the galah

If they based the decision solely on the pools that TABCORP sometimes has on nz harness,then your right its a no brainer that TABCORP was the better choice. Heres todays WIN POOLS for the first 5 races at manawatu.TABCORP in brackets. race 1.nz tab $7513,(TABCORP)$10,750. race 2. 5144, (3943) race 3. 6898, (5815) race 4. 4999, (3627) race 5. 5522, (3101). Then some other TABCORP pools from todays manawatu harness. race 1.trifecta $3791,exacta$5257,quinella $1760,first 4 $1128. race 2. trifecta $2113,first 4 $2173 race 3. trifecta $2334,first 4 $9173(included 1900 carry forward),exacta $2051 race 4.Trifecta $1850, first 4 $1531,exacta $1301. One of the biggest problems nz harness has, is the small pools sizes,which don't encourage betting. Also remember the nz pools listed above would have included ENTAIN and their australian partners comingled money,which obviously is nowhere near what TABCORP can achieve on their own. Now the TABCORP pools can vary a bit,but seem consistent around the twighlight meetings run on weekdays on nz harness.

Someones tripped over the power cord at HRNZ again. Plug it back in boys. I would like to have a look at the manawatu fields for tomorrow on your website.

The quaddie pools on the nz trots on TABCORP NSW are always small as well. Yesterday at oamaru the highest win pool was just over $4000 on the race after the cup and the lowest 2 races were the 2 feature races and didn't make $1000. The average was around $2,500 in the win pool. I've worked out the pattern now for when TABCORP pools are highest. Its during the week when it must be around 3.30p.m. to 6.00pm over there and when they obviously get skytv coverage.I suppose people coming home from work or stopping into the local tab/pub and having a bet for an interest,for something to do. for example,last friday at addington in race 3,they had more in the TABCORP nsw win pool than the nz tab. The win poolswith tabcorp on the first 4 races at addington were $5057,$4668,$8786 and $9565. Thats just on their tote pools and obviously wouldn't include their ff hold. So its clear that the best partner for nz harness as far as increasing our pool size would have been TABCORP NSW.Especially since they control the sky racing coverage.But thats water under the bridge now i suppose. Also its worth noting what i have always said,yet some dispute.That is most punters don't care whether its a low grade race or a high grade race,punter participation comes about through the exposure whatever race it may be gets.The proof is in the pools held by tabcorp. The pattern is the same at every meeting. For example, 3 of the top 4 pool holds with tabcorp at addington were on the 3 lowest(2 non win) races.

I don't know chief. Its not for me to tell a dairy farmer how nature works,but since your playing silly buggers i will. Had you left the calf on the mother,you would see her wean the female calf about 9 months and the male calf about 11 months. So there,thats nature,not 4 days like you prefer,you silly bugger.Left to nature,theres a natural progression before they get to the point of self weaning. Further,they have done studies on this very subject. Maybe you should read what they say. But just in case you don't,the studies have proven weaning causes a stress response in cows,which is especially strong in early weaning management,as the bond between cow and calf is still strong. You know,i really don't know why your arguing against something thats so very obvious. And i will point out another obvious point. The same would apply to horses who have their foals taken away days after they have foaled,just so a farmer can make lots of money. Just a hedgehog. We left a banana,some left over cooked fish,2 weetbixs and a bit of bread out for him or her tonight. He or she has eaten the lot already. Their favorite is a bit of cooked salmon but i've told the wife shes got to keep that for me.They also like a bit of cheese.

I agree.I'm no expert but i've watched her ride quite a bit as she seems a real talent.Horses run for her but shes often unlucky. I've learnt if i was to have a bet,only do so when she draws wide and is on a go forward horse,otherwise expect to get a bit frustrated. Thats at this stage of her career.

Well done to Todd,Close and the horses owners today. R Close made a good tactical decision early and just a bit strong late for smoke on the water. Two very nice horses in good form at the moment.

