the galah

the slot races were an example of cambridge adding on substanial debt,when it already had substanial debt which it was struggling with.. Thatt not smart,its dumb,irrespective of where the club is situated. your argument seems to be based around where the clubs are located.Thats seems to be the way hrnz view it as well. Our argument is about finances,not where the club is located. finances is a basic. Hrnz should not have lower acceptable standards of finacial management based on where a club is located.But they do.Thats always been the main point.

i think part of the reason many in the south island have a negative view of northern harness racing is because they see the support hrnz is giving them,knowing hrnz is doing nothing to tell them they are going to need to operate in a way that doesn't drain the overall industries(especially the south islands)future financial resources. i personally think ,because hrnz is so away with the fairies,auckland and cambridge,instead of facing reality and looking for solutions,instead are looking for handouts. in other words,all that is happening is hrnz are bailing them out until hrnz themselves will have financial issues in maintaining stake levels everywhere. so theres no doubt those clubs have huge issues,but they don't need to spell the end of the clubs,quite the contrary.they still are asset rich,for the moment. they should be using their current crisis to restructure and come up with a plan for a sustainable future.But they aren't because hrnz is allowing them to continue to operate irresponsibly.it can be done if they had to. as you've said many times brodie,what business would ever allow itself to be run in the way hrnz is running things currently.Thats where i think the main problem is.

cambridge appears to be a club that ignored the finanical stress it was under and decided a good strategy was spend more on projects that would add to their financial stress.,e.g. on the grins. And who could blame them. All the media and hrnz said how clever they were. The cambridge thing,whatever its level of financial issues, appears just aother example of why the average south island harness follower thinks some of those that administer harness racing and the harness media ,treat them like they haven't got a brain.

won't cambridge lose a significant income source next year when the greyhound come to an end . anyone got any good news about cambridge ? .Maybe the time is approaching, when a press release from mr steele telling us how every thing is looking positive,is needed again.

i see mr wood,the man who should have the inside word on cambridge, being a cambridge man,has again on the other channel made comment about things to come out soon. Not that long ago he was hinting at the financial situation of the club being very poor and what may happen as a result to the running of the cambridge club.. When they ran those grins races they told us how great it was for the industry and the club.Adding significant more debt onto their already large pile of debt,so what,they had a good night out and the aussies took home the cash to aussie. But hey,those grins races are great for the industry(so they tell us),so the smart people keep telling us. I wonder what their derinition of smart is.. To the people the harness media always tell us are so smart ,debt is just a word. A word can't hurt you,and if it does,take a job elsewhere. besides,i'm sure mr steele is saddling up his horse, money bags again,right as this moment.Just in case he has to ride into the cambridge area and save the day with a bit more HRNZ cash while en route to another auckland meeting.

i agree. if they adjusted stake money to reflect the small fields at the likes of cambridge and in those 2 yer old races throughtout nz,then people would just accept them for what you say they are and not moan much.I suggested they do that a while ago. all they have to do is adjust the penalty rating points to reflectthe stake levels. it seems a very simple solution but hrnz have shown they currently aren't into factoring profit /loss to the industry as a whole..

i just had a look at the peter profit headlines. one of his latest headlines was about the forbury money having to be retained for use in the southern region and it being a nightmare for mr steeles plans for auckland. i don't have access to his stories,but the headlines are entertaining enough. Whereas he isn't always accurate on some stories,in the past hes been pretty accurate in his reporting about the auckland trotting club.

the logic hrnz use,is numbers are down so much up north, so lets provide as many racing opportunities as they possibly can,that way those left competing can have access to racing where they are far more likely to earn a quid than they would be elsewhere,so that way they will maintain participation levels and stay where they are.Those north island people must know they are on to a good thing.long may it last they must say to themselves. its a bit like there not being many customers going to restaurants in a particular town,so lets open up some more ,that way the customers will have more choice and the compettiojn will keep the prices down,that way customer numbers will be maintained. then those outside the upper north island marvel at how irrelavant hrnz seem to view whether meetings run at a profit or loss. Thats the thing most can't quite understand. but you have to give it to hrnz. They have stuck to their guns and i think have outstayed most of the social media naysayers.After all,on this forum at least, people seem to have said to themselves ,well theres only so many times you can say something with enthusiasm before you realise hey,whats the point.Apathy i think is the word to descibe how many are feeling about the industry.

