the galah

That last sentence.."i'm sure they're not looking at turnover". you have to be right about that,because that is the reality. But if the people in charge are knowingly implementing and pushing intentionally fiscally imprudent policies which are also clearly shortsighted,then they aren't the right people to be making the decisions. So tonight they could have run a 9 horse fillies race and put the three 2 year old geldings into the last race for non winners that has 9 starters. thats what they did at winton with the one 2 year old that was available to start in southland.(thats right only one 2 year old,since scratched, accepted for the highest stake race programmed at winton). Instead they split the 2 year old race tonight into 2 fields of 6. If the current $1.65 favorite wins ,then j feiss gets an extra $8000 on top of the good stake. I'm sure that will keep her off poverty street for a bit.Its not j feiss fault that HRNZ want to throw money they can't afford at her. Queensland is an interesting model.obviously you know a lot about that. NZ is quite different,but their must be aspects of queenslands way of doing things that may be worth considering for nz. My impression of queensland is they have worked out what works best for them. But it does have some negatives. They run so many races that it waters down the sense of achievement and the competiveness Theres a mundane feeling to a lot of it and the punters feel that as well. Its also interesting to see how popular gambling on harness is comparing it to greyhound racing. In australia,in 2022 a study showed ,of regular gamblers,60% bet on greyhounds and 53% bet on harness racing Of those % the average betting per month per gambler was $40 on greyhounds and only $25 on harness. so people seem more interested in the greyhounds than the harness horses in australia. the opposite is currently the case here.

surely you jest? Using that logic then why aren't they spliiting the other races with 12 or more starters. To me,its like HRNZ are trying to get rid of as much money as they can before they turn out the lights. hrnz's obsession with 2 year old racing is almost farcial in my opinion. Harness races in nz in 5 years times will very likely be running for half the stakes they do now because of current leaderships policies. I feel sorry for those who will still be in the sport in 5 years and who will be struggling income wise because of current decisions like running 2x 2 year old 6 horse fields. just watch this space.

Only $3500 for an also ran just not enough to entice rachmaninov to Auckland.

I think doomed was saying the number of starters was embarrssing,not the quality of the horses . But you've obviously with an earlier post touched on part of the reason. some of the horses we would have expected to line up have recently targeted and earned money in some high stake races here and in australia.they have had a lot of hard racing and some have been looking for a spell and have been given it by their astute trainers. so races like the grins seem to have taken away part of the focus of targeing the auckland cup.

thanks for your reply. sorry, i have no intention of offending you,but your reply hasn't enlightened me at all. as to live streaming,theres 80 meetings run today that i could bet on with entain from many countries. theres probably somewhere i could live stream the first from Uruguay as well. Then again maybe not. I have an active tab nsw account,yet i have never been able to see the live racing video part on the website as it says i have no access to protected content. their website says access is limited to being in australia. so the obvious question is,if i was in australia could i live stream ournz trackside coverage. You sound like your in aussie,so can you? anyway,even if it were possible,being able to live stream a nz harness race will do next to nothing to encourage nz harness betting,from the australian punters watching the sky racing channels at home or the pub or the tab's. what does interest me is your saying nz harness is on sky racing 2. That does help ,but we need specifics as to the lead in times and what does sky racing 2 prioritise. Tomorrow rangiora is on sky racing 2,but so are 16 other meetings. how do you explain the wednesday addington races last week having win polls averaging over $6,000 per race and this week averaging only just over $2,000. so what i'm saying is its very obvious from tabcorp betting pools that nz harness is getting very inconsistent sky racing coverage. I have seen a 7 horse non win race at manawatu with no form get a win pool turnover of over $10,000 and i have seen several full field quality races at premier meetings hardly reach $1000 turnover. so generalising and saying harness racing is on sky 2 ,well unfortunately it doesn't help.