Yes but theres a difference between chinese buying horses at the yearling sales to buying broodmares past their racing days,and preferred in foal. You've put up a clip of a horse festival at Tongliao city,inner mongolia. For 3 months of the year the average temperature in that city is below freezing point and sometimes as low as -19.The average for the year is 7.9 although it has 2 or 3 months where it averages over 20.It doesn't get much rain either. Surely thats not a great place for a nz harness broodmare to end up,not that i think many will. The point is,no one has any idea what happens to the broodmares once they leave NZ and given pregnant broodmares are so valuable $ wise in relation to the topic i have discussed,then its obvious you can't discount the probablity of many ending up not having a good life at one of those factories. Just look at what happened to all the donkeys china bought last decade. You could put up a picture of a donkey running around somewhere in inner mongolia or tibet,but its just window dressing.

Can't agree with you there chief about the cows not being emotionally effected. i guess you say that because you come from a darirying background. I once bought a broodmare and bred a foal from her. After about 3 months the foal didn't look like it was doing as well as the other foal we had so i had a vet come out and look at him. The vet decided to give the foal a worm and gave it some other treatment.A person with the vet actually aqueezed the mares teets and said they thought the problem could be with the mare not producing much milk.Anyway the foal went from running around the paddock one day to dieing the next. I'm not sure if it had some type of reaction to its treatment or most probably wasn't quite healthy enough to handle it,but it died. Well the mare went from acting like a very happy horse,always full of beans and friendly to being totally depressed. She stopped eating,lost condition and was clearly depressed. At the time i wasn't aware she had previously lost foals when they were young,as i didn't have a stud book and the previous owner never told me,but i found that later she had. It was so obvious that the mare was badly impacted mentally by the trauma of losing her foal. Now you can tell me chief that a cow isn't effected either,but i don't believe that to be true.I believe theres a natural progression in nature with any species and their young and if you break the natural cycle you must have some negative psychological effects. i've just given you an example.

Its a strange old world and getting stranger these days. Our own experiences,backgrounds ,values and personalities shapes how we view things and often it seems so different to others. When we think about the horses though,most of us who have interacted with them recognise there is something unique and wonderful about them andsome of us treat them like we would a friend or pet.Which is why seeing other horses being sent to other countries without any real knowledge of their fate creates an uneasy feeling. Its the lack of transperency around where they end up that is the issue. HRNZ make people update records of where their horses end up so they can satisfy animal welfare groups,yet don't seem togive a second thought about the chinese exports.I've never heard them issue any statement around that in recent times.Just shows that that side of things is all about perception from hrnz and the reality is they only care when it is reflected back on them. And its not just china. It happens all over the world. Canada seems to treat the horses like they are a farm animal. A commodity to be used to achieve every last $ and then to be discarded when no longer monetarily useful.They have a market where they buy horses for slaughter and send them to japan ,where they are fattened. I wrote about that once and from memory i think they were worth about $8000 in japan when slaughtered there. MInd you,personally i think the nz dairy industry is just as bad. Every day i drive past hundreds of cows. Each one most likely put in calf to keep the milk production going,knowing that most often they will have their calfs taken from them after a few days. A bit like they do to the horses in the canadian horse urine farms. No one seems to care much in nz about the emotional damage it does to the cows to have the baby they carry taken forcefully from them just after birth.Personally i just don't understand why we don't care about that. I know they have to wait till they are 4 days old before they can be sent to slaughter and i have previously spoken to someone who worked at a local freezing works here who's job it was to force them towards the start of the chain. I always used to think he had been f'd up a bit by his job,but he said he had to pay the bills somehow.He hadn't leart to zone out like most. Anyway,its a strange old world ,but harness authorities should take some sort of action to ensure nz horses aren't exploited,wherever they end up.

The owner of the court trained horses was the same man i mentioned .Lin lang,aka mr wolf. And if you look at who has sold quite a few to china and who is again selling,its people associated with the court stable.e.g. T macdonald and pinelea farm. A few terror to loves have gone to china.