i personally think theres quite a difference between the cambridge and marburg. marburg fields size is nearly always 8 or 9, whereas at cambridge you get mostly fields of 6. 5 of the 6 races at cambridge this week have only 6 runners starting. Field size is such a relevant indication of whether you have too much racing in particular areas. But HRNZ number crunchers just don't seem to have cottened on to that. The cambridge horses are better but the marburg drivers are as good as the cambridge drivers and drive with more intent to obtain the best possible outcome. Marburg i think is the best of the queensland product if judged on the intent of drivers and the lack of team driving you see. but that first race at marburg was such a mickey mouse affair when you saw how the mobile and starters crew people handled the situation of the horse with gear issues. i agree t mcmullen normally a good driver to follow at marburg,just her effort in the first race ,before they abandoned it,was below par.

i actually watched the first race at marburg. I actually think racing at marburg seems more competitive and everyone has a pre conceived plan of trying ,at least a bit more than they do at the likes of albion park in my opnion.. so marburg is an ok look for the industry from a betting perspective. but race 1 run yesterday wasn't. i had a very small bet on the race and backed the favorite to win ,it was paying $2.80. well they had a false start the first time as the 4 horse never looked like pacing away,then in the re start you could tell it would break,but it mangaed to get to the first bend before doing so,then unfortunately checked 4 of the other runners enough to make you think there was only 3 chances left. The favorite had taken the lead easily early. Well they had only gone 300m with the front 3 about 10 and 20 lengths in front of the 4th and 5th horses, when t mcmullen did what she sometimes does and hooked off the inside and attacked the favorite for the lead. Normally you would think well fair enough,but this time It seemed such a dumb move as she was on the outsider and was attacking the favorite when clearly her horse was being pushed to go faster than it could,so hey, you could tell it was gone as soon as she did that,but they still ran along very fast for about a round like that befiore she sent out the white flag and was stopping badly. Well because they had run along so fast,the field remained spread out and the favorite looked like it was going to win by the length of the straight the way it was travelling. But then they called the race off with a round to go,because the number 4 horse had broken again when at the back,had been taken to the outside of the track by its driver with a gear issue and the mobile vehicle and starter crew vehicle decided to park up on the track while they gave that bloke a hand .The stewsrds saw this and decided to call the race off with a round to go. So if you looked at the video,you could see the horse that had the gear problem had gone on tis merry way well before the horses in the race got to where it had been,,but the starters assistants just stood next to their vehicle in the middle of the track nonchalontly walking back to the vehicle just before the race was called off. They didn't even try to get out of the way after the race was called off,just watching the field run past them,even though none of the horses in the race shied at it,maybe knowing the race had been called off ,thinking well whats the pointb of driving off as its a no race anyway. it was all rather strange.i didn't bother to watch any more races from marburg after that,just changed channels again.

yes i get that.but the thread started off just referring to the effect of geo blocking on racing turnover. my point ,that i made when i joined the thread , was the gain from the geo blocking,certainly from entains point of view,was expected to come from sports betting and that racing may be able to ride the coat tails of that sports betting gain through the trickle down effect. But you seem to think not as much will trickle down as i had hoped.anyways,enjoy the rest of your evening.

