the galah

Fitness and especially being overweight, are factors which would influence performance for someone whose job it is to commentate. Its just common sense to me. We all know that for example,someone who is overweight has reduced lung volumes and greater chance of laboured breathing.Studies show that .Just look around. I make this comment about aaron white because it wasn't that long ago that you could hear him breathing when he did race commentaries. I didn't imagine it and i found it off putting myself. Trevor wilkes was the same near the end of his career. Thats why i suggest it was factor at that time in him being better at calling short races like greyhounds and gallops. Now he may well have taken steps to improve his weight and lung capacity in recent times.i hope he has as he would know better than anyone how it impacts his job. People may gloss over it,but it is a relevant point.

my son applied for a cleaning job a couple of weeks back with the canterbury dhb,but has since been told he by someone in the know that he would have had a much better chance if he was maori. Then yesterday he was telling me how he was talking to a filipino friend who had applied for a non paying,voluntary position within the canterburty DHB involving cleaning. He had hoped by gaining the cleaning skills without receiving pay would help him get a full time or part position at the dhb. Well the filipino friend got a call a couple of days back from the person who was deciding who it was they give the unpaid position to. Initailly the filipino man was delighted to get the call,but the call then was only brief. The last 2 questions asked were..was he maori to which he replied no i'm filipino,then do you have a brother or sister who are maori,to which he replied...no i'm living with my brother ,but he is filipino as well and asked did that matter as he thought he was just voluteering for cleaning as advertised. Then the call ended without further questions. So i looked up the canterbury dhb policy on such jobs. It said any vacancy or new position that occurs within the canterbury dhb has to be assessed for the need to be redesignated as a position maori or pacific island should do. It was interesting that a couple of years ago 3 of the 7 community and public health team leaders with canterbury,south canterbury and west coast were maori. Then i went on to read what must be considered every time a position is advertised at the canterbury DHB. Now i'm not sure whether this applies to all cleaning jobs,but certainly applies to other jobs such as health care, before deciding who gets an interview and what is asked at those interviews. Aspects to consider. Do you know if the interviewee is maori. Is there maori on the interview panel and if so,what roles do they want in the interview and have they been involved in such things as short listing,developing of questions and preparation pior the interview. it also says interview panels should have at least one maori. All interview incorporate questions based on tikanga,te tiritio waitangi and maori health inequalities. Interviews to include questions about cultural competencies as required and that maori questions and competencies included in the short listing process. Questions to be asked in relation to health care roles to include .. Partnership,participation and protection are commonly recognised as 3 principles of the treaty of waitangi-how would you incorporate these or other treaty principles in your work within this role. Maori health inequities within nz are well documented-can you give an example in the canterbury/south canterbury/west coast district. How do you believe your work in this role will help improve health inequities for maori. What experiences and exposure have you had with te reo maori. Anyway you get the picture . this is what the labour government/maori party/ green party prioritised when in government. So when i read all that i can see why maori are so anti the currwent government. They must be worried about the gravy train drying up to a small degree,although you would imagine 6 years of these polices would be hard to undo. Which all goes back to what the filipino friend of my son said. Why can't they just judge me on whether i can do the job or not.

All good points,but wasn't it the decision to not sell the land and instead become property developers which meant the current ATC board don't have the resources to deal with the problems you mention as well as they should.So you have to cut the current board some slack i suppose. And from memory a couple of trainers,one being mr balle,were directors back then?, who made the well meaning but catastrophic decision around the property development. So i guess if anyone knows the pitfalls and has seen the consequences of really poor decision making first hand,who better to approach as investors than those that were on the board in 2014?

If we look at what you have just said. You say your "firm on the anti auckland thing",putting our opinions into that category. Whereas we are just saying auckland racing is more boring because we find it more boring. In other words,that has nothing to do with being anti-auckland. Then you refer to personel attacks when discussing commentators,as if someone saying aaron white is not rated highly as a trots commentator,is in someway meant as a personal attack. In reality we think there are much better commentators who could be doing the job and we say that because thats what we think.No hidden agendas,just saying what we think. So your countering the opinions held by others with an invalid arguments. Or then again ,thats may be what you actually think. Nothing wrong with that,but you didn't stop there,you went on to justify those opinions with what you should know was irrelevant. Personally i have a theory about the commentating side of things. That is that a commentotor needs to stay in good physical health to commentate at the highest level on a harness race,or a 2 mile galloping race or a steeplechase..Simply because its the length of time those races take.I believe that is part of why aaron white can't often maintain the energy levels in his calls at harness meetings and is why he is much better at gallops and dogs,because those don't last as long.

