the galah

I just watched the unhinghed interview. ben hope saying the dam would be a very good buy for someone as she has left some nice horses. I see the mare only 12yold. seems a good opportunity for someone to buy a nice mare.

I think lay betting is when the bookies offer more generous odds on a horse,hoping to entice punters to bet on it.They do that because they think said horse will not win. I think lay betting also applies when you think a favorite will not win,so you place money on it to lose in one of those betting pools they run overseas. I guess it is called lay betting,because in effect by your betting strategy being the one horse to lose,you actually win if any of several other runners in that race win,thus you don't have all your eggs in just the one basket. Like you said,maybe the saying was to do with chickens and eggs maybe.

were you on mr love forbury. Backed up his impressive win at rangiora with another today for the hopes.Ben hope seems to think he's pretty good. I see mr love's mother for sale on gavel house.I wonder what she will sell for?

I have got it right. FRAUD BY DECEPTION. The deception being they doped the horses.. Every time you say that i post the prosecuting attorney generals press statements and the judges comments given at sentencing,which refer to the systematic doping and mistreating of horses. When you say fraud,you need to include the rest of the wording of the fraud charges.

as far as those new york cases went. Like i have suggested before,Vets can knowingly be just as dishonest. There were 7 vets charged in the US horse doping cases.

Apparently it was through monitoring someone employed by the banca stable that authorities gained the evidence to search Banca's property. When they searched his property they found a list of horses with written instructions on what and how to administer custom made drug concoctions.oops. But back to nz. One of the best things about this years cup week has been the nice weather.

richard banca. Former leading yonkers harness trainer,now prison inmate. There are heaps of examples If you look at history. For example the high profile New York trainer Lou Pena was investigated about 10 years ago.They subpoenaed all the veterinary records of his and owners working with him. They found that on 1,710 occasions horses he had raced, had breached the withholding times with drugs administered.Despite his horses being regularly tested,he had not one return a positive......so much for testing. As one prominent person said about the most recent investigation,we have learnt there is too much focus on testing. It doesn't catch them.The most important thing these days is having boots on the ground to do the investigative work. We also realise that politics can be a major factor in holding back investigations. Administrators don't want to deal with a big scandal.

Of course that is the main reason for his success,and of course other trainers like emma stewart and jason grimson are top trainers. No ones arguing they aren't.

If you look at the USA trainers who used the peformance enahncers. As an example there was vlear evidence that the leading trainers at yonkers significantly improved there winning records at the exavt same time as they started using performance enhancers. Its documented,its a fact.For example one leading trainer at yonkers trained 55 winners in 2014,records show he satrted using in 2015 and trained 174 winners and in 2016 trained 200 winners. The chief ignores countless examples in history when you say its never a factor. So i agree with forbury that it will be a factor in the likes of emma stewart and jason grimsons success.

So your able to articulate some of the reasons you think the likes of Purdon is so successful,fair enough,but i don't agree with your suggestion that someone like purdon himself couldn't do the same. Whats with the RIB having to work in a stable for 5 years thing. Thats may be relevant to many of their duties,but so is working for the police relevant when it comes to other parts of their job like reading people and investigative work. As far as purdon goes,he does have history as far as blue magic goes.Thats a fact.Trainers are always under constant pressure to get the best results for their owners, Thats a fact. Given he has dealt with that,if anyone knows the pittfalls and how to deal with such things,he would. When you talk about my need for scandal,i just think thats a bit of a joke that you suggest thats what i want. You see i have in a couple. One bloke i worked for went out of his way to pass on his knowlefge to his staff and was a top communicator and was happy to answer questions about anything any stranger would ask him. Then the other bloke was just a snob who i thought you could attribute a lot of his success to his vet. Thats what his stagg also told me. Purdon gives the impression he like the first og the 2 i mentioned. In fact i would say that most harness trainers are.

So you've proved your capable of answering the questions,but then say you don't think a successful trainer would do that because they would be giving away their competitive edge. The competitive edge thing as an excuse for not answering basic questions is a load of rubbish in my opinion. I also think your comment about critics not working as hard as successful trainers is also rubbish. I think if a half decent journalist went to our best,Mark Purdon and said to him,can i have a sit down interview with you for an hour or two and in it i want to get an insight into what it is and how you do it, that you think makes you so successful as a horse trainer and driver.I want anyone who wants to,to be able to view this interview. Then you said to him,no subject will be off the table. Everything from feeding to training to facilities to shoeing to staff to track maintenance to veterinary treatment to other treatments,routine,etc,etc. He would also be asked what value he put on each and so on. I believe someone like purdon would be quite happy to pass on his tremendous knowledge,knowing that by doing so he is helping and encouraging others to participate and achieve while helping them avoid possible pittfalls. You see the difference between you, several journalists and me is that i actually think mark purdon is the type of fella who has enough self belief that he has the confidence to pass on his knowledge and would actually gain satisfaction knowing he may be helping others. So i ask myself,given i'm seen as a critic of him sometimes,why do i view him that way when his supporters don't.

for mr grimson. I would ask him. You refer to the haters,so obviously you have an awareness of what is said about you. So for anyone listening to this interview,can you tell me what you focus on as being the most important aspects of training or feeding or anything else,when you take over the training of a new horse.. from there i would listen to his reply and most likely ask him for more specific information,phrasing it in a way that there are many people involved in the industry who are eager to learn what you view as important so they can improve themselves. That way i would have given mr grimson the opportunity to sell his credibility to those who may doubt him. You know not every successful person wants to keep everything secretive and there are some who may well believe that they should in fact be given the opprtunity to explain what makes them successful. But of course,we are left to believe no such trainers exist,because journalists feel they may compromise them somehow. I really do think what i am saying is as much about how the journalists actually view the trainers and because of that perception,they feel a need to protect them from scrutiny.That in itself tells you something.

We will have to disagree on this one gammalite. I view archie butterfly as a lover of the harness sport and a hater of those who harm it through dishonest activity and cheating. I also disagree on your view of the journalists. I think your explanation of what type of questions they can ask and the relationships they have with certain high profile trainers and the lack of transparency that goes with that, is part of the reason many people view those trainers with suspicion. You mention mick guerin.So he went on the box seat during covid and had no hesitation in insulting anyone who chose not to be vaccinated by saying they didn't deserve respect and he didn't care what they thought.Yet the same mick guerin can't even ask a qestion as to how someone trains or feeds a horse because he wants to maintain his relationship with them.Now thats a double standard with a flashing light on top in my book.I like mick guerin in a lot of ways,but i defintely don't think he is a man that can be described as being ethically consistent,as you suggest he is.In my view he is the opposite. And consistency in how people treat others,irrespective of who they are, is something i value myself.

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.