the galah

harold park must have been a great viewing venue in its time ,with the crowd being so close to the action. i actually thought forbury(dunedin) was the best track to view harness racing, in nz. their main grandstand was only abou 30m from the track and was positioned about 100m from the finish and with it being only a 1000m track it was great. i remember near the end there,jumping over the taped off areas in the stand as it was deemed unsafe,and watching the races,but often you had someone from the club come along and tell you,you can't sit there. seemed ok to me.strangely the toilets in that grandstand were considered ok to use but not the other parts of that grandstand. And of course if you took your car there you got to park in front of that stand ,only about 20m from the action in a great viewing spot. My parents used to enjoy going there because of that. personally i thought it sad that hrnz didn't give forbury better dates so they at least had a fighting chance financially.They used to have good food,but that went to the pack in the end as well. hutt park,(wellington)i think they gave up their long term lease or something like that in return for the local council wiping their rates debt about 20 years before they were shut down.. I remember mr mckenzie paid for a new grandstand after that,but then the council decided they didn't want the harness people there and without a lease agreement,harness had no come back. actually the grandstand there was also in an ideal position for the public to view from.The only problem was the new grandstand was glassed in quite a lot,especially on the sides,so if it rained then you struggled a bit to see the horses as the glass was covered in rain and the lights being on the rain made it hard to see . Acrtually the lack of a well positioned grandstand is the main reason we never go to the races these days. i don't like sitting at or past the winning post and virtually all the tracks have their grandstands there these days. The well positioned grandstands have all gone from tracks all over nz. banks peninsula grandstand is ok,but its still such a big track that your a long way from the horses and the drivers and being close to the action.Southland have a couple of better positioned grandstands,but their tracks are inside galloping tracks so they too lack atmosphere and are also too far from the action unless you have binoculars.

i'll run with the "smart thing". i haven't started saying,always on the money like brodie, just yet,but i'm tempted. i like to spread my positive thoughts around. yes the industry has been shrinking for some time,like a lot of other sports. hutt park,forbury,new plymouth all had the same financial issues back in the day ,due to similar reasons,the most important being mainly given poor racing dates but also reducing horse numbers locally. So that crippled them financially and because they had to rely on their own finances to pay appropraite stakes,they couldn't carry on. So,as i understand it, there is a difference in how things work these days. The clubs for the last few years,now get bulk funded So clubs who would never be able to keep going,under the old system,like cambridge and auckland currently,,now can because hrnz props them up with the way they fund them. In other words,clubs like cambridge and auckland can keep on losing millions as long as hrnz continue to keep them going. Hrnz chose to let forbury close,even when they managed to survive to the bulk funding era,as hrnz wanted to get their hands on money and they saw forbury as a way of getting that due to forbury owning their own land not far from the middle of dunedin.. and of course,lets face it,hrnz did the right thing closing forbury, as it wasn't financial enough to keep going,even though it was asset rich its day to day cash flow wasn't enough. But of course,within a couple of years of forbury closing,we have hrnz leadership telling us the thinking that sawm forbury close does not apply to cambridge or auckland. And of course that means currently the profitable clubs are cross subsidizing the non profitable clubs. In other words the profitable clubs are being told,you must keep your stakes down as we are going to take the extra money you generate and give it to clubs like auckland and cambridge so they can keep their stakes up. the one thing which to me is as clear as day,but seemingly only a small majority can see it,is population size of cities has absolutely no impact on whether harness racing is viable or not in those areas. In fact,i have argued previously that the decline in harness racing is to a large degree related to increasing population and have gone into the reasons why that is.History shows what i say. I personally think anyone who argues auckland should keep going at alexandra park based on aucklands population,well i think thats very stupid thinking on that matter.i have noticed its only aucland people who think like that. And hey,i can understand them clinging to any reason,no matter how irrelevant it is,to help keep racing in that province. But i think there is no reason for the mugs in charge and the media ,who parrot the same silly thinking.If they can't see its not a relevant factor,then should they be in charrge?

yes, they are still running them as tote races,which is why they need to have the same degree of official oversight as any other tote race. it lines up again tomorrow against a similar field and with m house driving. I see it opened at $3.40.but is already into $2.90. My guess is punters will see the better driver and draw and expect it to lead all the way and win.But ,most likely it will start a hot favorite.

