the galah

i'm not betting myself. But i like ideal delight paying $4 a place in the next at auckland. Do you like anything tonight to give mesomething to watch for an interest?

frazzled... in my opinion,very well driven. Looked to be getting close to galloping in the last 100m and did just after the post. Maybe if she hadn't gone quite as hard once she reached the lead, would have kept a touch more in the tank to fight the stablemate off,but then again maybe it needed to run along a bit to keep its mind on the job. beaten fair and square,but only just.

My take on it is, peoples opinions are peoples opinions whatever they say. Everyone can make up their mind for themselves. in this case the fella saying that referred to something that anyone can look at and make up their own mind.In effect tells people to look at something which if they do,will undemine his opinion. The best rebuttal to his opinion is to tell people to go watch the race and ask yourself when you do,did newmans horse get driven to win and did he in any way assist the john dunn horse finsih any closer. If your going to say people can't ever call someone a cheat then your just suppresing the spotlight that cheating deserves. And it goes without saying,some people do cheat.Cheating can come in different forms. thats my opinion.

You can see why the small breeders are disappearing. Increasing costs,diminshing returns and uncertainty and apprehension about decisions being made by industry leadership. All thats applicable moreso for the small breeder than the commercial breeders. The commercial breeders focus on breeding horses for the yearling sales and providing horses that race early in races where stakes and bonuses are being diverted. also commercial breeders can take advantage of tax changes that winston brought in to assist commercial breeders. Its hard enough for the commercial breeders to keep going,so its inevitable that the small breeders will continue to diminish in numbers. Small breeders concerns and struggles are being paid lip service by industry leadership. so currently,i think if you talk to people,you will find many small breeders doing what they never want to do,and that is give up their hopes and aspirations for any foals that may be bred and instead are facing the reality that they need to get rid of their broodmares,whether it be finances,lack of affordable grazing,lack of finding anywhere to graze,breeders getting older and maybe having to focus on their health,etc,etc.. Thats whats happening and i don't see where anyone in charge has done anything tangible to assist them. Its all really sad,because most breeders would still have the passion,but times have changed and reality is kicking in.And harness racing as an industry will be much poorer as a result.

spatchcock has said race 3 and it must be that one,between the 400m and 200m newman checks to see where the john dunn driven horse is. Sounds like someone on the unhinged website commented it was a big con. That person didn't imagine what he said he saw,it happened,but if you watch it you will most likely think it seems unreasonable for him to infer newmans actions warranted any criticism. Just part of racing,everyone has an opinion which makes things interesting.

Its sometimes hard to get into the mind of some punters as often i find things i think obvious are not seen that way by others. I'm sure you've nailed the race.Maybe he follows the gallops mainly and just calls all harness races the trots.Who knows. Calling him drunk seems unfair as he noticed something that i think most who watched the replay would have noticed. Clearly newman was focused on the whereabouts of his stablemate driven by dunn when newman felt the horse he was driving wasn't going to run somewhere. When is the last time you have seen a driver look around like that for a stablemate? Personally ,i didn't think it came close to being anything dodgy at all but in my opinion newman should look at that replay and maybe not make it as obvious next time. Besides dunn needs no help.

i just looked at the latest gavel house results and it was interesting to see what a couple sold for. Huzuni,a horse who has a win,2nd,2x4ths in its last 5 starts over the last few weeks,only went for $1900. I suppose its got to race in the higher grade because it was a promoted winner after the yesberg runner got disqualified this week. But still,$1900 doesn't seem much . Then you had the 10 year old mare Dolly jones.Her first foal is the 3year old Edward longshanks who has won 2 of 6 starts,the latest at addington last month.Also shes a half sister to an open class trotter herself. She only sold for, $600 and there was a $200 transport subsidy from the owner. theres no doubt several contributing reasons,but really thats very sad that they seem to be valued at so little if sold within nz.