to which you replied . And in that reply you replied referencing my comment about the last 3 years. see below. . then i replied. So,the start of your last reply is a bit bemusing.. but anyway, i know you love the all stars. i acknowledge their undeniable abilities as well, i have great repect for them in many ways,but given my views,don't put them on the pedestal you do.

there is a lot of difffrent components to the puzzle of turnover and youv'e mantioned a couple.that effect nz punters. Somehow i think the number of nz punters betting on the trots is dropping. But the thing is,i can't help but think the viability of the nz harness industry is linked to how much australian punter participation they can get. How else do you explain the turnovers .. There has to be a link between the high turnover races with tabcorp nsw for nz harness, corresponding with the high turnover races on the nz/entain totes.Often they are low class races and often small fields. Manawatu have proved that. it has to be because the australian punters betting into the pools with entain australia that then get commingled with us,are seeing the same sky racing coverage as the tabcorp nsw punters who are betting into their own pools.. After all,we still are getting similar lead in exposure on our trackside channels for nz,yet the pools vary so greatly. australian punters do bet on nz harness,the figures show that,not huge but still very significant to the nz industry. But they do not bet without proper sky racing channel exposure. My theory is there is no transperancy from people at entain and hrnz around this issue,Its a deliberate policy to keep everyone in the dark. And the reason for that is they must have known that when they partnered with entain they were signing away the bargaining rites to ensure adequate coverage and times sllots for nz harness racing that they could have ensured had they gone with tabcorp nsw, as the nz tab's partner. I think theres been a major miscaluation by those in charge of nz racing,especially harness, as to the scale of the impact sky racing coverage,or lack therof,has on profitabilty . i think its a scandel myself that no one ever explains to the hard working committee men who look at their clubs turnovers and say to themselves,well that wasn't too good,or how come that race got such good turnover and that one didn't. keeping everyone in the dark because you don't want light shone on a subject of such importance because all the light would do is show what poor decision making has been made. You can't blame entain. I'm sure that fella dean shannon really does want to help nz harness. But lets not have people believe the bullshit. Entain is a huge global business interested in profit and nz harness is not the priority that for some reason,people in charge are trying to sell. There must be someone at hrnz who has the information of what races are getting lead in time on sky racing and what races are getting next to no coverage. And they must have the data on how it impacts turnovers. But we never hear about it do we,so they have to be covering it up for a reason. people/clubs,whoever should start demanding to know the effects of the time slotsand sky coverage nz harness is being given.

Well my comments about what the udr's have been in the last 25 years, were to justify why i said purdons results got a major boost when rasmussen came along. I've just looked up the stakes won and when rasmussen came along mark purdon went from having mostly about double the nearest trainer to being treble with rasmussen. so that again just confirms what i said.Rasmussen brought to the partnership . also i haven't gone the early crow. i actually said earlier i can't see much changing at the all stars and from that i would assume they will still be at or near the top of the ladder. they will still have the systems and techniques in place to boost performance for the big days. Mark purdon was undeniably the benchmark for nz trainers,but personally i think the media over hyped the gap between his training abilities and other top trainers.

Ok. just top prove nothing was a dream i will quote the udr's. This isn't opinion,just fact. so in the last 25 years mark purdon has trained on his own,in partnership with greg payne,hayden cullen,natalire rasmussen and now his son nathan. In those 25 years,8 were in partnership with natalie rasmissen. Of those 8 years,7 of the 8 were when m purdon had his best udr's. his partnership with nathan purdon last year,from the remaining 17 years,was the only other one to score in the top 8.. 2020/21 was the year that the purdon/rasmussen saw a drop in the udr and their last year in partnership. Of course the impacts from covid would have been had an effect not just on the racetrack but off. mark purdons worst udr ,if you can call it that,was in 2007 (.2836). hence my comment about rasmussen being a factor in the boost in performance. As to your refering to top performances in the last 3 years. quite right to point those out,but you probably know i have started a handful of posts on here questioning how the all stars horses are able to lift their performances for the big days. And i have given the reasons why i believe that. They were,i had a rating system which i did for a few years,although no longer bother this year.I gave eevry horse a rating every time it ran. what i had was a system which consistently horses would run at. Obviously some would improve and some drop off,but one pattern that emerged and was the significant improvement( normally 5-10 lengths) the all stars could come up with 90% of their horses on the big days. that was always there,even in the last 5 years . people can argue why that is or whether they agree. so thats parts opinion,but i trust my judgment. everyone has their own opinion and i have just given mine.