Well the stipes report is farcical. they advised Mr Edge to make greater effort to start in his allocated position. A edge had advised he moved from following the number 1 horse,to instead follow the 2 horse ,because the 1 horse had locked wheels. Duh.... well who had the number 1 horse locked wheels with. Well obviously it was the horse beside it,the number 2 horse. So,a edge saw number 1 and 2 lock wheels,so decided he wouldn't follow a horse with locked wheels and instead followed a horse,with you guessed it,locked wheels. Like i said,the whole thing including the stipes report is farciacl. And of course what made it even worse was the 1 and 2 horses wheels were not locked at any stage in the last 100m of the score up.

its just what he said on another channel. barry lichter wrote an aricle about the club in november 2023. i just had a look agian. he reported in 2023 they has an operating deficit of $733,138,but hey,after depreciation was factored in they only lost $491,970.Chump change really. He reported that year HRNZ had given them a loan of $740,000 and members chipped in $220,000,to keep the club operating. but the good news was,they were going to raise a few million from the sale of 34 sections. but they couldn't sell the sections until they built a new stable block. I guess that meant the current stables were on the land being sold. so that was 2023. I can't find anything about 2024 and whether their optimism came to fruition,which seems a bit odd. But lets look at the positives.since 2023. Their flagship,the Race,which drained their coffers in 2023,instead drained hrnz coffers in 2024,with Hrnz contributing $150,000 to that one slot race... what a relief,it would have been embarrasing to think cambridge were forced to run a slot race thatdidn't cripple them financially. after all,Those aussie millionaires need to have some spare cash to spend on their way home after they won our races.. and just up the road is auckland,and they're only a phone call away with some advice about how to get out of debt.ah hang on,they may not be the best people to take advice from.No instead they should ring hrnz,they tell us everything is rosey,so they must be doing a great job,so get their advice. Oh,and lets never forget this factor in their favour. This is very important. You here it parroted by all the time.Hamilton,just 20 minutes down the road,have the fourth largest popualtion in nz. I mean ,just look at how well auckland is doing and of course theres cities like wellington,dunedin,tauranga,whcih like hamilton ,all with population numbers in the top 6 cities in nz .Its going great for them Hang on,all those cities closed down harness racing. How did hrnz let that happen with all those people there?.No wrong example,lets think. Ah auckland,thats the one,its doing great as it has a huge population.Thank goodness for the large popualtion base. Oh and cambridge,forever the optimists(maybe thats a north island thing),said in 2023 they were budgeting on turning around that bad year,seemingly by a million dollars in 2024,as they were budgeting on a $218,000 profit. Having read that,i'm going to give them a ring and get the contact details of their numbers man,as i could do with a turnaround in my finances like that. Oh,and cambridge not only had a quick whip around that year amongst hrnz and its members,it also passed the hat to the tab who chipped in $793,000 from a rejuvination fund they dish money out from.Miserly bugga's as the tab had $15 million set aside to dish out to clubs.Seems cambridge were going to spend that wisely,with $393,000 planned to spent on a new in field indicator board. I'm sure the people in the packed stands will appreciate that. Oh,and heres another reason they stated,was going to change for the better in 2023. Seems they lost income form the greyhounds not being run for 5 months of 2023. Thank goodness they have that income to fall back on in years to come. Whats that,they don't,scrub that. oh dear,i need to stop now.My sarcasm is even becoming too much for myself. Its just there is so much material to pick from. Anyways,i think the picture that i have painted,whcih i drew based on barry lichters article of 18 months ago,indicates ,well what chris wood has said on the other channel may in fact be true. His comments were,and about time. but then again,who really knows. mr steele has assured us all is going just fine and everything is fine and dandy.

i watched that race and saw something you don't normally see. The horse who drew 1 on the second line decided to start from 2 on the second line. iwt was very obvious who he was following,and it wasn't who he was supposed to be I mean,it shouldn't be that hard to work out where your supposed to start from.

Currently if you click on the hrnz website,its feature news item is -mate against mate. and guess what,theres what looks like eion musk standing next to craig ferguson. the story claims its regan todd,but it looks like eion musk to me. All todd needs is one of those make america great hats and he could be his twin.Or maybe eion musk should wear one of those tweed hats. i said to my wife,who do you think that is standing next to craig ferguson And she said... stephen fry from when he was captain melchett on blackadder. well yes,i can see the resemblance ,perhaps todd can grow one of those impressive moustaches so i can get a better comparison. but to me,perhaps harness racing has found the benefactor it needs.

i was just having a read of the other channell and i see chris wood has commented cambridge has been placed under statutory management. given hes from there,i suppose he would know. but how come its not been announced anywhere. statutory management is only done when the finances are really bad or aren't being managed properly. so,will we hear more soon.

