the galah

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.

They may not want you betting blind,but thats what you have to do. Or not bet. Its hard to believe a power outage could be at fault as its gone on most of the day. Open an account with the nsw tab. If you do,they have most of the recent videos of each horse in each race.They seem to be taking betting on all the races from nz harness on a saturday at the moment. They can be a pain to contact if you have a query though as they never answer their phones or emails. Some of their pools aren't that much but their win pools always get to at least $2,000 and a couple today were just under $6000.If a trifecta or first 4 jackpots they can get over $3000 in those pools.

Yes peter profit has been saying for 2 or 3 months now that seaton grima has the same magic as jason grimson.He writes articles on him ,just as he does on jason grimson.To give him credit,peter profit recognised early on in seaton grimas recent success that he too was now a magic man. Grima used to be a regular driver for many of grimsons horses. I see it was he who kept the speed frantic when parked in the race that golden bay won tonight in 1.49. His stopped late in the race but i guess when you have the magic you try and run the rest into the ground tactics wise. Looking at how horses race at menagle,it seems there is a handful of friends who all can improve any horse of any other trainer.Its been that way for a wee while. Anyway,i guess it just speeds up the demise of harness racing over there. Rival,honest trainers,surely must be getting out of the game when they see how poor they are results wise in comparison with the magic trainers.Either that or join the magic train.

just turned the tv on,saw race 1 at menagle golden bay running . 1.49 this week.Mr grimson working his magic.

Maybe,but i used to bet on a couple of the dog tracks over there and got to the point where i started to write the prices down that were shown when it said tote closed on the website and i used to then write down the prices of those placed that paid a dividend.And there was a distinct regular pattern that 90% of placegetters dividends were reduced when it came to the final dividend from tote close. It was amazing that there was a pattern that every roughie at tote close that ran in the money always paid a reduced price.I remember showing my records to someone as i believed it was dodgy.I only used to bet at a couple of tracks,but gave up totally because of my suspicions. I always thought it would be easy enough to rort with the dog races often lasting under 20 seconds. Just need an inside man.My theory anyway

Its funny you say that as i had a similar theory about the australian dogs early on in the commingling of the pools. I used to look at the tote dividends when they closed then look at the final dividends when they were confirmed. For a period of a few months it was like every dog that ran somewhere dropped in price after tote close. Favorites ,outsiders ,if they paid a dividend,theywere the 3 dogs that dropped in price after tote close.I was convinced it was dishonest in some way and guessed it had to be an inside job somewhere with the aussie tab somehow. I guessed someone was getting bets on after the finish of the dogs.

I thought thats what most people did and was a personal choice of punters to do that instead of a multi.Thats why there is % betting.But i get what gammalite is saying as well. What doesn't make any sense is when the tab is telling punters in one breath to take multis instead and in the next breath saying the justification for canning the pick 6 is having the money tied up for too long. I mean if you take a multi,your money is tied up until the final result of each leg of the multi.In fact in reality if someone was taking a 6 race multi,in all probability they are going to pick the best 6 bets for the night over the whole meeting. It may start in race 1 and end in race 11. Tying up punters money for 11 races,instead of the 6 with a pick 6. The tab treat us like we are dumb sometimes. When it is them who are the dumb ones with what they say.

I have had the same experience with people who voluntarily took the jabs as well. Just not interested in all the data or truth,which personally i can't understand that appproach. Interesting the Doctor in the interview who is known globally for his previous work,so knowledgable and highly respected,has dedicated his recent work to patients with what officially is called ,long covid. The interesting thing being, he says,60% of his 1200 paitients with long covid,in fact have what he calls long vaccine,as he was seeing long covid early in the pandemic,before so many of his patients had ever got covid,but had taken the vaccine. Thats why he and other high profile doctors and specialists he works with have put their reputations on the line and have tried to get the truth out there. Also interesting what he says about the life insurance companies data. I guess thatr may mean you may want to sell your shares in such compannies and that premiums must increase,because of how the numbers are stacking up for younger people who have had life insurance..