so the race with the highest turnover tonight, on the win and exotic pools, for both nz tab/entain and tabcorp nsw,was the non win race.The tabcorp pool on the non win was actually over $4000 more than any other race at addington. Like i have said before,its not the class of horse that gets people betting. its got to be the pre race exposure a race gets on sky racing or trackside tv. So the powers to be really have to come up with something that addresses this to harness racings advantage. Its quite amazing the difference in pool sizes just on this one factor. so who makes the calls as to when races are fitted into what timeslots. nz harness racing will not prosper if they are given timeslots that are 2 minutes after an aussie gallops meetings start times,like happened this wednesday. We have been told for a while now that entain was the best partner for the industry,but it is tabcorp nsw who control skyracing coverage. So is it them that come up with the time slots. to me this is a very important subject.

Thats my view as well brodie. Nothing would have changed. On top of that they will still be using the same vets. The significance of mark purdon not being there,while important, is over rated in my opinion. nows a new era and theres no denying there will only ever be one mark purdon so we shouldn't expect his sons to start off as if they are as good from the get go. having said that. I personally think they had already come back to the same level of playing field that the other top stables have in the last 3 or so years. It was when natalie rasmussen came along the all star horses got a turbo boost. Just look at the udr's. the stats tell the story and don't have opinions,just facts. but ,i do have an opinion and think part of the reason would have been her driving as shes so good,but it had to have been only only part of the reason as they consistently produced multiple horses to run top 3 and even top 5 ,several lengths ahead of the rest.She was only driving one of them.

so they had an inquiry,but how come they didn't late scratch the 2 horses taken out of the race before they even started. no way did they get a fair start. The starter only had 4 on the 10m mark to look at,yet he let them go when kango was impeding the 2 inside horses and moving in even more . That race was a bit of a joke from the start . There was a reason american me was so far in front after 100m . The starter up there needs to go to spec savers.

the people i know in the sport are mostly as i've described so obviously i move in different circles. theres a place for everyone and if incentives are to be applied then they need to be directed at the area which gets the most positive effects. If it takes another $70,000 for one 2 year old race or $12,000 bonuses for every 2 year old winner,for anyone to stay in the sport, then they are defintely targeting the wrong people. i think the people you descrbe have a genuine passion for the sport anyway so will still participate.

I thought everyone recognised the number 1 issue in harness racing is lack of horse numbers. so for the well being of the industry,who deserves greater rewards or incentives? I think its just logical to say the trainers and owners who line up the horses in the races which generate the profits from turnovers that are used to subsidise the higher stake,loss returning races. Of course you need those big races and of course the likes of the pudons are very important. But you lose me when you say Dean shannon and all the other rich owners deserve more incentives and rewards to0 keep them interested, than the bloke down the road who works 2 jobs so he can have a half share in a racehorse that hes happy to see line up most weeks without setting the world on fire,simply because he sees his horse more than just in a materialistic way. Increasing the stake of the welcome stakes by $70,000 is such a stupid decision when you consider the good it could have done at the coalface.How many extra runners would it have attracted. zero would be the answer if people were honest. The likes of a michael house or a robbie holmes are very important to the industry. $70,000 could have gone into many series races like the one running tonight for the lower grade at addington. Thats where your grass roots can see an incentive that they could relate to. Not the welcome stakes. Harness racing needs leadership that don't live in an echochamber. Thats the problem with harness racing,the decision makers are thinking ..what can we do to encourage more poeople to participate and they ask those in the same circles and think of what would help them continue,then push forward those policies thinking they are doing everyone a favour. Well to the contrary,the vast majority live outside that echo chamber and HRNZ focusing on 2 year old racing is not helping one bit.