Interesting thoughts but personally i think sires stakes racing has its place,but if it was the answer,then why are hrnz and the sires stakes dipping into their cash reserves. I read an article not that long ago by garreck knight which said the sires stakes board had built up nearly 1 million $ in cash reserves over the past 40 years.but the sires stakes board had commited to spend a significant portion of that over the next 3 years on those races. in the same article it said HRNZ was using cash reserves built up over the last 4 years to fund stake increases for the high end races,including the sires stakes series.. So you've pointed out mark purdon won a particular final 10 years in a row. No doubt hes won the other many times ,just like his brother.And you pointed out the one stable,emma stewart gets all the victorian money. so the very obvious point is,look to the reasons why they aren't self funding anymore. isn't it very obvious that if your going to pump the industries cash reserves into the elite races over the next 3 years,well who benefits and what happens after that. Where does the money come from after that. And using victoria as an example may well be similar to what nz is doing . But given the outcry in victoria that a large % of their land they own,a bit like cash reserves in another form,was used to bankroll their industry when it wwasn't sustainable,then somehow i don't think replicating what they have done is a very clever strategy. You iknow when you think about ,its looking more and more like the decision makers are looking to get what they can out of harness racing while they can,before the cruch comes which seems inevitable given their decision making. Its all rather sad ,because ok,if the idea is to get what you canhow come they get to prioritise their own interests first. To be honest,i don't really care much anymore as it won't effect me either way,i just think its like a slow train wreck coming that could be avoided,but isn't. And people who have tickets booked for travel on that train in the future are already thinking,why did i buy that ticket.

Like i said,when you know that you just have to factor it in. Its like if you walk out the door of your house and walk over your lawn and check the mailbox and walk to your car on the same path across the lawn every day.Eventually you will notice that theres less grass cover where you walk. Its not so noticable when its dry when compared with the rest of the lawn but is moreso when the lawn is greener. so you have about 140 horses running around next to the pylons each race meeting and methven is the club with the most grass track meetings. Say compare methven to banks peninsula. Methven have 1 more raceday,4 more trials and many more workouts than banks peninsula.on their grass track each year..Thats a lot more traffic.Now banks peninsula track will have a fuller cushion of grass on the inside,but an important part of the reason for that is because its not used as much.Simple as that. I saw kerry o'reilly on unhinged say the horses come from the front because of of race tempo. That may be a factor,but in my opinion all anyone has to do is just go and walk a grass track and you will see what i mean. Thats why jockeys walk the track. They are looking for parts of the track that doesn't have the same level of grass cover or may have gotten a bit less water from irrigation or may have a slight contour of the land.With a harness track you have not only horse hooves but carts wheels going over the isnside part.

I think you just have to factor that in when you make a selection. In my opinion a lot depends on the amount of use they get and what type of irrigation they get. If you were to walk some of those tracks you would see that the grass cover closer to the pylons is not as thick as that wider on the track. Thats because the more it gets used the less grass cover or thickness.Therefore it just makes sense that the less friction there is due to less grass cover,the faster you go. So in some ways it just can't be avoided. also if you look at those irrigators that go in a circle, you see a slightly uneven spread.I don't know what happens at methven,but if they are placed in the middle of the track then with either rail normally being further away from the thing throwing out the water,the more chance of areas with not as much water landing on them. I've seen one track where sometimes they move the irrigators over a little to do both outside and inside of track,sort of doubling up on some areas of the track.The same applies to galloping tracks i've walked. There was one track in particular that was both harness and galloping and you used to see them come down the outside when it got wet because the irragator never did the outer part of the track.Obviously each caretaker is doing their best,but its maybe unrealistic to think you would get an even spread. Also they raced a couple of cart widths out at methven on sunday. They did say they intended to mow closer to raceday but chose a more cautious approach and didn't,because of the expected rain. Tracks with longer grass tend to be harder to make ground on. Also methven is about the only track that tries to accomodate trainers by allowing trials and workouts to be run on them regularly. No other club i can think of makes their track available like methven does. I know they try and have some of their workouts/trials run around the middle of the track to preserve the inside,but they still have to allow the qualifiers to run on the inside.Hats off to them for doing what they do as far as that goes.

exactly and that still exists, so harness racing isn't going backwards because the sport has lost access to that. The main ingredients are still there,its just how they use those 2 aspects. Its the horses and people that should always be the focus. Instead the priorites of leadership is about creating a facade of high returns which they do by pumping money into a million dollar nz cup or trying to keep up with other codes slot races that 99.99% of participants view as unrealistic goals.. And over the last 2 decades theres been this yoyo pattern as far as the level of stakes. They increase them,then within a couple of years the stakes are reduced back to the previous level,then they make a big announcement about stake increases being great for the sport,then the yoyo thing starts again.Thats for the lower grade horses. as to the elite horses.Case in point .The nz cup. 16 years ago was worth over a million$.Then there was this outcry of you dumb arses are putting all that money into the top end while the people at the bottom end are struggling to survive. So gradually they reduced the stake for the nz cup as they realised they have done something 99% of people involved in the industry believed was a poor decision. So here we are,2024 and guess what the industries leadership thinks is a good idea,the same thing that they tried 16 years ago. The sign of the times is the lack of leadership and their inabilty to promote and sell a believable,relateable,sustaianable model for the industry. Its not that people don't like anything anymore as you put it,its that less and less people are feeling the positive vibe anymore. To me people in harness racing are often a bit too apathetic. I think this is evident in areas like canterbury. In my opinion canterbury is being neglected. Its the core base of the industry,yet leadership take it for granted and they are able to do that because most trainers and owners just focus on their own bubble and just lament how its declining but would rather voice their opinions at the local pub than take actions to demand a higher quality industry leadership.While rome burns type scenario. And personally i do think its possible for the industry to have a sustainable,believable ,relateable future,but persoanlly think while thats achievable ,i don't see enough common sense decision making to convince me it will happen.