I heard from someone that got an offer that they wanted the mare either in foal or to have been served. I'm not 100% sure what they were getting but i'm guessing around $10,000 for some mares. They aren't paying peanuts,thats why people are selling. I read last year there was no more inner mongolia horse racing. Lin lang,known as mr wolf,the man behind that,his company was put into liquidation last year.He apparently has vanished into the wind.. He used to buy all sorts of horses in nz and on sell most in china. They ranged from Kaimanawa ponies to racehorses.That all stopped when covid hit and they couldn't get horses or people to china.Don't think anyonwe would believe the kaimanawa horses are going to be raced,but for some reason many think the harness horses will be treated different,for unknown reasons. Apparently he talked a big game but all his money was coming from the bank of china,and they ended up running out of patience. Its hard to believe that the chinese bank would lend to someone wanting to set up racing when gambling wasn't legal. You would think it more likely there was always eventually alternative plans for the horses,that the bank could see a return on and benefitted china,but who really knows. His best racehorse ,mongolian khan,winner of the caufield cup. Windsor park bought him then later sold him to a stud in tibet,2000kms from inner mongolia. They do have a growing equestrian type horse industry in china so maybe thats what hes used for.Some horses from nz are going to china for that reason.But thats a different thing. Getting the horses from nz was made more alluring for the chinese by the free trade agreement nz and china have.You would think theres got to be a reason why nz,and maybe its about where they can buy thats easiest and without any fuss for them. Actually it wasn't that many years ago that nz and the netherlands were where the most number of horses exported to china came from although it was only a couple of thousand. China for years had the most horses in the world and in 1977 had 11.44 million.mostly used on farms and for transport. but nowdays they only have around 3 million as tractors,trucks,cars motorbikes and decreased agriculture land is available. Anyway,back to the pregnant mares. Theres no doubt that theres a good chance many of nz harness mares and the stallions will be used in the industries i have mentioned. Thats where the money is. last year i posted on here how just a few years ago, the chinese buying up all the worlds donkeys had lead to a shortage of donkeys.And i talked about what they did with them.

Well i was looking at the latest horses sent to china and it got me thinking again about what is going to happen to them. And after a bit of study on the internet,i think i have the most likely answers as to why they take only mares and the odd colt/stallion. Now i have to say,its not just china but what i discovered happens in many countries. I've discussed some of the following before but have more detail on there many uses this time. We are after all talking nz harness horses and i think people should at least ask themselves,is that what you want to happen to your horse who you sell to china. I'm guessing those who sell to china are mostly more interested in the $ and the horse is just a commodity to be traded,but some sellers not be aware and i'm sure many would want to remain ignorant,but i think it should be put out there at least. We know for sure china wants them for some of the below reasons and i think it would be a safe bet that is where many of the NZ horses end up. Its all about pregnant mares. The key is keeping them pregnant. So for some uses they get them pregnant then abort the foal and for other uses they get them pregnant and then take the foals off them after a short time and send their foals to slaughter. In china ,we know that in 2018 the african swine flu decimated pig numbers across much of china and we know one of their main tools to get pig farms and numbers up and running again,they used the hormone taken from pregnant mares to speed up the replacement numbers. 1)What they do is have these blood farms where they have cycles where they drain 5 litres of blood in cycles where its often done 8 times in a row before they are given time to recover.They are kept in constant cycles of pregnancy then abortion in order to produce the hormone and are often given lower levels of nutrition prior to extraction as somehow that leads to greater levels of the hormone in a pregnant mares blood. The hormone is used to induce puberty in young sows and triggers a super ovualtion that results in larger litters and then after they have given bith,they are given it again and they are back in heat straight away and so the cycle goes. China has its own blood farms,but they are elsewhere in the world like south america. While the blood gold is used mostly on pigs its also used on other animals like cattle and sheep. 2)then you have horse milk.For example in china they consider horse milk to have many health benefits. five years ago a kg of horse milk in inner mongolia sold for about $7 a kg. 3)then you have pregnant mare urine(pmu) which is another very valuable product.Its called yellow gold and as an example,the extraction was pioneered in canda and is worth $800 million to canada each year. What they do over there is have these the pharmaceutical companies refine it into a product which is the gold standard product for treating Postmenopausal women. Called premarin although not sure if it has the same name in nz..Its benefits include preventative treatment for osteoperosis and cardiovascular disease in woman. In canada the horses are confined to stalls 6 months of the year so urine can be caught in containing devices. They do foal them and the foals are transported some distance to feed lots where they are kept for 3 months and then slaughtered. The horse farms are such good earners that the pharmaceutical companies have waiting lists over of 1200 canada farms wishing to convert. Farmers get about $17 per 4.5 litres and each mare produces 455 of usable urine each year. Its estimated each canadian farm with 100 mares earns $170,000 per year if they have 100 mares,from just the urine. So its quite amazing just how much pregnant mares are worth when they end up on farms designed to get every last cent out of them. I guess it all depends on which countries around the world as to their animal welfare laws. So shouldn't people at least make themselves aware of what type of life they are heading to when they sell them. Does anyone actually believe they are going to be used in some type of racing industry in china.I mean,people who say that in reality are just wishful thinking you would think.