Aaron white does have a good accuracy and flow as you describe. However the difference between him and say a mat cross or justin evans or jazon teaz is that they seem to be able to transfer the excitement,disappointment in their use of language and tone in to a commentary and feel the excitement as if they knew the connections and horses. I also like craig rail. His calls not quite as exciting as the three i have just mentioned but because he displays and acknowledges the breeding and ownership details that many find interesting better than anyone else,his all round game is very good. The likes of fogarty seems talented and has really good potential to reach high levels and mccook goes ok.I would rate Mccook similar to aaron white,but mcccok has more transferrable energy in his calls than white does when it comes to run of the mill races. After all,90% of races run in nz harness are run of the mill,every day races. A good commentator can make those races sound just as exciting for connections and listeners as a big race and people who watch and listen to a commentary can feel that. So thats why i feel they need to use someone else for harness racing in the north. In fiarness to, white,he doesn't have the same product to work with like they do else where. In other words its just the same small group of people involved in northern harness racing and northern harness raci9ng is more boring than elsewhere. Mind you jason teaz used to have small fields at places like forbury but was able to capture the viewers attention.

Someone told me recently that no harness trainers allowed to work on grass anymore at motukarara. No harness workouts on grass due to that last week.Just to be used for raceday. So wouldn't hold your breath there.

I agree with you about the whale. great guy,but last night having greg o'connor in the studio was much better than having the whale there. Keep the whale for his on course comments at auckland. It worked well last night with o'connor in the studio and the 2 on course presenters. I don't mind the lady they have that does the trots on trackside either. And i totally agree about aaron white. I think he does a very good job when calling the dogs and gallops,but when it comes to the trots he just seems to have no excitement in the average run of the mill races. Theres an inconsistency in his performances,especially for the low grade meetings in my opinion. I've always thought if hes the man selling harness racing as an exciting sport,then harness racing won't get any new clients. Combine the whale in studio and aaron white as commentator and it comes across as a boring sport.

Tipping short priced favorites seems to be the way tipsters go these days. I always believe those who do the tipping should state what they think is a fair price as well when tipping a horse. And backing several short priced favorites iin one night in my opiniion is not the way to make much money. You either win,but not much,or lose but not much. I never had a bet at aucklnad,but who would have picked mach shard to beat self assured. On form that had to be impossible to predict. And i watched All Cashed Up closely as i thought it looked the bet of the night,it was actually paying a good price for what seemed a sitter. I just watched it hoping it didn't win,like you do when you have no money on. Well i thought she couldn't have driven it any better if you were wanting it to get beaten. It was one of those races where you watch and think ,why on earth doesn't she just move up a bit closer,when they were going so slow? You could see the race slipping from her grasp like a slow movie,and sure enough it did. But that happens sometimes.You can pick the horse who looks a winner,but they don't always win.

Thats an interesting take honestjohn. I looked it up and in 2016 in the USA 25.3% of people under 17 wore glasses/contact lenses,whether it be throughout the day or just reading glasses. 53.4% aged between 18-34 and 77.5% over 55. Another study found 92% over 65 wore reading glasses. Another study found people perceived you to look 3.3 years older wearing glasses,once you got to 45. Whereas when wearing sunglasses,people percieved young people to be the same age but 1.8 years younger if an older person wearing sunglasses This was put down to the sunglasses covering the wrinkles around the eyes. Then the hearing aide thing you bring up.. Couldn't find any specific stats about nz other than just over 10% of the population have a hearing aide,and obviously the older you get the more likely you are to have one.They are worn on average 7.8 hours per day. People who have hearing loss-people with hearing aides compared to those without who have hearing loss. People with the hearing aides are less likely to be depressed or anxious,more likely to be more productive,10% more likely have all the following.. be employed,better sleep, have eye exams,cholesterol checks,take a pet to the vet,etc. Also as relates to the most common form of dementia,alzheimers. Hearing aides are a significant factor in delaying or preventing alzheimers, reportedly by up to 40%. In nz its been reported half the prison population has hearing loss. Whether thats because they are tested more there?,but poor childhood hearing has been shown to be linked to anti social behavior. More maori and pacific people have hearing loss believed to be due to the type of occupations many have. So how that relates to colin defillipi . well i guess the glasses stats show the high % of people who use glasses. And the hearing aide you say he uses, indicates he is most likely to be happeier and more productive and more likely to look after his health more. At the end of the day,personally i thinks its like somone who loves golf. They may have been on a one handicap when at their best 20 years ago,but they still love playing golf and even though they may have dropped to a eigth handicap,they still will be mush better now than most will ever be. So why would you give away doing something you still enjoy. So its really for anyone and their family to decide when they want to cut back participation,not for anyone else to decide or influence.

i just looked it up he won the 1997 group 2 herbert power stakes in melbourne. isn't that a lead in race to the melbourne cup? I used to follow australian racing back then but when you had all those imports from overseas running in the big staying races, i lost interest. Pretty sure from memory he had a pet dog,maybe he did try racing a greyhound or two like you say.

