the galah

Investigative racing journalist,yes.

"the ones i get my lead from".That makes me chuckle. No i can think for myself. I sometimes start topics on something he may have written about,not because hes written it,but because i think its topical.So often its just coincidence and i think you will find sometimes the topic was raised first on bit of a yarn. Also,i'm like others,i start topics and then express opinions which i believe are accurate. So if mr butterfly has been writing about something i don't think accurate,i don't start a topic on it. So i don't agree with what mr butterfly says sometimes. From my observations,he sometimes draws inferences from whom people associate with. For example he seems to have a thing about mark jones and iappears to get that from several of mark jones horses being trained and driven by jack trainor. Of course jack trainor is associated with mr grimson,and i guess through that link is somehow tainted in mr butterfly's opinion. While i personally can see where hes coming from,i don't agree with what he says about jones.I don't think he wrote anything about mark jones when he had an association with shane tritton,who people thought was dodgy. Mr butterfly seems selective in who he discusses sometimes. Like if hes going to talk about jones because of the supposed trainor/grimson link,then what about cran dalgety,as after all grimson is staying with him and trainor looks after dalgety"s horses quite a bit. And dalgety also reportedly had a share in a horse trained by the other person in australia generally viewed in the same way as grimson,the tonkins. The point i make is sometimes links are relevant,then sometimes they are not.it can all get a bit murkey and personally i don't see the point in going there if i don't see the connection in how the new zealand trainers horses actually race here.. And mr butterfly also seems to have a thing about ben hope. Thats a strange one in my opinion and well off the mark but hey,its his opuinion so hes allowed to express it and people should just take it as that. An opinion,not necessarily as fact. Anyway you promote mr butterfly quite a bit on here. I think hes unique in his own way.

so you've just said racing media toe the line. That they cultivate relationships with the most successful.. well thats what i'm saying as well. Only i'm also saying the consequences of that is they appear to value their relationships more than they do the truth sometimes.That then leads to them providing content that their viewers/readers often treat with a high level of scepticism.

Im not saying there is any. I'm just suggesting the media have a role to play in establishing that,through just asking obvious questions..

I'm a believer that its just natural for people in harness racing to be the same as the rest of society,that they are driven mostly by self interest for themselevs and there families and supporters.. That just natural and nothing wrong with that. But to be a good member of the racing community they need to be overseen by a strong and impartial body with strict penalties for breaches of the rules of fair play and that appearances of possible breaches need to be openly discussed and dealt with.Those doesn't mean there are actual wrongdoings, just because someone may mistakenly think that.But proper oversight should be able to establish that.

I think it was both. As you put it..an honest expression of the effect it has and as i put it an... unwitting acknowledgement that he lets others opinions get to him. as you say..Constant scrutiny may well effect all of those who bear the brunt. But this is the racing industry and the reality is that is part of it.Its always going to be there,so it is something for which some people have to develop an effective coping strategy. Personally i think openly making statements that shows the negative comments are getting to you is a sign your not handling the stress that well.Thats my impression of mr grimson. Anyway,when you see a pattern of seeing horses go from a good stable,to another stable and they all improve,its just natural for observers to ask how does that happen? The reverse also applies. I'm not saying everyone has the same talent,expertise,availability of top facilities and i realise some trainers constantly deal with horses that have high ability. I'm sure training ability is a major factor in mr grimsons success,but people naturally ask is that all. The thing that i never get is that asking that is seen as a taboo subject,that only the so called haters and doubters,as mr grimson categorises them,actually ask. All we get from the media is comments that completely ignore the subject. like why don't they just ask someone like mr grimson,hey how come you seem to be able to improve the horses you train so much. Then we may actually learn that there is an above board,good reason and that of course would help silence his detractors. I would go as far to say that the racing media deliberately avoid asking such questions or comment on it. what does that tell you?

Actually when you think about how much he improved Cya Art in just under 2 weeks,you would expect M Guerin to be telling us on the next box seat that trainers like the telfers need to up their game. Cya Art a nice horse,but lets be honest,yesterdays run was the best we have seen from him by far.

