many tracks with casinos and obviously given nz harness have very little control over trackside coverage. But many of the things he says the industry needs to occur to prosper,well the industry is doing theopposite. The faster you make the tracks ,the worse your racing is,the less your turnover. (too many front end dominated races)-(-using that observation of his ,i think you could add the more sprints you have the less the turnover) Do you have a horse shortage or a track and race day excess. You have to adapt to market conditions. whats the interest of the betting supplier(tab/entain). If its racing then they will focus on harness racing and it will prosper-. If its cainos(or sport) then racing will become secondary.. you have to drive the breeding industry with the racing industry,but the racing should always be the main focus. not running competing high oprofile meetings against each other. Delaying the start by a couple of minutes has a drastic efffect on increasing turnovers. lowering takeout significantly increases turnover. refuse the stakes paid if the number of starters is small.(i've mentioned that myself) you can't run races at similar timeslots as major races elsewhere . increased % handle on track is important to support clubs to get people on track. what are the stakes required to keep people happy. e.g. age group. If they need x amount to get people to race 2 year olds,they should provide it,but reduce the number of said 2 year old races to the level where they get good field sizes.If they are going to run small fields they will go broke. move the races to days where they generate turnover and coverage-even if it midweek. people want as many days as they can get,but the more you spread it out the more people prefer to race in small fields ,the more you lose money. given the market,there should be less races and tracks. you have to adapt to market conditions.

so you do understand,as you say "when funding decreases so will your prizemoney.Just a normal progression" so really the difference with your view and my view is not related to how much money hrnz have to spend. its you see no problem with HRNZ spending up now,keeping prizemoney up now,then when they tapped their reserves, just decrease prizemoney.Thats what you said above anyway. So your thinking is similar to what those in charge at hrn appear to have. Only difference between you and them is some of those at hrnz will have an exit strategy when the funding decrease happens, whereas you will still be supporting harness racing.. in effect thats a strategy which limits negative impacts on harness racing people now,but substantially increases the negative impacts later. Whereas my opinion,and that of many others is,HRNZ shouldn't be diminishing their cash reserves at the rate they are,as there will come a point when stakes will have to be cut,and unfortunately they will need to be cut to levels, which will result in less particpation across the industry, which will send nz harness racing in to a steep decline from which they will never fully recover from. its like someone is leading a life where they have a job that pays ok and they can afford the costof living , and put aside some money in the bank.Then they find out they've been taken off contract and put on an hourly wage ,the effect of which is to cut their income where their outgoings excede their incoming $.That person has 2 main choices,cut out any excess spending and use the money in the bank to maintain the a reasonable tandard living,or the 2nd alternative of making no cuts to their spending,use discretion as to when they use some of the money they have in the bank, until it runs out. The person who kept spending,day of reckoning come far quicker that the person who didn't. Andlife is tough when it happens.

I don't think anyone is duping me gamma. i'm of the understanding that when bookies suffer big losses on runners on the ff book ,e.g.moonlite blood ,that means they will most likely have suffered a loss on that race.And if you have a run of well backed ff favorites winning at a meeting,that means the bookies will not be generating much of a profit,if any on the races where well backed favorites win. so theoretically,hrnz may have put on a race meeting,pay out x amount in stakes,expecting to receive x amount of funding from the tab for that meeting,but end up getting next to nothing,because of how the profit/loss ff betting turned out,no matter what the turnover figure. Of course i realise the bookies will turn a profit in the end,but that profit varies and that impacts the amount hrnz receive from the tab for funding. Thats how i understand ff betting/funding from, works.