well,we've been talking about who provides the new zealand sporting organisations with the money from sports betting. when i suggested,the money came from entain and the nz tab , you said no, its solely the nz tab and that entain got to keep all of their 50% of the sports betting profits and that the nz tab paid the 23% to the nso out of the nz tab's 50% shae of the profits. In other words the nso share came out after the nz tab got its 50% share,not before, as if it was before,then that would have meant entain were contributing,which you said,no they weren't to. then i said, if entain could see they could make so much money from sports betting through geo blocking,then why didn't the nz tab ask the nz governmant to do the geo blocking without the need for entain,thus getting to keep all that extra revenue the geo blocking created. Then you mentioned the 2029 projected figure as if that was a good thing and i came back and again said well why didn't the nz tab just ask for the geo blocking and take all the extra profit in the future ,thus not needing to give away hundreds of millions over the next 25 years. then you seemed to say,hey you've lost me. And then i assume you went and took 2 panadol.

so,your saying, the government negotiated a deal with entain ,which nz racing was all for,to give away a % of profit from sports betting ,so they could get the one off payments and get a smaller % of a big pie,instead a bigger % of a smaller pie pre entain,.,due to the geo blocking. then the obvious question i would ask is. if entain invested in the nz tab because they saw the potential profits that could be generated from the nz tab having a monopoly on nz sports betting after the geo blocking,then why didn't the nz tab just go it alone and have the governmant introduce geo blocking without the need for entain. if your answer is,because of the initial $150 million payment and the 20 million payment from the geo blocking,then it still doesn't make sense if you look at the long term. I'm not saying your wrong,it just doesn't seem to be that clever to me.

i get that. i never said the nz tab was owned by nz racing. i can reasonably argue racings past association with the nz tab is the reason why racing currently get a cut of the sports betting money. Its not a spurios argument i make. Its real.

google and AI,seems they don't agree. so you seem to be saying pre entain the nz tab paid the new zealnad sporting organisations their share from the tab's 100%,then after entain took over,the nz tab pay the nso's the same %,but from only a 50% share. so you appear to be saying the nz governmant negotiated a deal where sports betting would have to double for the tab to be making the same amount as it was pre entain. at least thats what it sounds like you are saying to me.

i just goggled it. and if we can trust google to get it right,entain does contibute a share of its sports betting profits to nz sports organisations. If it didn't and they took out the 50% profit prior to the nz tab distributing to the nso's,then that would mean the nz tab would be gettiing only half of the profits from sports betting that it was prior to partnering with entain. So surely they,nz racing and the govt and nz tab, wouldn't have negotiated a contract with entain where sports betting returns to the racing industry could be , in reality be reduced and nz racing worse off?

yes,but the tab was set up for racing ,hence it can be argued racing deserves the cut of the revenue generated from sports betting that it currently receives.Each sports organisation has a negotiated contract with the tab as to how much they receive.i posted what they were getting in another thread not that long ago,i can't remember whether it was a harness or gallops thread. from memory each national sporting organisation used to get about 5 years ago a minimum of 23 % of net betting revenue and an additional 3%,which goes to sport nz who distribute to all the sporting codes.NSO's can try and negotiaet a greater %,but that wasn't guaranteed. of course net betting revenue is effected by whether favorites have a run,as if they did,gross betting revenue could be high, but net betting revenue not so good. I think some nso would have tried to add a gross betting revenue clause in their contracts,but we don't know what is actually in any contracts between the tab and the sporting organisations. and then of course the main reason entain got into nz,was their share of the revenue they believed would be generrated from the sports betting and entain ,being a partner of the nz tab isn't going to want to give away greater % of profit and will be pretty hard nosed in negotiations with sports groups,which will help the nz tab being their partner. so sports betting is obviously of significane to nz racing and we are fortunate that is the case and that the tab/entain have control now of the nz sports betting. Just how significant is too early to tell you would think,maybe its a big deal,maybe its not. Racings desperately needs every bit of revenue it can get,. the thing about what we are discussing is,the authorities never seem transparent enough for us to make informed conclusions.And you get the impression, thats because they are only guessing.So that doesn't fill anyone with much confidence.