I heard him refer to swayzee proving the haters wrong who said he wouldn't go away. For a bloke who seems to train so many winners and he should be walking around with a smile on his face all the time. weren't his comments about the haters really an unwitting acknowledgement that he lets others opinions get to him.I guess thats why the queensland thing happened.But you could say it does add an edge to the racing,and makes it more interesting in some ways i suppose.But hey hes just trained the winner of the nz cup and he was just being honest,irrespective of whether what he said is what some may not think is a good strategy for him.

Personally i thought mandalay bay would have been relegated.It clearly knocked over shepherds delight early on. I guess its one of those ones where if your a punter and your luck is out,you think they take a pause fromthe judicial hearing and contact the tab and find out which one you are on then rule against you. At least thats what it feels like when your luck is out.

The thing i can never understand is how come the lead and 1/4 times matt cross quotes are nearly always different from those which are shown on the race timer on the screen. Which of the two is the most accurate?

Looked a pretty straight forward scratching. It drew 7 on the front but never had the room to come into its correct starting position so in effect started from the 2nd line.If it had run in a dividend bearing placing,i think the rules say it wouldn't have been late scratched?

Well it did happen ,but away again now. its been working most of the time,but seems to come and go a bit.

There was a time when they got a lot of support from canterbury stables as well,but they don't seem to go down there these days. I suppose they don't want to run against the ferguson stable and the cost of getting there may be too much. HRNZ used to pay travel subsidies to get there for people outside the district,but they don't anymore so that must be a factor. Gore, did have a subsidy of sorts where they had a sponsor who filled up the trucks of trainers waikouiti north,but the down side of that was if you only had a couple of horses coming from say canterbury,seeing others get free fuel when you didn't would make you think that you weren't viewed as important as the bigger trainers. After all a trainer with 2 horse is travelling as far as the one with 5 horses,so i think it would have been fairer to distribute the subsidy over all horses from the districts concerned.

race 1 4&5 masterly and light da the moon race 2 6&10 jolimont and charlie brown race 3. 2&12 outamyway and nazareth race 4. 1&13 fernleigh blackbird and borrisokane race 5. 3&7 bach and mighty looee race 6. 5&7 heres herbie and wag star race 7. 3&15 sweet diamond and milwood nike race 8. 4&8 love n the port & majestic man race 9. 12&15 cold chisel and chase a dream race 10. 4&8 sunny louis and mixed faith race 11. 12&15 bd joe and akuta race 12. 1 &7 double time and jimmy ray

I guess it also depends on the definition of homeless. The bloke,while desccribing himself as homeless,was actually living in a garage. I thought most describe homeless as living rough, or perhaps living in a car. But some include living in temporary accomodation like someone elses garage as being homeless,like this bloke thought he was. The thing is rents are so expensive these days that nz is full of people working that have to live in places like this bloke. Either that or the government is topping the rent paid by people to landlords. It must cost the country a fortune with rents so high and people having to be government subsidised because they don't have the income to pay for it. And yet they have just had the highest number of immigrants come in to the country ever and they are back to not building houses quick enough to keep up with that. Labour tried,but in the end resorted to nationals policy of immigration driving the economy while the likes of those who rent just get poorer.

I'm guessing most on here only heard of this bloke once brodie brought it up. So when the chief posted the article,it was the information people were basing their knowledge on. In the article the bloke is quoted as saying "i've gone from being homeless".....no mention of overseas travel or lapsed rental agreement. So given he described himself as homeless,then people have assumed he was homeless. So your post seems a bit unnecessary.

The last race just run,and the only wallis hackett horse,driven by b hackett comes out and wins in a race where it seemed they were all trying.B hackett can drive ok when he wants to. The rating 35,1 win dhoni trouble ran the mile faster than All cashed up,the 11 win Rating 82 horse had in its race.

