the galah

recently HRNZ issued a press staement about the $14 million they had received from the forbury park sale. heres what i think they should do with a large portion of the funds. canterbury is the backbone of the industry,but i believe Canterbury harness racing has a problem, that is going to start significantly impacting on harness racings horse numbers and publics perception in the next 10 years if they don't start planning for it now. the serious problem being,if you want to train,graze,breed,agist,etc... where can you do it in canterbury and if you do happen to find somewhere, will it be affordable. you either have to be wealthy or have your own property these days or both. if your in canterbury,just look at the internet .Prices for a 10 hectare bare blocks anywhere near christchurch.Most are around a million dollars.In areas away from christchurch small blocks of land are still very expensive. so realistically you would think no one is going to be able to afford to set up there own training establishment unless they go some way out. the other option is renting off current owners of training establishments. Now theres 2 reasons thats unlikely.1)trainers like to do there own thing and very few have any interest whatsoever in accomodating other trainers on their properties whether they be someone wanting to train 1 horse or 10 horses.2) if you owned a bit of ground worth over a million,are you going to subdivide and sell it for that or are you going to lease it out for minimal returns if you no longer train.obviously your going to sell. its not just training properties where the squeeze is coming,its grazing your broodmare,grazing your spelling horse or retired racehorses. anyone who has looked for grazing can attest to that. Either you pay rates that most cant afford or you give away or dispose of your horses. The sad reality is no one really wants them if you try and find a home for them. The life after racing horses programmes dont cater for horses over 12. There are several people out there doing there best ,to find homes for horses over that age,but there simply isn't anywhere to put them. How does the fate of those horses reflect on the industry in this day and age.many of those horses could be broodmares. so the solution. hrnz should buy 100 hectares and set up a training establishment in an area within 30 minutes drive of christchurch. where. Well for example you can get 100 hectares for 4 million near leeston.maybe somewhere drier to the west of that is more realistic. stables should be built,fencing,tracks,etc it would be a self funding establishment where the likes of up and coming trainers who have done their time in stables can use to try and establish themselves,also trainers who want to train only very small numbers but have no where else to go,breakers who are trying to establish themselves,part of the land could be dedicated to an agistment farm at affordable rates for harness horses. Breeders could place their horses with trainers willing to train for a racing half share and could have their broodmares agisted on the property at affordable rates. .Theres all sorts of possibilities.Stables made available at minimal rates for travelling trainers. You could have a farrier renting and operating out of a stabing block,a vet in another area emplyed by hrnz as a way of providing veterinarian care at affordable prices. a feed store operated by a local harness feed merchant who discounts for bulk orders for harness horse owners. Everything done in a way that hrnz helps keeps cost affordable for those with harness horses yet hrnz still getting a cut to make minimal profits.when you think about it,why do farriers and vets seem so expensive. its because your paying a lot for the travel and time they travel to you.Take that out and its more affordable. paddocks set aside for Hay to be grown and sold at discounted prices to horse trainers and owners on the propery. all sorts of other possibilites but you get my drift. i think it could easily soon become home for over 250 horses. Also there are many retired trainers with so much knowledge willing and able to pass that on if given the chance. such trainers could be mentors rostered on to oversee and chat and offer advice.Owners wouldn't have far to come from christchurch.its also about being located in an area not too far from affordable housing. call me a dreamer,but ask yourself this. Is HRNZ better spending money on short term stakes funding for things like slot races or increasing age group races or series races they are helping fund that they were never supposed to....or are they better in laying down the framework and providing solutions for the long term viability of harness racing for the next few decades. also remember that ,but in the right location and the land alone could become a ever appreciating valued asset. currently we have a pro racing minister in government. That should be used to harness racings benefit while they can,if borrowings were required initially,,with of course the property the security. always remember ,just how important a strong canterbury harness racing scene is to the industry.