Maybe peter profit has jumped the gun,but he seems to think hes got the inside word. Clearly it would be a very major setback for the ATC if there is a delay. hopefully its just a delay,but that would still be very bad. Why would hrnz be gambling on the outcome of a real estate deal. If things did happen to go wrong,theres the likelihood the whole of nz harness would suffer if they continue with that gamble. The ATC have no choice ,but hrnz? The atc may well have got a $10 million deposit but haven't they said land values in auckland went down in 2023. A real estate website says in the last 12 months houses sold in pukekohe are down 4%,although another one says overall,down but not quite as much.So 2024 no better.The originally agreement was in 2022 wasn't it,when the prices were most likely higher. Its all speculation,but if there was a need for a new buyer then even if you go best case scenario,the value the land would have to go up each month before they sold it ,by at least half a million just to retain the status quo,as thats whats being added to the size of the loan they have with the bank each month. And wouldn't that be compounding so that makes it even worse. and how likely would they be to get a quick sale. Those things take time. So even if they agreed to a delay with the current buyer then their $80 million keeps getting higher. Lets hope they get paid in november. Because they have chosen to keep alexandra park then they have limited their options or at least delayed other scenarios which must prove costly givennothing happens overnight and the banks are owed so much.

the two shareholders you mention in golding meadows development Ltd seem to have a further partners in jusheng huang and joanne Lan,who live in china.Golding road just being the area near the pukekohe complex. a quick search came up with they also did another development in auckland,grande meadow developments. The golding meadows develpment filed their annual return last week on 2/9/2024.I wonder what that showed. I suppose it will all become clearer,or maybe not, when the atc hold their meeting.

hrnz have had this report for a while but still no public announcement when or if their recommendations will be implemented. Does anyone know why it taking so long?

There was a time when i thought everyone thought 30 minutes or under was the most time you wanted between races if your attending or watching. yesterday at mehven the day seemed to drag on with several 35 and some 38 minute gaps,interspersed with a couple of 25 minute gaps. the same thing happened at wydham on thursday. 35 minute gaps ,then half way through the programme a 25 minute gap which confused me as i missed a bet. i know there are more meetings on a sunday now with entain scheduling 4 nz meetings instead of 2,with harness racing losing priority,but again this is another topic where decisions made are negatively impacting harness racing.

The strange thing about the ATC's predicament is HRNZ have come out so strongly saying they are committed to saving auckland racing based on the sale. Doesn't common sense say HRNZ leadership should have waited and seen how the payment plays out before making such a commitment. Even if the ATC do get paid on time,however likely or unlikely that is,wouldn't you have to question how smart Hrnz leadeship is as they have never once mentioned what they will do in the event of the payment not being made in november. Either thats because they just plan and hope or its because they aren't transparent. Either way thats not good. Isn't that a fair comment.

All they ever say is chinese buyers. Seems a bit mysterious in some ways. Maybe they don't want anyone researching into their background. Wouldn't they file annual returns assuming they were a company. Where do they have the rest of their money invested and how solvent are they. they did pay a deposit of $10m,although mackinnon from the atc was reported at the time to say, the atc had been pleasantly surprised the amount the chinese had offered. they report all the time the real estate market in china has some serious issues. they say in china on average home prices are expected to fall over 8% this year and the volume down even more.Next year they are predicting home prices to drop another 4%. seems they have lots of apartments unsold and lots unfinished and thats badly impacted developers access to further funds and increasing developers risk exposure. So has the chinese buyer of the atc's, been impacted by that? its all a bit mysterious. It all leads to speculation and rumours like the peter profit headlines. Wouldn't the atc be having their annual meeting soon?