Just to highlight how the time tells the story about the trotting race i mention. If the times aaron white stated are accurate,they ran there first 800m of a mobile mile race in 62.7 seconds. Part of the perception problem up there is in that race,the wallis hackett team had 5 of the 9 runners. In the next race,the race just run you had 3 employees who work at the same stable. One goes out ,trails the next one that comes around,who trails the next one that comes around. Now i'm sure they were trying,but i'm also pretty sure had it been someone else coming to challenge for the lead the drivers would not have given the lead up. I guess its just a sign that there aren't that many drivers anymore,and many of them are either related or work in the same stable.

There 2 ways to look at the racing tonight one is just back the horse you think will go to the front. And the other is,what a bore the racing is up there and isn't it pretty obvious some who drew wide weren't trying. We just had another example of that. All cashed up. The commentator,aaron white labelled it a certainty if it trotted. Well it did,but ran last. The horse who starts from 40m behing in stronger races,never tried an inch.I don't think i've seen onethat obvious for some time. To be fair,thesigns were there that it would happen. The whale seemed more cautious obviously recognising the driver b hackett is the one who drives them just to have a run and the tab had it at odds,which to be fair to aaron white did seem amazinging.Yet it was getting no major support despite the commentator naming it a certainty. Note to mr white,best not to say a horse is a certainty. All that does is get people to watch it and come to the conclusion that harness racing is not a sport where you should be investing on. Also, no i'm not talking through my pocket.

Its the HRNZ website that hasn't been working. Still isn't.

Its been like that for most of the afternoon. It often happens. Imagine if it happens again next week.

Thats the thing isn't it. When they had the big team racing everywhere they used to be driven by b orange and s ottley and s o'relly and s thornley and the likes and you knew the drivers were after the wins. But as you have said'when they want to". Thats the present day when you have w house driving them. The stable appears to assess pre race whether they think they have a chance,and if they don't think they have,then you get very negative driving.And sometimes opportunities to earn are missed. But the thinking seems to be ,each unplaced run is one run closer to the next win for the connections of horses that go up and down in the grades. Ultimately thats how to earn the most money from the current handicapping system .If you have a horse that can win up to a r 45 race,with 6 subsequent unplaced runs your back to a r39,then you get into the r35-39 races and bouce back almost straight away to r45 with another win or maybe 2 if you put a concession junior on.Thats why the big earners these days are horses like rubys a delight. Thats why the current handicapping system is great if you own some horses ,but also why some get disillusioned when they see their handy horses winning early on,then having no choice but to run against horses that have won heaps more races than them,so often those horses are sold overseas or retired.

He actually was locked away 5 back the fence but then pushed out with 600m to go,going from the inside to the 3 wide line in about 20m and then made his sweeping move with about 350m to go. Johnny mac is a horse i've been waiting to back when he got in the right race. Today he looked a top chance,but he was only paying $5 and i thought that just not enough given how hes always been driven for the last year or so. Personally i like bigger odds if i am to bet on a w house drive.But hey,like i have said,hes driving well at the moment. Johnny mac was a 9 win horse.The hot favorite and the 3rd favorite in that race had only raced once in their careers. Yet they started on the same mark as johnny mac. Just another illustration of how harshly 1 start horses are treated if they win first up.

Not sure whats happened to this driver,but its like hes a man on a mission to give all his recent drives a chance of winning.. Normally we are used to seeing him pop out for a late run from the back with 100m to go. Is b orange secretly jumped into the house colours?

I didn't realise betfair did promos. I never had one in the entire time i was at betfair. They used to have better odds on australian racing but from my observations the odds on the nz harness were more often less than what you get on the tote and ff in nz.The only advantge of betting on betfair on nz harness is you weren't being monitored by the nz tab,but you couldn't really get much on at any decent prices anyway as so little was offered at reasonable prices. To be honest having no betfair account neither here nor there,it was just they treat you like your nothing and simply say,we don't have to tell you anything about why they close someones account. With me they closed it and i couldn't log back in even though i still had $71 in there. I had to ring them and complain to get them to give me my remaining $71.Arseholes