you got me typing again gammalite. What you also have to consider is, what province has had the highest number of participants drop out of the game in the last 5 years? my guess,and its a pretty safe and obvious guess,and easily enough observed if you lived there, is canterbury is the region. especially small time trainers and breeders are walking away from harness racing . if you lose 2 or 3 from an area like auckland where numbers are already small,those that leave are easily noticed. on the other hand lose 20 or 30 trainers and breeders a year from a district that had 10 times the size of auckland to start off with,people dont notice as much or place the appropriate degree of long term importance. Long term, industry leaders need to have the forsight to see that the providers of the mainstay area of harness racings core business income, is eroding at a snowballing rate.. So why do industry leaders implement policies that show they care more about auckland participants than those in canterbury? none of the industry decision makers seem to have a logical,justifiable answer to that question? I think your suggestion of using the queensland model for racing in the north island is a more realistic possible model.Queensland obviously have far more horses,but they run many $4000 races at redcliffe and $10,000 races at albion park. The way they increase drivers,trainers,owners incomes and make breeding more viable is they start their horses more.So while the betting may be limited,stakes paid come closeto matching income received from betting. Industry leadership should give the auckland stakeholers the choice,either come up with a sustainable model themselves or try the queensland model. as to tuesday racing. i have always said its a good idea. But mini canterbury meetings for canterbury participants are just as important as those in auckland. its just a matter of the racing getting appropriate lead in sky racing coverage in australia on tuesdays and running at the appropriate timeslots for that. That point,in my opinion, is such an important factor,and entain no doubt realise that. i don't understand why people don't place the importance lead in sky racing coverage deserves when discussing what impacts turnovers,whatever the meeting.Why don't our industry leaders or entain ever explain that and explain what they are doing to mensure that happens.

I didn't realise i had left the site either. i still read both bit of a yarn and Channel X and think posters on both sites are passionate about harness racing and like to see it thrive. contributors each have their own perspective on the industry and if the industry is to prosper forums like this provide a barometer as to what people are actually thinking. Of course such forums should have a welcoming environment to expressions of differing points of view,without those that run it getting too annoyed about someones elses differing opinion.. i decided that after reading the chiefs multiple put down replies to a topic i commented on a bit, that he wasn't at that point meeting the degree of fairness that should be applied,so i moderated him in reverse and decided to stop posting and instead just read the forums. i thought he just sounded like there may be other stuff going on in his mind as he seemed in a bit of a negative space in his head. I'm not saying he wouldn't have good reason to come across as in that frame of mind sometimes. we all can get a bit like that . He may not agree with that,i don't value whether he does anyway. the chiefs words were... it was people with views like mine that were killing the industry. I just read that and thought,well thats ok for you to think that,and dumbo i already had worked out you thought that anyway,but thats just too unneccsarily hostile. As you realise jj,when chief gets a bee in his bonnet about someone he acts more like theres a hive of wasps there. anyway.nice to hear from you. i'm actually finding not posting and just reading these forums just as interesting. this reply is defintely a one off and i will stick to that. Anyway,You've only got to read peoples replies,especially regular contribtors to see the passion and knowledge the contributors have for harness racing. So whether it be the chief or scooby,i'm grateful to them that i have somewhere where i can read what other people are thinking.i still fill in my day by reading everyones replies each day.

Just another reason to say something negative is my take on your reaction to my post. your site,do as you wish. I made a living for many years.did you? i don't bother trying to do that now due to the tab changing things and returns no longer match the time and effort i put in. but you questioning my analysis of races just because you have different opinions to mine is all a bit silly. if my opinions were similar you wouldn't. so your justification for your comment is flawed. As to the j cox drive on majestic man. so what happened to majestic man after he ran that,tactically poor,strength sapping but courageous race.??? retired,no more racing. did you not read what phil williamson said about where his strengths lay. I have since pointed out that i think j ocx is currently in career best form,but his drive on majestic man was not his brightest tactically. anyway,i think even the thick skinned like myself get tired of your name calling. so i won't give you any more opportunities ,as you seem to have become consistently rather negative in the words you use these days. Bit of a shame,but i can tell thats how you feel,so better out than in i always say. so my final words about your replies to my posts is....Whatever chief. I used a capital W just to emphasis that,as even small things like that can irritate you.