It is frustrating when you have one that you feel should have run somewhere,but even the good drivers don't get it right every time. I just watched race 5 at addington. I didn't back it but i did watch the $2.50 favorite ardens pursuit driven by john dunn. That was a very indecisive drive. He pushed out with just under 1000m to run,then immediately seemed to want to take cover,then seemed unsure what to do for the next 200m then get squeezed up for the last 600m. Yet he was a $2.50 favorite and was racing in the clear at the 900m. Hope you weren't on that one brodie. Just one of those races where tactics played abig part for some.I actually did think jaccka opa was a bit of a sitter in that race and s thornley too made the decision to get trapped amongst them and hope for luck,which never came. Then you had m williamson who got pushed onto the pegs so tried his luck and went from 11th to first and never went around a horse. Just happens sometimes,can be very frustrating but having everyone trying to make the right tactical decisions is the main thing .

The 200 million pound ebitda that enatin refer to as already there for nz. Editba means earnings before interest,tax,depreciation and amortisation.

So like i said earlier,the entain thing is all very complex and it must be hard for anyone to really be overconfident in how everything will play out for the nz racing industry in years to come with entain as their partner.. There seems good reason to think the former nz racing minister Kieran Macanulty,got a pretty good deal short term for nz racing. But the thing is, when you read much of the information and topics that entain top brass spoke about when delivering their full 2023 financial results a fortnight ago,its clear that entain has a massive presence globally and that there main focus revenue wise is on sports betting,online casinos,poke,bingo. Also their top brass seem to believe its overall fortunes rely heavily on success in the usa,brazil and uk markets. Sports betting seems the main focus everywhere. Not once in about an hour of reading did it mention racing anywhere. So the jewel in the crown that entain wanted in the nz acquisition must surely be the sports betting. So the nz racing industries got 5 years of funding in the deal negotiated by macanulty,but given he probably used leverage with entain to get the deal over the line,with that guarantee of 5 year support of the racing industry,where are any guarantees what support nz racing will get in the future and how much entain will invest in promoting the spend on racing. Obviously having dean shannon ,who is interested in nz harness, as head of entain in this part of the world is a major plus. But at the end of the day entities like entain are about making as much profit as they can so where does that leave harness racing in the big picture going forward. Then you get that extra money that entain pay to the government if they pass the proposed legislation if they geo block its customers from using overseas agencies. Wheres that money go and whens that going to happen. It all seems very important to have a forceful and pro minister of racing in nz,so its a good thing winstons there. But the whole thing is so complex. like i have said earlier,when it comes to nz harness racing you would think TABCORP,partly because its australian and focuses on racing more, would have been a better long term partner. Its like the industry and government have just looked at the short term $ signs,and gone with that and just hope for a good outcome beyond the 5 years. anyway heres what Entains chief financial officer and deputy ceo had to say about the australian branch. given how global it is,its interesting that he singled out the nz acquisition as a big winner for entain revenue wise. "so australia,as we said in november,we are cautious of the market outlook for 2024.TABCORP,us and Flutter are calling the market down in 2024.... in 2023 we were slightly adverse to market.we were -6%.I think the overall market was more like -3%.So we have given up a little bit of share.We probably hold 17% of the market share,whereas we previously had 18%, but after a long run of gaining share in australia.The point of consumption tax mitigation issues that i referred to earlier,we'll annualise against that.that will give us some benefit,but if the markets down,we do expect our australian branch to be down The BIG news,or the main focus of our australian team is in fact New Zealand. so we continue to be super optimistic about what we can do in nz.Theres already the best part of 200 million pounds of revenue that has no ebitda against it. so once we drive ebitda margins to normal levels in the years ahead,thats great growth oppotunity for us. The platform migration from the old,sort of state run nz tab business onto the australian platform is due in the 2nd quarter.So thats a nice catalyst and a real focus. So if you combibne australia and nz we have a strong outlook for 2024,but australia we would expect to be backwards." So i does sort of make you wonder how they think nz is such a strong performer given we were told the nz tab was struggling.