thats the impression you get from reading about some of the decisions they are making in both countries. Its like the one in victoria where they took away,from nearly all the smaller meetings,the facilities to place a bet at a teminal on course or place cash bets. They now only have that for feature provincial or country meetings. Its a policy which really is stripping the codes abilty to apply stategies, which introduce the first steps on the road to greater participation. the biggest thing that attracts people to racing is the horses and the people you meet and interact with when at a race meeting. you know,the direction we are heading will ultimately be to racings detriment. No question whatsoever. It reminds me of the story i've related a couple of times on here. Its the one of the discussion i had with a compulsive gambler on the pokies. he viewed gambling on the pokies as very different to gambling on the horses. The pokies he sadi,its you and the machine,it just becomes something which isolates you from even the people sitting next to you. Whereas,observe as he said,betting on the horses involves social interaction with people and you have the horses. so,we know the bean counters at entain in reality are about the $. They don't care whether someone is having a good time,a social day out at the races. They only care about getting them to bet.and its that very policy which is driving a disconnect between the public and horse racing and that disconnect will be reflected in less particaption and less appreciation of the horses and people involved in the sport and the many positive things that involve local communities as well. Current administrators seem to be happily following this path of self inflicted demise,with next to no pushback. Its sad to watch.

On one hand you get adminsirators saying we need to get more people interested in ownership,then on the other hand those people knowingly do something which they know discourages people from attending. I thought part of the thrill of having a racehorse was being there when it ran? Like imagine sitting around at oamaru on sunday. The gallopers will come out 5 minutes before the race,go down to the start,race 3 minutes later,then the public will sit around for about half an hour twiddling their thumbs in the cold before they see anything again. its nonsensical,but you see that a lot these days. Its veryn obvious that the galloping people want punters to bet on the aussie product on a saturday,instead of having 3 nz galloping meetings. And because of that harness racing is impacted. there seems no self awareness of what people in charge say sometimes.. My favorite topic, the next gen promotion of ownership for under 40 year olds,is an example. last month,on the hrnz website they had an article about the 4 whitelocks getting into the ownership and used that as a reason to promote the next gen. So these,high profile,quite wealthy people by the average persons standards,according to hrnz were going to race a horse in partnership with their parents, supposedly because of the next gen bonus of getting a small payout for simply lining up. well thats good,they seem nice people and good luck to them. But heres what the article said was the reason why hadn't they raced a horse previously. to quote the article "They have always had an interest in it,but they have been so busy with their own families and sports and things" Well hullo ,heres hrnz,without any self awareness, giving us the reason why its not a good use of resources to prioritise getting people under 40 into race ownership. Its like,hey fellas,don't you realsie your telling us without realising,that theres a good reason you'll only ever have limited success in achieving geting people under 40 into ownership. Just ask the whitelocks why. To quote them"they are so busy with their families,sports and things". Anyways,the 40 minute gap thing .on one hand they moan about no one going to the races,then on the otherhand they are the cause of part of the reason.

the 40 minute gaps will be because they have the 4 nz meetings on a sunday. I started a thread about it a while ago when they started the 40 minute gaps. The gallops have been running 2 sunday meetings a lot over the last few months. if you were trying to discourage people from attending race meetings,the 40 minute gaps would be the way to go. I guess they don't want anyone being on course these days apart from those with horses engaged. Oamaru and addingtion at least appear to be going to have a fine day. The temperature predicted to get to as high as 10. you have to laugh,well i find it funny anyway. at least the harness people recognise more the need for their nz product be a priority for them. Turnovers for the gallops on the sundays don't seem much more than the trots,from my observations.S I guess the gallops people must value the money generated from the aussie product above promoting participation in their sunday and midweek meetings.

Actually imperial command was back racing tonight. I thought i had better watch it. To my great surprise it was a $2 favorite . its started favorite in all 5 starts over there. But punters got burnt again,as it started the score up in a mad angry gallop and was still like that when they said go. oh well,at least its many followers have hope, as its made it back to the races and some think theres a reason for keeping the faith.

yes 6 in that 3 year old race. 2, 2 year old races at auckland at addington,both being run with 5 horse fields,as per normal. your right about the obsession with 2 year old racing. you know,hrnz are chosing to pay the $12,000 bonus out to the connections and breeders of just one of the 120 horses who race on friday night at addington,or just one of the 72 horses connections that race at auckland on friday.. they could have instead used that $12,000 to pay $100 to the connections of every starter at addington. Thats $67 extra to every owner and $33 to every breeder of a starter on friday. and at auckland they could haveused the $12000 to pay an extra $110 to every owner and $55 to every breeder of a starter at auckland,instead of paying just 1 lot of connections. those 2 year old races already have good stakes,but hrnz continue to prioritise the people who race and breed 2 year olds,as they obviously view them of far,far greater importance than any other group.

