the galah

I'm not going to knock nigel mcgrath as a person. sounds like you know him and have a high opinion of him.I have no doubt he has the qualities you speak of. Good on you for supporting him as i think loyalty is a very important in life. But as to casting the first stone. Well i can tell you, its been obvious the lengths mr mcgrath went to win and if you had raced against him and been beaten because you know you played by the rules and he didn't,your sympathy as regards the predicament he finds himself in,well lets just say most won't have much. Also,you can do both like him and admire many of his obvious qualities as a person,but at the same time recognise that he needed to be penalised for what he was doing. people need to differentiate the two things and not lump things into one category. I put m houses views in that category and your criticism of m house to me is totally unwarranted on this matter. From the people i speak to,what m houses says most of the time,the vast majority totally agree with.I think hes far more in touch with grass roots participants thinking. And even when people don't agree with what he may be saying,they respect him because they see him as someone willing to not be cowered into towing the line or the turning a blind eye. You know,when it comes to mr house,i think people in a group will criticise him,as if its what they think they should be seen saying,but when your having a one on one conversation with those very same people they will actually express opinions similar to his and indicate they respect him. But i think you need to read the decision in full. it said,"this tribunal should not and cannot review the unchallenged decision of the judicial committee.Much odf the material filed for mr mcgrath was critical of that decision. The only way that decision could be challenged was to formally appeal." The tribunal pointed out mcgrath never took any steps to appeal the original sentence.

whats the mcgrath application got to do with operation inca? would mcgrath have been caught milkshaking his horse if not for the fact he was under more scrutiny because of operation inca? Are you saying the the integrity unit can be used to put pressure and cause stress to certain people on the whim of someone with connections to hrnz,but can't be asked for an opinion on a disqualified person getting there licence back?

the hearing does give us some clues about things, it showed people with influence and standing will try and use that to assist someone they know and like. personally i may not agree with their thinking the disqualification should be halved,but i find it understandable that people supporting mcgrath would do that. then again i could say,what say the facts were the same,but the personality was not mcgrath and instead some hardly known small timer. Well i know the answer to that,Sorry small timer,go away,we don't care. Which is why i give kudos for michael house being willing to be named as opposing the application. House has clearly looked at the application,taken out the personality side of it,and expressed his opinions based on whether someone who gets disqualified for 8 years should get the sentence halved.. Now those hearing the case obviously came to the conclusuion that they didn't need to know what house thought. I suppose they made it clear that they weren't influenced by house from their wording,but they would have read what he said. At the end of the day those making the decision clearly didn't think now was an appropriate time to tamper with the original sentence.Maybe it will happen in the future. But i think the hearing should be seen as having dealt with the facts,irrespective of the personality. which of course is how everyone should hope it would be,whatever side you were supporting.

the appliaction to allow n mcgrath to resume training was dismissed. But the published decision did have some interesting things. I found it interesting that HRNZ had at one point agreed to allow mr mcgrath to break in and gait horses. What was interesting about that,was it was acknowledged that the approval was done without any consultation with the Intergrity unit. Now call me cynical,but don't those associated with HRNZ sometimes consult with the integrity unit and ask them for imput on matters of far, far less significance than the mcgrath case. What was going on with hrnz there? was it because the integrity unit would have opposed that. Seems a major double standard by those at hrnz. Turned out mcgrath didn't take up the breaking in of horses as he was upset by the adverse publicity. interesting that mr mcgrath would not want to bring adverse publicity upon himself and the industry. So you have to wonder,given he thinks of the negative consequences for that,how did he get a different mindset for the cause of the predicament he finds himself in.Thats interesting. The trainers and drivers association didn't provide support or otherwise to his application. Robert dunn obviously provided a reference to support mr mcgraths application and the finding noted he is a prominent figure in harness racing. Interesting that those hearing the case would call him a prominent figure,but when it came to michael house providing an affidavit that opposed the application,they described him as someone speking as an individual. So if they describe house like that,then who was dunn speaking for, as i thought he is also only one person,the definition of an individual. I thought those hearing the case used confusing language there. good on dunn and house for both going on record.Especially House given that he may be speaking for the majority,but the majority is often preferred not to be heard. At the end of the day,it must have cost mr mcgrath a lot to have that hearing and he may have to pay costs. Hes only try6ing to do whats best for himself and his family so you can't blame him for that. But somehow you would think the people advising him have given him some bum advice. perhaps he will l;earn from this hearing and approach it in a way next time where he may have more success with a similar application at a more realistic time.

tony camerons winning was also the highlight for me.. The post race trackside interview and coverage captured the occasion well.Just had a feel good vibe to it. It would have been interesting to see whether mach shard would have won Must have gone close as it was going easy at the time.can't win them all i suppose.

my guess would be the race got a reasonable couple of minute lead in time in australia,and given the nz part of our pool is not much,the australian parts that were commingled mostly went onto better eclipse, as you would expect. He was favorite on the tabcorp pool as well that had $7000 in it.

we have been over it a few times in the past so don'treally feel like going over it again when this topic is about another stable. but the only thing about your post that i would clarify. I have never said the all stars are dishonest but i have said i believed,at times in the past, on the big days they do things which enables them to gain an advantage others don't.They have the resources and contacts to do so.. As to stakes per start won. I don't care about that. owners might,but i don't. My perspective has always been. Was i always able to make an informed assesment of a horses chances based on previous recent form. The answer would be yes for the dunns but at times in the past,no for the all stars.i'm just talking about the big days or the big stakes races. You can do things legally but still gain an advantage which could be argued as unfair.

I pointed out they had an abnormally long time for them between wins.That was true. you say i said why,but you make that bit up like you can do sometimes. i also noted they had to start winning again as they had so many nice horses. Even at that time i think john dunn was driving ok,but hes currently displaying just how skilled he can be, when at the peak of his game.Every horse hes driving at the moment hes driving inch perfect and hes currently so consistent at that.

i think everyone enjoys seeing good horses race,whatever the age,but particularly the older horses. Your obviously in it for the love of the sport,both horses and people.. When its comes to some topics discussed on here. theres a difference between negativity and negative reality. i think HRNZ needs a 5 year,a 10 year plan published with detailed financial goal setting and analysis,setting up where the industry is heading and also laying the groundwork for the implementaion of the hard decisions that will need to be made by administrators. And its important that if we have administrators ignoring realities, then they need called out.

Gamblers in that study,were classified as anyone who gambled on anything legal on regular basis. So that has to be taken into consideration when assessing those figures. it included pokies,horse racing,sports,scratchies,lotteries,etc, The australian product in 2022 that was getting the highest average spend from someone classified as a gambler, was gallops,i think at an average of $91 per month. i threw the figures out there to highlight how overall,australian harness compares to australian greyhounds.They seem to have a handful of million dollar races over there for the dogs. its hard to imagine dogs ever becoming more popular than harness in nz. The greyhound track at addington in my opinion is a terrible on course viewing track.

so the decision by the appeal committee is now up on the RIU website. Those hearing the appeal noted... it is not enough for a driver to sit motionless in the cart and not take some steps to encourage his horse... so mr nairns appeal was dismissed and his 10 day suspension stands. Really,its easy to understand where nairn was coming from. But he had to lose that appeal. They could not set a precedent of overlooking or condoning the possible implications.

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.