I think he must go close but i think the field at waimate has a couple of others who have stronger form than the coast fields did. Also i still think to myself,if they drove so negatively on the coast,why should i have any confidence in their intent to win this week. Obviously they will want more points to qualify for the final,but the mounga,will he or won't he,coupled with a stronger field doesn't give me any confidence to invest in that race.

thanks for that gammalite. Interesting you mention Sky Racing is run by TAB corp NSW and that sky pull the plug on entain at different stages because entain had some deal with the NSW hotel association. Also interesting the change in victoria from this year where TABCORP have exclusive rights to victorian retail wagering and betting in their pubs. So you would have to wonder,does NZ racing,especially harness,get maximum exposure on the sky tv channels and their radio channel,given the NZ product is now run by their fierce rival Entain. You would have to question ,who was in fact the best partner for the nz racing industry. I know they chose entain,but when you look at just the betting pools and sky exposure it obviously paints a complex picture and not as straight forward as people within harness have been sold or are selling to industry participants. I actually spent some time last night reading reporting and published minutes from entains latest AGM meeting,from a couple of weeks ago.I wish i hadn't started as it went on and on,but i will mention a couple of things i noted in a post when i get time.

I think they would be aiming at the country cups final and because,as you would gather from the name,most of the qualifying races are run on grass by clubs based in the country. Of course the final isn't run on grass nor in the country. He has won on both grass and all weather. His last win was as a 3 win horse at his 7th start,where he easily won,with Bach,The falcon,Deceptive lee and Alata meteor filling the placings. As i said in an earlier post,each of his wins has been when taken to the front. Whatever he does at oamaru won't personally change my opinion of his westport run. Personally i would rather see him beaten at oamaru on sunday due to that and is why i like smoke on the water, as trainers like matt purvis are always there to win,no matter what the race and deserve every success they get on the track.

I have been looking at the pools for the nz harness for the last couple of meetings. And what i'm left wondering,is who are entains australian commingling partners and what type of exposure/ coverage do they give to nz harness meetings. I had thought the nz commingled pools we bet into here, included victoria,tasmania,western australia,ACT. I'm not sure about queensland although Gammalite may be able to answer that one. So the point i'm making is this. Are we still getting victorian betting in the nz pools. I read earlier this year that TABCORP now has the exclusive rights to all retail wagering and betting in pubs in victoria. I also read where they have to have all pub terminals within 5 metres of the bar to ensure no underage betting. So does that explain why NSW tabcorp can get pools that seem close in size to the nz tab. Now obviously this varies significantly depending on what meetings the nz meeting may be competing against. But heres todays win pools for the 7 races. $975(2 horse race),$7591(non win trot),$5216,$4323,$3979,$8933,$6975. On one race they had an exacta pool of $3147,another race a first 4 of $7032. The quinella on race 4 paid $815. Now you don't have to be a genius to work out that if the nz tote pools were commingled with those pools,then it would be a good thing for many reasons,in particular it would give the punter greater confidence to spend on our tote knowing a larger bet would not influence the tote so much. So whats going on. Where is the entain NZ pools money coming from,aside form NZ? If nsw tabcorp can get pools the size i quoted earlier on days like today,how come entain commingling partners in australia are performing so poorly,like they did today. When you compare the pools of tabcorp and the NZ commingled pool,you have to ask,is nz harness being treated as it should by entain and its partners. And are nz punters getting a fair go.

Not sure about running out of excuses,but he must be hard to beat in that race. Having said that Smoke on the water also in that race and his form has been very strong lately.

Of note was the fields only came out on monday and mark jones scratched his 2 horses the very next day,tuesday. Neither on veterinary advice so you would have to wonder whether he ever had any intention of running his horses. thats the type of thing that should be looked into, as there was over $20,000 paid out in stakes and bonuses yet there was only a win pool which was only showing $700 with a minute to go.So HRNZ"s cut would have been what,maybe $100-200 to pay towards the $20,000. The whole thing does make you wonder like you say brodie.