you do realise that what you've posted appears rather contradictory. the first half of your post describes the realities of,well to quote you,"all around the world horse racing is struggling and in particular harness racing". You then accurately described some of the reasons for that,which are applicable to nz harness racing. but then,the second half of your post is a story ,which you infer,could be used to reflect the average people in nz harness racing. To quote you "his business went from strength to strength and he had to take on more staff to handle the growing volume,business was very good". Then you ended your post with the the inference that people who express opinions ,similar to what you did in the first half of your post, somehow contribute to the sports decline,if those people go one step further and criticise administrators who ignore the realities. i think your post recent post just is a reflection of whats worked for you in your life.fair enough. but theres a difference between someone making decisions and those who are impoacted by decisions. Its like your ,yes ,make the hard decisions when you have to,but lets not bring the mood down just yet ,lets put off the day of reckoning as long as we can,because that will delay the negative impact on the people concerned. The problem with that type of thinking is,the impact will happen,now or later,people adjust now or later,but if its not life threatening,your left with the people impacted no longer trusting those that weren't up front.

i thought it was pretty hard to have,even with the driver change. It had finished a beaten off last,just stopping,being 40 lengths,6 lengths and 40 lengths behind the second last horses in its last 3 starts. i think opening it at $30 most probably had priced the driver change in. well done if you backed it,your a punting genius today.

i like your thinking gamma. whats that old quote"we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking(or people) as when we created them".

I had to laugh when they interviewed pre race,the trainer of the winner ,bettor reaction. Now i'm sure he was being honest when he said he expected his son would go back at the start with his horse. I think that would have given punters who backed debrief real confidence as its drive rindicted he expected to go forward. well turned out the opposite happened to what the people interviewed said. . actually thats the second time i've heard the trainer of bettor reaction interviewed and the second time he said it would be going back at the start,only to see it in front early in the race. yes $12,000 seems a lot to lose to me. Maybe they have plenty to lose.Someone put $1000 on the telfer winner,secrets abound ,the night before in the junior driver race paying $8. maybe that was the same person.

it will be interesting,once the new law comes into effect, how much more will be bet through the tab on racing and sports and how that will flow through into increased returns for racing here. hopefully the positive impacts will far outweigh the negative for example a hegative impact could be there are nz people who also have tabcorp accounts and bet into their tote pools.Given they are not big at the moment,any decrease would mean their pools would get to a point where they are very unattactive for aussies to bet on. I used to spend on a tabcorp account just so to spread the impact of even a $20 or more bet on the price. so its not as if you start transferring that spend onto a small nz pool.. Hopefully it all turns out as they are predicting.

you mention db,last year db had a drop in operating profit of25%. they laid off staff including 60 at one of their main breweries.lion lost $46 million. i like that your trying to be positive,but its not the reality on the ground amongst the silent majority. its interesting that earlier you were advocating for more slot races,which remember,hrnz is now pumping funds into and then you were also saying $15,000 maidens at addington is too much. personally I struggle to see how prioritising the small % who operate at the elite level over the 90% who operate at the lower levels,will lead to anything other than people getting out of the sport and not breeding. And thats what is happening. People just look at the hrnz website news and evaluate who they think the industry is prioritising and then they are saying,well thats not me ,i'm already struggling,its not going to get any better for m,e so reluctantly those people start getting rid of their broodmares and many others,already in the background in different parts of the sport,are fading out of sight.

