the galah

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?

They have the video don't they for Weir.Hard to dispute that. He got 4 years for being in possession of the jiggers in 2019. Its because of the video evidence,he has been hit with fresh charges relating to the use of the jiggers. If convicted he would be banned for life from working with horses. Given they have the video,you would think proving the charges would be pretty straight forward. Thats what has been reported. The australian mainstream media will no doubt widely report the case. Maybe even get to play the video for the public to see.

Actually the Darren Weir case has similarities to Yole. Both routinely resorted to linking fear/pain ,to the use of the whip,so it would assist them achieving success.They routinely abused their horses. The fact that weir is still in the news and has upcoming court cases next month will forever taint his name and the racing industry.That great film about michelle payne will also be linked to the trainer who electric shocked his melbourne cup runner. And the case to me also illustrates that many owners are happy to overlook such animal abuse,if it enables them to get better results. Just like with Yole. The owners of the horse the weir stable abused with a jigger a few says before it ran in the melbourne cup said they are happy to keep supporting him even now when they are aware of the video of what he did to their horse,that will be used at next months court case. Lets face it,if he was not successful,they would the first to drop him. Its all about the money for many owners.thats just the way it is. And lets be honest. If people resort to that type of thing ,then yopu have to question what other lengths they will go to ,to win. The sooner people like that get life bans the better.

The winston peters speech today at waitangi was a good one.Only 4 minutes long.its worth a watch. i've always been a fan of winston,but had thought he was running out of energy and had lost his way a bit in recent years.But the winston i respect and the media love to hate,is back and firing on all cylinders at the moment. i hope he can keep it up as nz needs leaders like him to fight for the average new zealander. personally i like the way this coaltion government is performing. I'm not really a national or act supporter,but i think the combination of them and nz first has come at a time when they are badly needed. I'm pleased the nz voters and system enabled that to happen.

Well i think they do get something. Some definitely get a chip on the shoulder,and that sense of entitlement that walt refers to.Just a minority,but a vocal minority of maori. I remember when the waitangi tribunal hearings and settlements were all the go. I remember interacting with a lot of maori from one area,and it was the young maori in their 20's that all of a sudden seemed to feel maori deserved entitlements for what they perceived as past wrongs. It lasted for a few years,but as the media and political hype died in subsequent years,so did the confrontational race based language of those i interacted with.I didn't imagine it. Other people in the job i did at the time felt the same about the rise in race based intimidation that went on. a real life example of a consequence that all this divisive talk the media and labour promote. As you infer chief,most get very little that improves their every day life,and that perpetuates the cycle of resentment.