I think the property he and his family had on the main road just out of ashburton was formerly owned by the old fella macpherson who trained the great trotter sir castleton. He sold it to a fella with i think clydesdales when he moved to takaka. I think thats right,i will have a look next time i drive past although the roadside hedges have grown a bit in recent years. Carlislie bay and hurrah were a couple of good horses he bred and sold to hong kong that he was particularly proud of their achievements. I read once where he now sort of lives like they did in the good life tv series,on a few acres and does a bit of fishing as well. Don't think there would be the stresses of being a horse trainer with that lifestyle.

Robert thomas was a very talented man. He did have an interesting family history didn't he. He was particularly good at bowen therapy.A light soft tissue manipulation technique. I haven't met anyone better at it than him. His pre race bowen therapy sessions about 3 days before were a really good investment. Shame he moved to takaka, i think it was. I was speaking to a lady that does equine horse massages about 9 months ago and she was telling me she thought he was still up there.

Just looked him up. Last had a horse to the races in 2020 ,a horse called chorister. He trained an ex north island horse ,sandcastle to win an open handicap at ashburton in 2012,paying $40.Terry mosely rode.It was a noted front runner. Colours are red body with black arms with a purple armband and cap. Interesting what pops up if you do a search.

Are any gallopers trained at motukarara?

If the brodster was involved it would have all been a cunning plan. He would have discovered his employee was taking money from him and gambling at sky casino,but the brodster would have suffered no financial loss,as he would have seen it coming and taken out fidelity/employee dishonesty coverage insurance. Then,knowing sky had not properly monitored the employees losses,would have hatched his cunning plan. He would have taken the employee aside ,given him intensive couselling,everything is intensive these days and facilitated participation in a cultural healing programme. Then the second part of his cunning plan would have kicked in. He would have talked the employee into complaining to internal affairs.,knowing that an offficial complaint would lead to an investigation and knowing once that became public the shares would drop big time,like they did. Then the brodster would swoop in ,buy the shares at the discounted price they were in mid november,using the large profits he made off cup week and once the shares went back up,like they did last week,sold them off with a huge profit. And the brodster legend would grow even bigger,if thats possible.

Gee ,you must have the memory of an elephant I read your post and thought who' trains chas luney these days. But i see it last raced 13 years ago.Yes it did have a lot of trainers. I wonder what made you think of that?

I think we have both,in the past, pointed out the difference in how the stipes handle reporting standing and mobile starts. Today at winton the stipes report. Race 2- styrax started about 50-60m out of position in a stand,yet no mention in the stipes report. Race 3&4- drivers were warned for starting about 3/4 of a length out of position in a mobile. .

Looked like he was off the 60m mark . He was supposed to start off the front,on ur. Not sure whether the driver,b mclellan was having a snooze(he normally leaves that for the race), or whether the starter just thought ,who cares,he did the extra round before he turned in,so he can pay the price by starting off the 60m. rather unfair if you backed the 2nd favorite and saw your chances extinguished at the start,even though it went away ok.