removing the reference to suicide due to harmful communications act. WTF is that all about. lost your sense of humour bill. There comes a time when i have made my point and you have yours and we just start repeating ourselves.. so i think now's the ideal time for me to put my que back in the rack until another time perhaps. one parting shot for you. i remember very early on in the covid pandemic,commenting on this website,saying the lab leak was the most logical explanation. well before it got media attention. i remember posting about the bat lady and the work they did on creating an extremely contagious coronavirus easily spread from bats to humans in the wuhan lab.Just around the corner from where the wet market was that they were saying it came from. And i also remember you heavily criticsing my posts on that,saying all the same things about me that you have on this topic,referring to studies and sequencing etc,etc...all confirming in your mind i was stupid and you were right about the pangolin being the likely source. well who turned out to be the stupid one chief? You know i was a bit obssessed with covid early on,a couple of months before it got any coverage here or even on american tv. I had seen on the bbc a segment from their chinese correspondent in november i think it was,where he was reporting on the early lockdowns in wuhan,reporting on people in full protective gear colllecting the bodies left at peoples front doors,observations of bodies that had lay in the streets for a couple of days where people had just dropped. Early on he interviewed an english schoolteacher who lived in wuhan,who said,hang on they are officailly saying this only started a couple of weeks ago,but people have been known to have neen dropping for weeks now and while they have locked down the locals,international visitors have been and are still coming and going through wuhans airport,the busiest airport in central china,located in the centre of chinas airline route network.So,while he didn't say so,it was obvious to conclude it would effect the whole world. I remember going around telling everyone i worked with or interacted with,that this is going to be one of the biggest things in our lifetimes. i was saying that before they even reported it on our or other major outlets apart from those early bbc reports and weeks before they were saying other countries had anyone with it.It just seemed so obvious to me what was going to happen. people used to look at me as if i was stupid or a conspiracy nut. my point is i follow my insticnts and i believe i have always had very good instincts. i apply the same logic and common sense to my observations in racing, agree with me or not. thats up to you.

I'm the galah chief ,you need to look skyward for me,not underground. But i've worked out your real identity chief. Bill murray,is that you chief?????? one of my favorite films was caddyshack. you think i'm the gopher perhaps.. remember how that ended....LOL...

i haven't a clue,people groaning withy pity at what i write,waste of time for you trying to get me to understand. New wording for you there chief. Same meaning ,but different words. hmmm. you work on the theory that saying something over and over again will eventually lead you and others to believe what it is you say. Hey that does work to a degree,but not with me. duh chief.....you refer to the advancement in testing but fail to mention the advancement in labs comming up with new drugs,often drugs with only small changes from the make up of existing drugs,but enough to avoid detection because they aren't testing for them. We discussed this previously on another topic. You thought all the trainers who saw big increases in their horses performances and went to the top of the premiership tables when they starting using the performance enhancers they were sold(what you call snake oil),well you put that down to coincidence. They didn't,just look at the data around the timeframes of those using them and the immediate success they had. I referred you to the yonkers trainers. no one returned a positive in those cases but i even quoted a couple of judges sentencing remarks referring to the admissions of using performance enhancers by all those that went to jail. Then i have previously quoted what some of the leading experts over there said and how hard they said it was to keep up with detecting some new performance enhancers because the labs making the performance enahncers could easily just make small changes to the drugs make up to avoid detection and also they didn't have the funding to test for everything or enough research on identifying the latest thing. still you say,they were all duped and sold snake oil.yeh right. Was that a typing error and did you mean 501,have me deported back to the darkside..lol. But they haven't caught the likes of grimson have they. As to so many positives,wheres the evidence there has been that. my theory.....is the likes of trainors positive is not because he has done anything different. I beleive there has to be something different in the make up of the products they are being treated with from batch to batch,possibly the make up of the horses is seeing different detectable times,their past exposure to whatever,etc... Most likely a combination of those things which has lead to the detection of something they have been using.