The sports betting increase through the nz tab,since the geo blocking,is obviously going to be a factor in helping nz racing. Exactly how much the nz racing industry will get from increased sports turnover seems unclear at this stage,but you would assume it will significant,just how significant is unclear. for racing,it was always going to be questionable as to whether the increases in turnover on the nz tab,were going to make up for the lost revenue they were getting from the overseas bookies,who previously took betting and paid fees, on the nz racing product. then you have to factor in the % increase the thoroughbred and harness will get from receiving the greyhound industries share ,once they finish. And i do agree with hesi when he talks about supply and demand as regards the horse pool available for racing. Thats something i can't understand why the harness side don't stress more. I.e. there is going to be greater demand for the lower numbers of horses being bred,whatever the quality. personally i think the gallops administrators are being more fiscally responsible currently than the harness,and will be in a better position going forward. But i'm still like you,i doubt both sides of the industry can sustain their current level of funding. But we still can't really know for sure until the impact of the factors i've mentioned play out.

when the ladbrokes racing club closed the aussie ones were either sold or sent to nz .

actually i read earlier this year the average cost of having a galloper in training in nsw was around $55,000 a year. And it said 1% of horses earned about 26% of the total stakemoney in nsw gallops.

they had a similar thing in australia called the ladbrooks racing club in australia, which involved gallopers,harness and greyhounds. they shut that down in february.

its certainly been a very lengthy,well publicised hearing taking many months and the report has been long awaited. so i would think the report is the opposite of low on the agenda,i would imagine it is the top priority of the newer board and management team you refer to at greyhound nsw. i'm guessing the reason it hasn't been released is because some of its contents will again be damaging to the public perception of greyhound racing in jnsw and will play ijnto the animal welfare activists narrative.. for that reason,i would guess the nsw board have required extra time to address the issues the report will raise in an attempt to mitigate the loss of public confidence. after all,if it has nothing damaging in the report,it would have been released some time ago.

sometimes owners have to make hard decisions.At the end of the day,they did what they thought was no doubt best and they ended up owning a nz cup winner. making decisions about things like that would have been difficult for all involved.. borana definetly stood at stud for a few seasons.He left a few winners but wasn't that popular and was only bred for a few seasons. When he finished that part of his life he was offered to shand by the part owner,as i understand it.He would have been in his late teens i think then and being a stallion it would not have been so easy to find a home for him.Hopefully they found a home for him after that . i did speak to someone one time about that,but i personally don't know about that.

not sure whether your just taking the mickey as the answer is obvious. i'll quote myself to explain it for you,to help you out..

yes those couple of fields were full of mostly christchurch horses..Just an extra float fee to timaru i suppose. Will they run a couple of extra races or can a couple of the original onesprogrammed for sunday to fit them in? i'm not sure about the negativity you mention. i just follow the racing,but those south island horses get to race for much better stake money than the harness people and they have much better betting fields They also seem to have that many ex north island horses race in the south island. Thats a huge advantage that the harness people don't have. they don't have to go to all the expense of breeding,looking after the mares,raising them when they are younger. They just get to take them over when they have shown enough promise to be competitve up north, to warrant racing in the south island. really south island gallops people,whether it be owners or trainers , should not underestimate just how lucky they are to be able to do that and how much money they save becaus of that. for example i just had a look at the timaru results from last week. 6 of the 10 winners werre ex north island horses.That seems to be the norm these days. actually,when you look at the betting turnovers,they are ok but the sunday gallops meetings are poor. But it seems to be a policy to push meetings onto sundays and get the punters to focus on the australian races on a saturday. Personally i think that has major negatives, as well as the positives. It certainly hasn't helped the harness racing having to race with such long intervals between races. Who in their right mind wants to go sit on a racecourse on a sunday where they have 40 minutes between races. That must be so boring. I mentioned on the harness side of this forum the pathetic turnover a $100,000 race they had at awapuni recently, that they ran on a sunday. It was only something like $3,700 in the win tote pool for the $100,000 race that had a good field. anyway,i think the south isalnd gallops really have it good these days,so i doubt they should be moaning too much.