You should watch- tucker carlson on x, epidode 81. dr pierre kory. Well worth a look brodie. Also have a look at the oecd figures on excess mortality in nz in the first 9 months of 2023 that came out a month or so ago. I've been waiting for media coverage of that,but they ignore it. Truly amazing ,but the media has always been complicit in the cover up of facts and figures. Brodie on the money again(as was i).

can someone answer this question. Can you take a multi ff on one of those machines they have in a pub. I haven't had an account for a while,closed it as not happy with the tab, and hardly bet much these days as i find those pub machines too frustrating to navigate,but decided tonight i may take a small multi. But after 5 minutes trying today,pushing buttons on the machine i don't think you can do ff multis on the machines.Is that correct?

Was that horse called besse scott? funny the things you remember but i think i remember that.

The cancellation of pick 6 reminds me of the times i used to take them. I gave up on them many years ago ,but never got one except a small one that paid $300. I almost scooped the pool one night. almost. it was one of those $50,000 guaranteed pools. I had a couple running in the last and there was only a handful of live tickets and only mine on a horse called Coloured Fella. trained by K Bowen and driven by robert mitchell. I can still the race like it was yesterday. Coloured fella went forward from his front line draw but was caught out 3rd and 3 wide rounding the first bend.No worries i thought as the horse racing parked was looking for cover and there was a horse following coloured fella that would have given him the 1/1. But then,unbelievably,robert mitchell pulled back and tried to push the driver in the 1/1 onto the rail,only problem was there was a horse there,so anyone watching had to have been thinking,whats that idiot doing. I know i was. So he tried for 100m to do that while the horse 3 back got squeezed up but persisited in trying to maintain its position as it was allowed to. Then,oh no,coloured fella took a knock all of his own doing,broke and ended up 10 lengths last. But wait,in what was a 14 horse field(i looked it up),turning for home ,coloured fella has tacked on to the field and has manouvered to the outside and appears to be going well. But ,oh no,he now is trying to save a bit of ground and has run into a wall. Why didn't he just come to the outside where there was a clear run.But wait,with 100m to go hes switched to the very inside,virtually last but and is coming home on the fence at 100mph. Will he get up? well no,you guessed it. In a nose,nose,nose finish he ran fourth. I see he was accredited with the same time as the winner.Biggest certainty beat you could see. Me,well i got $1200 for the concession pick 6 for 5 winners,but what could have been a life changing collect came to nothing,zilch,zero,nada. Robert mitchell got suspended for a couple of weeks for the drive when they concluded the inquiry the following week. Me, i felt at the time he should have got life.

He certainly is a wonderful horse and one of the best examples of how clever michael house is. In his last 15 starts hes had 5 wins,5 2nds,2 3rds and 2 4ths. Hes only missed a place once. Hes earned roughly $53,000 plus that $10,000 bonus in just the last 4 1/2 months. Hes still a rated 53 horse. When you compare that to say a horse like grettymac who is running at addington on friday. Its rated 2 points higher than boyz invasion from its 2 wins from 7 starts.

A group of people from different areas within the industry,who called themselves a reference group with john mooney their spokesman,have asked for change to the handicapping system,and suggested non win horses should be given a r40 after their first win. Personally i think their is a lot more common sense from that group,although don't agree myself with the preferential treatment they suggest 2 year winners should get. They want 2 year old winners to return to be rated as a non win horse when they turn 3. All that will mean is you will get races where people will withdraw after nominating again and some non win races dominated by hot favorites. But at least the reference group has better ideas than the people they left it to last year. The unfortunate thing is if they do change,it will only be from 1 august. something to do with IT. Of course they could get around that and start making the badly needed immediate changes by doing so with setting programmes and making up fields with race condition that are fairer. Whether the current handicappers and race programmers are capable of doing that,well i doubt it. Another thing that i think is clear is they give too many concessions to junior drivers. If we take the example of superstar legend that i have been using,he has had the equivalent of 3 1/2 penalty free wins within the last 10 months. So she had been getting a penalty free rating win at a rate of 1 every 3 months or so when you include the full and half penalty free wins for the juniors. As tab for ever has said,michael house is a master at getting the maximum benefits out of the current system.Hes just too clever for the system and gets rewarded accordingly. So you have to somewhat reluctantly admire him for that.

I just looked up the fields for thurday at the manawatu. Would you believe it. Superstar legend actually drops in grade,and gets to run against 8 rivals,3 of which are 1 win horses and 2, 2 win horses. meanwhile the 2 win avenger is running against 5 rivals who have won 54 races between them. We can't blame the connections of superstar legend for taking advantage of such a farcically designed system.