Rather watch the races tonight actually. just backed imperial command. big run for 3rd,caught late. had no trial this week,bit unusual for him. was paying $71 at one stage. oh well. Off the top of my head... lance armstrong,florence griffith joyner(flo jo),marion jones... the 30 or so USA horse trainers,most of whom went to jail a couple of years ago...oh thats right you said the poor buggas were duped and sold snake oil....light and sound,remember that one. Anyway i have to focus on addington now. Enjoy your night.

no idea,crap conspiracy theory,warped credibility,bring racing into disrepute,bullshit can't you fit a few more into your next post on this topic? Just tell me what you really think chief as i'm feeling too comfortable with that latest reply. p.s.Name calling indicates to me i'm winning this argument. Lol.

interesting study chief. But your working on the premise that the performance enhancing effects only apply if it is detectable in testing. Of course we know thats not true for many things. EPO a classic example of that. Also it seems to be a study relating to single dose.. In other words,what do multiple doses do and that may be a way around the detection in testing while still getting performance enhancing effects. I say that because i was told 15 years ago when it first hit the headlines that some trainers were known to be dosing their horses 5 days in a row. also the observations of the horses behavior. the study says for one type of admistration, behavioral changes were noticed for up to 6 minutes,but then back to normal. so even going by the testing results in the study,there was no apparent noticable changes in behavior when the most significant amounts of the drug were in the system. So the study proves normal behavioral changes can not be used as an indication of adminsitration beyond 6 minutes. Then theres the half life. the curve for that starts off with a steep decline in the first few hours but then levels out quite quickly.

What would favorite backers be thinking tonight.????? Race 1. midfrew lucre -opened at $3.70,closed at $1.95. Driver elects to go 4 back fence in 7 horse field. Gets out late for 2nd. Oh well an amatuer drivers race so can forgive i suppose. race 2.hawkeye pierce-opens $1.70 closes $1.40. getting the 1/1 for herlihy,thats good,hang on did he just push put with 1200m to,seems he thinks so as he heavily restrains hawkeye to let d butcher get past him,hang on d butcher just strolls to the front,oh dear,beaten into 2nd. Not to worry,he did pull and at least he was close enough turning in i suppose. Race 3.stone cold $4.20 into $2.10. Straight to front,wins easy. thats more like it.well done p ferguson. race 4. red rackham $5 into $1.90. gee they must be confident here. hang on d butcher elects to sit 4 back the fence,oh no pulling triple on a walkiing speed,35 quarter,pushes out but all done,pulled too hard. D butcher didn't get the email about being a winner. race 5.illsa son or taylad to you $4 equal favorites. what to do. taylad to you wins by a nose,nice drive t macfarlane but illsa son mmmm,driver elects to sit 5 back the fence. Must be waiting for next week. Race 6.better knuckle up $1.80 into $1.30 whale must have tipped him out as a roughie. Hang on,s phelan driving. can't be right s phelan driving a horse paying a $1.30 to win. .....mmmmm,dear oh dear,what a drive,not trying?,no probably was trying as it was s phelan,i will see him at my local butchers tomorrow as i think he works there part time. race 7. magic dash $5 into $3.50. drawn 1 the inside off 10m...oh dear,you guessed it,settles 5 back the fence,only gets out when race already over. The moral of the story. not a good look if your trying to promote betting at auckland. And no i'm not talking through my pocket. But Punters,especially those who bet on hot favorites, like to at least get a run for their money.certainly didn't happen tonight.