HRNZ stated this in a press release at the start of 2024 "Given the change to the racing season the purpose of this scheme is to encourage owners and trainers to race 2 year olds". So thats why HRNZ said they were adding $12,000 to each 2 year old race. $8,000 to the owners and $4,000 to the breeders. Now you would think owners and trainers would only be encouraged to race for extra money if they thought they could meet the criteria for the bonus money. Which is they need to win,or run 2nd to a horse that had already won the bonus. So you have to ask,is it any surprise that so far we have seen no extra 2 year olds running,as after all,if you didn't have a horse good enough to win before the bonus,why would you line up chasing a bonus that your not going to win. Which obviously means ,The HRNZ strategy of pumping into 2 year old racing so much more in industry funding into these 2 year old races was always going look like they really aren't too clever. That appears to be how it is playing out currently. Actually if anything it looks like there are less 2 year olds racing now than there were last year. Today they had a 2 horse race,so far they can't seem to get anymore than 5 or 6 to start,and at times just haven't run races programmed because they can't even get that number. Obviously as we get to the end of the year there will be a lot more 2 year olds racing,simply because they changed the racing term to end in december instead of august.But are there going to be extras running? Anyway,the point is it does make you wonder about some of the decision making coming from HRNZ. For something new to work it needs to make sense,and the 2 year old bonus in m y opinion was a scheme throws a lot of money for very little reward.

Personally i don't believe its a given that horses always perform better when driven by a top driver,than a trainer/driver like geddes. I read an article on hrnz where Geddes said hes won 9 races on sods law. You don't win that many races unless your horse runs for you. I'm certainly not saying geddes has as much natural abilty as the top drivers,but i am saying sods law has been able to maximise his earning potential through a combination of geddes driving and the professionals like tomlinson driving. I think its just a mindset that people like punters have. That is they see a more successful driver or a professional driver and say,hey if only the professional drove it all the time it would win more. I don't see it that way myself. I know from personal experience we used to have a horse that people would say to us,if only you had used a professional all the time you would have won more races. Well my reply was always,you may think that,but if you looked at our horses record you would see i won more races driving than a very good professional who also drove him,and i only had half the number of drives. I know sometimes the professional driver was driving in races where the stakes were higher,,but our horse always gave 100% when i drove and raced against similar horses. So at the end of the day,people who can make a living from driving are obviously very naturally talented,whoever they may be,but that doesn't always necessarily mean they will get better results.

I've learnt from betting over the years that its what happens from the point in a race where a horse gets tired that impacts whether it will back up with a similar run next week.Its a variable when it comes to punting where you are sort of guessing. In other words,if its run out of energy reserves with 200m to go and its still driven hard to the finish,then you can never really tell how it will back up the following week.Thats why the very small % of people who use performance enhancers,gain an unfair advantage over the others. So you have a different approach from a driver who may train or own their horse and is driving,to a driver who is a professional who is out there to achieve the best result on each day. On one hand the professional driver will make tactical decisions to try and ensure the best placing possible even when its a stretch for the horses ability,thinking about how to obtain the best result today,whereas with the trainer or owner driving ,they try to take the opportunities on the day but also place greater emphasis on the long term welfare,racing wise, of the horse and are often more conservative,especially when its obvious theres no money in it. Having said that,all horses have differing levels of will to win,but ive always believed they that natural instinct and just like us gain self confidencwe and sense of achievment from performing well. So what i'm saying is,your right in what you say and from the point of view of the punter that is what the focus is,but i'm also saying,as i think you know,that drivers like geddes play the long game and get greater long term financial rewards by doing so,therefore its to their advantage to do most of the driving.

I think its possibly the same cause as that aircraft that landed in auckland where all the people got hurt last week. They have been reporting the pilot was adjusting his seat and lost control of his seat thrusting him into the controls which caused the plane to suddenly dive and fling some of its passengers onto the planes ceiling.So if that can happen,its not much of a stretch to think someone at hrnz put the lazyboy into recliner position too quick and accidently spilt their coffee on something important to do with the power to their website. My theory anyway.