The eureka was an interesting race but really wasn't over exciting to watch. Luke mccarthy was allowed to dictate a slow pace with only k manning making a move from the back mid race.They only went the 800m from the mile to 800m in 59.5 which seems slow for menangle. the favorite never ending did come home fast and looked like he would have been a winning chance had he followed k manning around when she made her move on the slow pace with a mile to go. But g hall had said pre race he was going to come with one run which sort of meant he didn't have the confidence in his horse to warrant a move,which seemed surprising given he was the favorite. In the end mccarthy and manning just out drove those at the back and there horses took advantage of their drivers top tactics. I thought the first race was a good spectacle and the sky close up coverage of that race was good viewing. Early moves then a fast late finish from loyalist to come from last and win by a nose. Shame that wasn't the eureka race as people watching that would have seen the excitement harness racing can provide.

interesting what you say about the stallions.. i have noticed boring poles with rein prickers can be counter productive sometimes,especially when they aren't used to it,moreso in stands.You see some horses resenting them and its reflected in their manners. Having no overcheck is another thing that you see sometimes. Not very often in nz ,but moreso from some australian stables.Personally i have always believed that if a horse is more relaxed and is well gaited,then why the need for an overcheck. I suppose the only time it may help would be if it copped some interference and was falling,but sometimes that may be counter productive as well.Depends on the horse i believe but i can't see why more don't race without one. The emma stewart stable races most of their horses with no overcheck. They certainly went great last night although i don't think its a good look for victorian racing as they team drive and its so obvious. The worst part of their team driving is if a favored runner from another stable gets handy some of their drivers deliberately sacrifice their own chances to undo the more favored runner who's not from their stable. They either make them work or attack too far from home. And it works as with 3 or 4 in each race,they just seem to win each race anyway.It can't be good for punter confidence and turnovers and rival trainers and owners can see how occasionally they may be as good as them,but in reality they have little chance of beating them due to the team driving.I know that type of thing happens everywhere but victoria is where it looks the worst.

I see peter profit has another headline today saying "the jungle drums are beating louder that the devleoper won't pay the $90 million in november" as had been agreed. Maybe he could have used "smoke signals' instead of jungle drums as that may turn out to be more appropriate if hes right. Again you would have to ask the question,given the ATC is paying close to $500,000 a month in interest to the bank for a loan and given the ATC says they can't provide a new training centre without HRNZ funds. Doesn't that mean that if the sale doesn't go through and HRNZ are going to continue supporting racing in auckland,then every month auckland aren't paid,HRNZ will need to cut funding they provide to south island clubs for things like stakes. Will HRNZ gamble on the atc land sale going through at a later date,like the ATC did on their apartment complex?

Interesting the lugging poles observation. The leading stables like dunns and purdons seem to do that a lot.Obviously it works for them going by their results.sundees son may have had a pole on both sides from memory. I know its all about getting them to run straight but while we haven't trained that many,we have never had one that didn't run staight or need a pole. i know some horses seem to start off looking around but it seemed they just worked it out themselves iin the end it was easier to run straight,generally after about 3 months more work. So 'i've never quite understood why they can't just run straight without a pole,but it works for them. If you look at ken barrons they hardly ever wore poles when he was training lots of winners. Actually its a bit like tendon and knee boots. You have phil williamson never seems to put them on. Maybe its a trotter thing,but it works for him. Anthony butt drove one for us one day and the first thing he said when he saw it was why haven't you got shin or knee boots on it. We said well its got a great gait and he said well if it was his he would still put tendon and shin boots on because you just never know when they may get checked and where they may have to put their legs or change direction quickly,and when that happens the boots could well save your horse from serious injury. So we have always taken that advise.

masterly,gee he had that ready to win first up after a long spell. He sure can train. i hope you weren't on that one newmarket as it looked home like you say.

Thats the thing isn't it. Then theres Waitangi day when the mainstream media love talking about how the current government policies are dividing nz. then theres the protest marches.The media again showed interest in what he had to say on those. Theres always a common theme that runs through when the mainstream medias interested. For some reason the media think showing what he has to say in stories which deliberately are shown through the lens of the left leaning,patronising,self professing morally superior media,somehow is going to unite and gain respect from those they are preaching to. I'm sure the maori king did great work in a lot of areas,but those stories have gone untold.

chains,dlt and che fu one of my favorites. My wifes ring tone was poi e. Maybe Magic could play some of our favorites. Brandy(bunny walters( gets a bit of air play and john rowles was always my aunties favorite. You know,i remember going to the addington races a few years back and walking into one of those lounges the old stand had, and there was eddie low singing.He did a good version of your favorite pokarekare ana.

great you getting to appreciate that. I guess thats part of why they call australia the lucky country. Loved your story about the kookaburra.