The 3 trainers you intially mention. j dickie,j cox,h cullen. Ii would say only johnny cox can be classified as someone who is happy training both good horses and your average run of the mill horses that owners can get a lot of pleasure from,without making money.Hes santas excuse an example of that. Many successful trainers have a policy of identifying the horses who can at least get close to paying their way and if not,well many are discarded. No one can be blamed for having that approach.it obviously works for them and their owners. But from an industry perspective,theres wastage of a resource that is badly needed to sustain harness racing. Thats why i ask this question and give an example.. Why does the indutry not do more to keep the grass roots people involved. e.g. P Andrews. a trainer from invercargill that few would ever think of as being important to the industry and because of that industry leadership would never give him a second thought. well p andrews has lined up his horses more times than h cullen in each of the last 4 years,and more in 3 of the last 4 years than j dickie or j cox. Tomorrow he has a horse going around. Sly tricks. 109 starts for 1 win. Last start 20 lengths last. What are hrnz doing to retain that mans participation. Nothing . what could they do. well tomorrow,instead of putting him in a 10 horse 1 win race where he has no chance,why didn't they put him in the non win 7 horse field,where most likely even at his best,rival trainers would be happy to see him.It would have been a win/win decision for him and the club. just common sense to me. No one likes running last,even if you are a battler. So how long will he last for. to retain his enthusiasm,there should be things in place that will help him think he is valued. They should have contacted him and said we are dropping your horse back to a non win field because we value you,would be a good start point.

your defintion of what i was trying to achieve was never the same as mine. My defintion,well i know what thoughts are in my mind and i have been successful putting my point of view across.. Anyway,even going by your defintion,i would say,failure was always going to be success in progress.

i agree with that. My dots don't form a solid line. but my dots still end up at the right final destination. In my opinion of course.

I had discussed that levamisole was good for some things earlier. I have never said it was bad,just have said it has been recognised as having performance enhancing qualities and gone into what they may be. Hence its with holding time. So you have a trainer who can significantly improve nearly all the horses he gets off other trainers. Then he has 2 positives for a substance thats known as a performance enhancer. So,its not unreasonable to have an opinion that the use of performance enhancers is a factor in their success and is an indication of their practices. I don't need to harden up,just pointing out the language you used doesn't add anything to your argument.You can keep calling me what you want,i just have a chuckle most of the time. I get the ivermmectin thing for people who believe it may help,but never thought about it much myself.

The whole manipulation of data around the vaccine is nuts. I read not that long ago they did a study on women having miscarriages .Data from 249,000 women. They found those who had been vaccinated were almost twice as likely to have a miscarriage as those that weren't. So what did they do. They then decided they had to look closer into the data and came up with the answer,so they say. Women having pregnancies later in life are more likely to have a miscarriage and because those women are more likely to be vaccinated and because more of those who had had miscarriages also came from socio economic groups,which they said were more likely to be vaccinated,they factored that in and instead of the women being almost double the chance of having a miscarriage if vaccinated as the original data showed,after the recalulation they were in fact more likely to have it if unvaccinated. if you do a goggle search,goggle filters out studies like that and all you get are the results saying vaccine good,unvaccinated bad. The whole thing is so dishonest. you mentioned excess deaths. I used to look up the oecd excess deaths. anyone can see it although they are swithcing off the patform from next week. Why they are doing that,i'm not sure as its so easy to understand the data they show. Maybe thats why. but anyway,new zealand excess deaths in the whole of last year were not good reading % wise. I wonder why?

To summarise everything you have said. You have said i talk bullshit,wasting time,i'm ignorant,blah,blah,blah...blah blah. I've re read the posts on this topic. Whats seems to have started sending you off the rails is that i said levamisole metabolises into the known performance enhancer aminorex.And because i inferred the reason people like trainor and grimson would be using levamisole, would be for its performance enhancing effects. before you get your tits in a tangle i know grimson has no positives.And i have never said they have positives for aminorex. So you say its unreasonable for me to argue that someone caught cheating,as trainor has with his levamisole positive,can ever have it inferred they would be looking for the performance enhancing effects of the drug they used,because it has not been detected. Butb thats not the language you use to do that,the language you use is name calling. Now i can understand your point of view,because i can follow that logic. i believe you are wrong ,because i believe the latest performance enhancers can be manipulated to avoid detection when tested,but you don't even seem to agree with that. but all this name calling seems rather over the top. like i have said previously,its obvious you find some of my posts irritating,seemingly because i have an opinion based on my own observations and interpretations of them. i'm sure even this reply will irritate you just a little more.lol