The welcome stakes is one of those races where they have bumped the stakes up for the 2 year olds ,throwing more money at them seemingly on the premise that it will encourage more peolpe to breed. it doen't make sense,but seems to be HRNZ's thinking. they have got it totally wrong in my view and so have the likes of the media personalitites who are always hyping up the successful players in one part of the industry as the role models.. You know,everyone seems to accept that there will be a shortage of horses going forward and therefore to retain its market share and keep providing income to the majority of industry participants,there will have to be better use of their number one resource,the horses. So what does HRNZ and the media always elevate and promote and say this is the blueprint for what everyone should be trying to achieve...The likes of the purdon/phelan partnership or the all stars. And what have the likes of those stables consistently said over the years,their focus is on only training the good horses,which is what they obviously are very good at...But there average horse don't last long and don't get to race and there is much less overall use of that valuable resource,the horses. But it shouldn't take einstein to work out that there are far more valuable trainers to the industries viabilty than the aforementioned trainers. Thats not to undermine their achievements which anyone can admire,but its just stating reality. Traiers like michael house,bruce negus,greg and nina hope,mark jones and even the dunns make better use of their use numbers and provide more product and then you have the smaller trainers like robbie holmes,jay abernethy,barry ward,john mcdermott who are doing good things. So if your talking about the reality of who is needed most by the industry,its the latter group of trainers and that is who HRNZ should be focusing on incentivsing to keep doing what they are doing.

trevor grant currently suspended until the 2nd of june. Another one of those penalties thats inconsistent as regards how they have calculated which days are included. Trevor grant got an 8 day suspension . He only drives the one horse. his suspension is calculated to include 8 meetings within 3 weeks.Would george elliott be likely to race 8 times in 3 weeks? in my opinion i think the suspension is ok,just inconsistent . They need to at least treat everyone the same who doesn't drive that often.

I agree with you nowornever that the fields weren't attractive betting wise and i found it hard to get enthusiastic given all the hot favorites who appeared most likely to win and did.they aren't my cup of tea. Only 1 paid more than $2.70 to win. i often think some of those hot favorites start well under the realistic prices,but they seem to win so punters and the bookies seem to know what they are doing. Nowornever obviously one of the early ones to get on george elliot at a reasonable price,but that didn't last long and besides I had thought natives inferno would be the one and put a bit more on when he went away so well the first time in the false start,but he must have known and galloped in the restart.

tonights turnovers down quite a bit with tabcorp from previous weeks. win pool just averaging well under half of what was normal. 2727. i noticed the addington races were due to start mostly 2 minutes after an aussie gallops meeting was due to start,so you would assume the sky racing coverge would have been very limited pre race for addington. There was the one race which had a 5 minute gap lead in and it got 3 times the average win pool for tonight. the average nz tote win pool was just 5810 for the 7 races with the highest pool being the same race that was highest for tabcorp.

interesting how it all connects. as to flying views colours,i could be wrong but my memory was it started out with greenish tartany colours then later changed to a colour a bit like a bright canary yellow. from memory i was there and watched him place in the main sprint at orari behind grey way who won his 50th race that day. i've just looked up his record and i can see he was ridden in some races by lionel dobbs. as you have said,s laming seems to have been his regular rider but other jockeys like danny crozier,gary blair and even ally robinson,kevin morton,jim collett,michael mein,ray hewinson and a c g. sorrenson rode him in the south island.