So what we are discussing falls under the amendment to section 98 of the act. so,reading between the lines, it appears that it may have been to do with the tab originally having to place greater restrictions to prevent problem or harm gambling,whcih they may have felt were unrealistic or difficult to enforce. in other words it would have been too easy for the regulatory bodies who oversee compliance,to pick up things which the tab may have viewed as being over the top oversight. it appears section 98a, relating to consumer protection,where the issue of taking larger bets from winning punters,would appear to fall under,may have got a small amendment,but not specifically the amount people can get on for? actually reading that act where it says"the intensity of betting by a person using an online betting system provided by the tab,including the frequency at which successive bets may be placed." well that rings a bell with me as to the most likely reason betfair closed my account about 3 years ago. I opened a betfair account,put about $100 with the theory that if i backed favoured dogs to lose, who consistently jumped poor and got back early and drew poor as well on tracks with 2 turns.i did that for about 2 months, i backed on every dog race in australia,which was about every 3 minutes most nights. i did that for about 4 hours each night. i only did a couple of minutes study for each race.Well it was all going well and after about 2 months i had turned my $100 into about $5,000,then i got got a bit too clever and one night bet on a couple of tracks with only 1 turn and ones that were paying more,and would you believe it,i backed 6 dogs in a row to lose paying double figures, within half an hour and they all won. Bugga me,could you believe it. So that left me only a few hundred again. Well,the next day betfair closed down my account.They refused to say why,i had made some money overall and it annoyed me. So i waited and then my wife opened an account. I was doing ok,i just decided to bet on nz harness as the aussie dogs thing just seemed a bit too intense for my brain to switch off when i went to sleep. Well my wife decided to withdraw some money ,they wouldn't let her,it said phone them. Then,as soon as she spoke to them they just closed her account and sent out the funds that were in there.they gave no reason and just said ,we don't have to tell you why. so thats a long story,but i can see now,even though i wasn't a losing punter on betfair,i fell within the scope of who they had to restict or close the account. you can see why horse racing is struggling with some of the strict oversight rules. Some seem over the top, when its obvious people aren't losing much and are just having a bit of fun.Compare how they want to control peoples gambling ,but your free to do many other more harmful things. the british horse racing industry is an obvious exampleIt seem to be struggling with the main blame being laid on over the top harm regulations..its been reported recently that average turnover per race was down 8% compared with 2023/2024 and dowjn 15% compared with the year prior.. in 2007 they estimated 17% of the uk public regularly bet on the horses,but they reckon that only about 10% do these days.soccer is the most popular sport to bet on there,with racing close behind,then a big drop to the likes of golf,cricket and rugby.but soccer and racing gamblers average spend a month is about half of what gamblers spend on the other sports mentioned.Apparently betting on fantasy sports is getting rather popular.

i thought the racing amendment bill is to change several things,the most prominent being making it illegal for off shore gambling companies to take bets from new zealanders. the refusing bets thing ,well is seems the select committeee in parliament had made recommendations limiting the tab refusing to take bets,the tab wasn't happy with that,so lobbied peters to keep their ability to restrict punters. mow i don't know whether that would have meant under the original draft,punters like brodie would have got on for more if they wanted,i haven't been able to find the original draft. But it sounded like mr peters was being asked by the tab to stop punters getting on for bigger amounts. thats why i was wondering how does that effect punters. were some winning punters done a disservice by mr peters?

whats with the ffs?. so you think entain losing hundreds of millions in penalties,as predicted, because of the austrac prosecution is a small change issue. tell entain shareholders that. I'm sure they would be pleased to know. One of your strangest and biggest over reaction replies you've made.. Are you having a bad hair day?

Yes,not much was reported about anything he said as entain ceo,about nz harness racing,in nz.At least that was my impression as well. maybe that was just the way it worked. one of the few things we did get media coverage about what he had said,was how he pushed the 2 year old bonuses and guaranteeing running races,despite small field sizes . Wel,that was a self serving policy,that could be argued created a perception that contributed to less people breeding their mares. But entain has done many good things,better trackside coverage,more racing which means more income . its hrnz who are spending the money like theres no tommorow.

Its interesting just how much some people spend at these betting agencies isn't it. in one article it says the australian agency in charge of oversight of betting found enatin allowed 17 high risk customers to spend $152 million. it didn't say over what timeframe,but seems to have been in the last 5 years. And some criminals where funnelling "dirty" money through accounts.what a surprise. Seems some drug dealers like to have a bet as well as to money launder..Maybe they could use my account,i don't mind.

there was an article on "the post" from a few days ago,which was headlined racing amendment bill,what it means for sport ,racing and betting offshore. i don't know how the put that type of thing on here,but it was interesting enough. Whats the post,never heard of that myself. how much of the $100 million goes to racing .they say 20 million of that will go to a sports group to distribute to sports organisations. looks like basketball will be a big winner. i read a headline of another article a month ago about winston peters seeking to remove restrictions on the tab refusing bets,from the new racing bill. its sounds like it had been looking like they were going to make the tab accept more bets that are currently refused,but the tab lobbied peters to allow them not to. anyone know what they were going to do but now aren't, since peters may have caved to the tabs request. anyone know much about that. for some reason things that effect racing seems to be given coverage in mainstream media more than racing media sometimes.