You seem to have an obsession with saying i talk bullshit. Not having a good day? But heres a quote from the RACING MEDICATION TESTING CONSORTIUM,based in lexington ,kentucky. They are internationally recognised as authorities on equine research,testing and recommending medication policies. "Levamisole metabolizes in the horse into aminorex and possibly also pemoline,both of which are potent stimulants assigned a 1/A classification in the association of racing commissioners international uniform classification of foreign substances. the identification of either of those substances in a post race sample is associated with a potential career ending penalty."... ...therefore,the RMTC recommends that following the withdrawal of levamisole, treated horses be tested prior to entry to ensure levamisole and its metabolites have been eliminated from the horse. Before submitting a sample for clearance testing it is advisable to consult the regulatory authority to make sure your sample meets the laboratory requirements for matrix and volume." did you get that chief,metabolizes into aminorex..a potent stimulant. but hey maybe you know more than them. Nah,safe to say you don't.. I'm not replying to anymore of your comments about my posts. I'm tired of wasting my time .

hrnz have had their board member,staff,handicappers,trainers look at the current rating system..Even as late as last year they came back and said no changes needed. Blind freddy can tell the non win horses are unfairly started at a rating 50. Because of that any horse who wins a non win early in its career, immediately has to race against horses it shouldn't. They did have a committee that about 4 months ago came out and said they needed to bring non win ratings down to r 40,but with less than 2 months to go, when they said they may look at that change,nothing has been said recently. Then again the same committee recommended 2 year olds who win go back to being rated non win horses when they turn 3. So on one hand they were trying to implement something that would help encourage people to continue participation with horses at the lower end(where the most horses are),but on the other hand were re introducing a policy that in the past discouraged the very same group of people. In my view they are right if they change to start as r40 non win horses. they don't actually have to change much else in the way horses are rated. But they do need to change the people or the mindset of the people who programme races. For example they should have more races with appropriate conditions to encourage participation at all ends of the spectrum. You should have non win races for lower stakes.e.g $6000,where they could have rating 35 horses with no earnings or earnings under $2000 in their last 5 starts. Then the horse that wins that race could then start in a $12,000 race against non win horses,with a condition that the race was for non win horses or horses with a winning stake equivalent to that received in the $6,000. people say thats catering to the bottom end. Well turnovers show that you would be more likely to generate a profit for hrnz on races like that,it would just be a matter of running them in the right mid week or sunday time slots. Then you could programme races for horses with whatever rating ,but with conditions that they have only 1 career win. and so on. Then you could have races for say 3,4 or 6 plus win horses and set conditions based on total earnings and earnings in last so many starts.It would not be hard to programme races where all horses can find a suitable race based on recent form and past record. they need to use Preferantial barrier draws properly. it doesn't seem over complicated but the programmers or handicappers keep tinkering but haven't worked out how to do it right. stakes need to be reduced for the conditioned races where there is not much form and increased a little for races where the ratings are higher. people need to face the facts. There is only so many races run. you are better to spread a bit more of the wins across the board,as that is how you will encourage continued participation. for some reason they seem to think stakes are the be all and end all for everyone ,but they aren't for connections of horses at the bottom end. They just want to occasionally run in races where they may have a chance and are happy to compromise on the stakes won front. its just logic. would you rather run in races with little chance of earning but good stakes,or a chance of earning,bit low stakes. The extra mid week meetings should have been focussed in canterbury. The tuesday meetings should have been for these lower stake,less form type of horse with say 2 lots of 3 heats and 2 penalty free finals on the friday nights 3 days later,with the field being comprised of 12 horses,made up of the first 4 home in the heats.Obviously realistically they probably need to run at least the heats over sprint distances. the