I have just spent 30 minutes recording the figures from the tabcorp website as relates to the last 5 nz meetings on wednesday to sunday. i can't tell you the nz figures as entain don't have the pools in their results,except on the day of the races. so for tabcorp nsw the highest average win tote pools for the nz trots was 1) wednesday/addington 6104.... 2) thursday /cambridge 6019.... 3)friday/addington 5196.... 4)sunday/ashburton 2209.... 5) saturday/winton 2042 as to trifectas 1)thursday/cambridge 2031....2) wednesday/addington 1774....3)friday/addington 1767....4)saturday/winton 1096 ....sunday/ashburton/722.... so you can see the best performing days on the aussie tabcorp tote for nz harness are the wednesdays and the thursdays. wednesday addington average stakes are amongst the lowest yet perform the best . Its obvious races with greater sky racing exposure and lead in times will get the best turnovers in aussie.. Saturdays and sundays will not get the necessary exposure so perform the worst. the ff pools for tabcorp are not displayed on their website. The nz tab/entain pools are obviously the most important part of the equation,but the aussie pools still significant in the big picture. Really you would think if nz harness is to survive they should be looking at running their meeting at times and on days where they will generate the most turnover. Just common sense. theres different factors that come into play as regards generating turnover in my opinion but best not to complicate the subject too much and thats why i have stuck with just giving the above figures.

Are you including the australian pools totaL I gave last weeks nsw tabcorp figures on another thread. If you combined the wednesday win pools of tabcorp nsw and the entain/nz tab pools,i think you would get something not too far off what you would get for a addington meeting on a friday per race.The exoctic pools are always relatively strong in comparison as well from tabcorp nsw,but the place pools not so. Then compare the combined pools of tabcorp and nztab fro a saturday harness meeting and i'm sure saturdays are a very poor turnover day compared to wednesdays. Then compare the combined sunday pools then you i would guess they will be slightly more,but will that last with all the extra meetings on a sunday now? If they aren't making any money on a canterbury wednesday meeting after paying the stakes,then how could they be making money on a friday addington meeting or a friday auckland meeting? also i would have thought that given the reason tabcorp pools seem to hold up well on a wednesday would be because of the greater exposure those races get on those timeslots,then wouldn't it follow that logically pools on betting agencies like betfair,while not over large,would also see improved turnovers. so are you taking the nz figures in isolation or are you including the total pools of all the betting agencies that HRNZ get a cut of. Also have you factored in that there may have been an initial drop in pool sizes at the time the new website started. Its hard to tell exactly the significance of that and whether it was just a temporary thing,but you would have to factor in how the pools on other days of the week are comparing due to that factor. so are you looking at just part of the picture and not the whole picture, as the whole picture which includes turnovers/stakes paid/everything is what counts?

72 horses running tomorrow in the 7 races,so while some fields not as full as normal,still not too bad overall. They are run in timeslots where they can generate turnover and you would think they should run at a profit. More income for a broad cross section of industry trainers /drivers and owners and gives the trainers more options to choose where best to place their horses. I think these wednesday meetings in canterbury are good.

you got it right first time walt. lionel pratt was lionel dobbs grandfather . Not sure whether he was given his christain name after his grandfather? pretty sure they train and live just down the road from the orari racecourse and thats where lionel pratt trained from near the end of his career i'm pretty sure flying view was trained at orari. like you say,i also remember him settling back and having a big finish. i once worked with lionels(dobbs) late brother as well. He was a great guy,very well respected and loved his racing as well.

i believe flying view was trained by his grandfather. I remember lionel dobbs used to lead it around at the races a lot and guess he would have also ridden it in work although he would have been a lot younger then,like us all. that was quite a few years ago now. It was a grey from memory and did it run 2nd in a telegraph at trentham? i seem to remember its racing colours were yellow as well and may have raced against the likes of grey way a few times. those were the days

i just watched the lionel dobbs interview on unhinged. I once had dealings with him and his wife and you wouldn't meet more genuine honest and fair people. Unhinged being there to capture it all was great.. also great seeing the pleasure john dunn obviously got from winning for the dobbs.