Its an interesting point brodie. I'm sure you've seen enough preliminaries to know when it may have been overdone. its an important part of pre race routine that can effect performance. I always remember the first horse i ever had and the first trial it ever had. I gave the reins to the driver and didn't say much apart from i think he will improve with the run as hes still a bit fat. Well i then went and watched the driver run 4 rounds at what seemed like near race speed and could tell my horse was stuffed before they had even started. The horse then missed the start,went from 8th to first in 200m,but they still had a round to go and he stopped to a walk. The horse came back in,walking with his nose on the ground,clearly exhausted and guess what the driver said.."I don't think he tried". From that experience i learnt that it pays to tell the driver the routine that you have for warming up the horse. You hardly ever hear any trainer say that because they don't want to come across as thinking the driver is stupid ,but personally i still think its very important if you have a new driver on the horse myself.I have found if you do that ,drivers will always do as requested and if not will tell you why when they come back in. E.g. I gave him a wee sprint up in the prelim as he wasn't as switched on as he should be. Personally i think it best to have a horse warmed up the same way it does in training. After all,a trainer should know the best pre race(warm up) routine that gets the best results form how it works in its actual fast work at home. One thing i do believe as being important,is the recovery time between prelim and race,but generally thats pretty consistent anyway as you have to be at the start by a certain time. People seem to have more walking around at the start of a race than they have in their routines at home due to they want to get it done at home,but i think raceday is the better practice of the two. then you have horses that may be running over a sprint distance,which you see so many races run over these days. What i do believe is if you interval train a horse over shorter distances,its the second heat that tends to be the one the horse can run the fastest, if you really pushed them. So its for that reason i sometimes think in those sprint races,that its advantageous to see a driver give the horse a quick 400m at the end of its preliminary. Obviously it would not have been warmed up too fast prior. I remember watching richard brosnan do that at addington over those sprint distances. From memory jack smolenski,anthony butt,those type of drivers may have as well.People like that wouldn't have done it unless they thought it was to their advantage.

well actually shad,when you say why would he not want to win. I would answer because he knows a second win at his second start,would mean he then had to race against horses that have won so many more races and had so many more starts than him. The ratings system is very unfair on horses that do that. I mean he looks after that horse for a couple of years,nurturing it both physically and mentally and placing it so that it and its owners can have many happy raceday experiences. Then because its a bit too good,he has to flatten it and knock its confidence by running in the higher grades when its not ready to do so. In other words he has to undo some of the good work he had done. To be honest,i think any trainer/driver would know that it was in the horses and owners best long term interests,to run a place and not win last nights race. Now whether that was a factor,i don't know,but i think i've seen many instances of trainer/drivers seemingly leaving their runs until a bit late ,which i believe was due to the handicapping system.. I mean that horse only qualified 2 weeks ago. He said on unhinged the week before that he only entered it the week before just to help the club out who had small numbers in the race he won.

People seem to be ignoring the first part of the charge.-reasonable chance of finishing in first place. The margin was a very small nose. Thats very relevant. Had he been beaten a length,it most likely would not have been mentioned in the stipes report. He won the week before by a nose with a similar drive and it did not get mentioned(which personally did surprise me). If you look at his vigour,he encouraged the horse with 4 slaps with the rein or whip and lifted the reins once in the last 200m. He did nothing in the last 40m. I think people who have commented on here are factoring in colin de fillipi's outstanding record over the years and the respect he has from everyone. But at the end of the day,the matter was judged on what happened in the last 200m of that race. In my view i think if another less well known driver had done exactly the same thing,no one would even be questioning the stipes decision. Also,that was a race i missed. i came home and said to the wife ,who won. Her first comment was i think colin de fillipi will get suspended as it looked like he was happy to run second.i watched it and agreed that it didn't look the best.

The charge was he failed to show enough vigour when having a reasonable chance of finishing in first placing. Well he did have a chance of finishing in first placing,no argument proving that part of the charge. Was he showing enough vigour in the last 100m,especially the last bit,well it didn't appear so. So i think the decsion to find the charge proven was always likely to go against him. I could understand him defending the charge,as his horse had a tendency to slightly move in,but i think if i had been making that decision i would have come to the same conclusion as those hearing the charge.. The matter had to be dealt with on its merits. Whether he has been suspended previously for things like using the whip free of the reins,really has no bearing on last nights matter. In some peoples mind it may,but i think that would be an unreasonable postion to take. Things like that have to be strictly policed otherwise people lose confidence in the stipes ability to do their job.

May not be the most exciting racing,but its for that reason i thought artisan the bet of the night. Paid good money for reasons unknown to me. Straight to the front as always over 1700m,dictated and won easy enough. Was a long way back in grade as well. Backing a winner always helps.

actually just speaking to the fella again and he made further inquiries and it seems they are just stopping anyone working on the grass in the short term. The reason given was the grass track needed to be prepared for the next race meeting on the 17th of march. That seems a bit strange as its 6 weeks away. I had heard that people were reluctant to use the all weather track because it was that hard and the conditioner they have never gets used..Just what i heard. All seems a bit strange.

I was talking to someone yesterday who told me they were going to give their horse a run at the motukarara workouts,on the grass. Now he tells me hes running on the all weather because they have closed the grass track indefintely. Does motukarara have some sort of issue?