here we go again. neither of us are experts but we both obviously have time to read a lot and do our research. you like sasing i know nothing about things. whatever yet again. Your replies never contain anything which contradicts what i have said. You never back up the i know nothing thing.Same old same old. Like your current reply. You say aminorex has been around since 1968. yet i read it was developed in 1962. the experts say it resembles adrenaline and ephedrine in its chemical structure. Surely that gives you a hint of its effects when administered.. it was marketed in 1965 as an appetite suppressant but then when they saw a big increase in pulmonary hypertension(the heart working harder to pump blood into the lungs because the blood pressure in peoples lungs had been raised),in just a matter of months after people started taking it. So they withdrew the product for that in 1968. Then you say, So where did i contradict that. of course its got a withholding time. if your going to say i know nothing about something at least be more specific. but you never are. as to me applying to be archie butterflys sub editor,whether you like him or not,his headlines are always interesting and he obviously considers his platform a good place to write about all things racing,witjh a special focus on cheats. have you not worked out why he has quite a following or maybe he just irratates you as well.

Without getting into the how much of something is needed debate. From what i have read, they say most,not all, of the aminorex positives around the world have been tied to levamisole.smaller % seem to be from certain plants. In some racing jurisdictions in the usa its described as a class 1,penalty class A stimulant with a high potential for influencing a horse's racing performance owing to its stimulant properties. And it just makes sense that the trainers who include it in what they give their horses, must think it gives them an edge.

At the time i had a horse with a virus. someone told me to try a sheep drench and that it was the levamisole in it that would help. But they said you had to be careful to get the dosage right. At the same time i had heard, that was what some trainers were doing for 5 straight days pre race. So i thought it must be safe. This was just a horse we had that wasn't racing but seemed to have a lingering virus . i already had some of the drench for my sheep so gave it a go and the horse really picked up. then the next thing i knew there was all this publicity about levamisole and potential positives. At the time i thought well i only want it for treating a virus,and had another couple of horses with what i thought was the same lingering virus, so must be able to get some from somewhere if i use it just for that. as i had used the balance on my sheep,i went into pgg to get some more. But they told me it was currently taken off the shelves due to the racing thing. They told me to ring their supplier and after some calls was finally told if anyone had some,it would be a vet in invercargill. So i rang him and he told me he had none,couldn't currently get any in and said part of the reason was because some people in racing,had not been using it safely and to get the performance enhancing effect of the levamisole,had been over dosing their horses with the sheep drench and there had been a run of horses deaths believed to have been for that reason.He gave the example of someone in the lower north island had accidently overdosed and killed some of their horses. He speculated that sheep drenches have several things in them and you can overdose on some of those if you don't follow the recommended doses. so you can call that hearsay. while i didn't know him and he wouldn't have known me, i don't think that vet had any reason to lie to me.

Just had a look at the nominations for addington on sunday. 176 nominations. 5 horses share the highest rating for the day. R50. martha stuart who has won $99,000,very majestic,chicago bear,both 1 win horses and 2 non win horses.,1 of whom has had 1 start and the other a first starter. So the first starter is equal highest rated for the day,and higher than 171 other horses nominated. At least the 2 start non win horse,betting gift, doesn't have to draw the outside in the amatuer race this week, due to its high rating. But it still draws 7, due to the draw being preferential based on ratings. It draws outside horses who have won the likes of 16,5 and 4 races.

At least theres more 2 year olds looking for a start in southland than auckland. They got 1 nomination for the southland 2 year old race. The most obvious thing about the idea 2 year old bonuses would mean more starters,is people who commented on this website like ourselves,said this will never achieve what hrnz said it will. So clearly we have more idea of what works than the people in charge.

It was common knowledge about 15 years ago that some trainers were drenching their horses with small amounts , 5 days in a row leading into races in nz. it was about that time that HRNZ went public and said,hey we know your using this stuff and we know its a performance enhancer and we know you think its not being tested for and may think its legal,but you must know its a performance enhancer that they have been catching people in the usa for using it,so we don't want the scandel; so stop please. How nice of them. Also the over use of levamisole had been known to have been linked tio horse deaths in parts of nz. Apparently some people ,i understand in particular the lower north island so maybe gallopers,had been drenching their horses with the worming drench a lot to get the effects of the levamisole,but by doing that how given deadly amounts of the other things that came with the worming drench. Thats what a vet told me anyway at the time.