the galah

Unhinged did an interview with gemma thornley where she said she was going to work with the three day event type horses,i think. Its on his unhinged harness facebook site. She has been driving with confidence again in the last month and is a talented horse person.

Heres another one. On the 10th of january tom nally was suspended for 7 days. Tom nally is the southland junior driver who drives drives in southland/otago. I'm guessing you could count on one hand the number of times he drives in canterbury. each year. He had not driven in canterbury in the month prior to his suspension. So what did the adjudicaator do. well it appears they spun the chocolate wheel and it landed on the 2 of february. So there are 4 meetings in southland or otago in the time frame he was suspended.. Then there were 3 days meetings in canterbury on days where there was no southland meeting. So therefore it seems the adjudicators now will include any meeting from southland to canterbury as days included in someones suspension,irrespective of whether you drive in those areas. In nallys case you can't even argue that he may have driven in junior driver races programmed,because one of the meetings included had no such race. Besides he hadn't driven in the canterbury junior races the month prior to his suspension. I don't really follow this stuff,but when i do look at them,its obvious how farcical the penalties are and how totally inconsistent those that hand them out are. Its just like the scratching penalties. Anyone who follows those must realise they are so inconsistently applied. Harness racing seems to be riverting back to the days of inconsistency in judical penalties. Surely its time canterbury drivers start insisting they have southland meetings included in their days suspended.

Do you think people are going to breed more horses because of an initiative that in 3 years may pay dividends for them. An initiative that i would confidently predict will not exist in such generous terms in 3 years time.You do realise there is no guarantee the bonus will be around in the same form next year,let alone 3 years time.There may be no bonus whatsoever in 3 years. That would be like a car importer buying up electric cars in japan just before the last election,due for delivery next month,thinking at the time he bought them he can get a top price onselling them because of the clean car rebate. There may be people who breed horses who think the same as the car dealer,but no i would not be one of them. I'm not that stupid.

personally i think the level of the subsidies is so high that it makes it the most hair brained/discriminatory scheme to ever come out of HRNZ. Have you ever asked yourself why the owner/breeders of a 2 year old are prioritised with $12,000 bonuses at the expense of owners of 3 year olds and above. Have you ever asked,who are the people who came up with this scheme and do they have self interest. i.e. will the decision makers fall into the cateory of owners/breeders who will benefit from the bonuses. I thought they are supposed to have a handicapping system designed to race like against like to generate turnover. Given 5 horse races will generate next to no turnover,why have they guaranteed the running of these programmed races with only 5 acceptors? If Entain came up with the idea,what type of idiots are running that place,if they think 5 horse 2 year old races will generate turnover and are good for the industry. All those races at places like auckland and cambridge and manawatu and southland. They will not get big numbers. There is only so much of the pie stakes wise to go around. Give a bigger slice to one group and whats left of the rest of the pie is smaller. Even some of the conditions in the scheme are a bit odd. for example.. if a breeder/breeding entity ceases to exist ,only the owner portion of the bonus will be paid.... breeder/breeding entity ceases to exist if they have not bred in the previous 5 years. I mean why do they need that 2nd part of the conditions. After all,2 year old s will not have been bred over 5 years ago. Also,what happens to people who have say a 2 year old trotter up and running early. Given they can't race anything but 2 year olds,do they just run around at the trials for months on end. Thats going to happen in the areas where there are small numbers like southland and auckland. And who do these winners of 2 year olds race. Are they going to run more small fields for 2 year old race winners? I think its a poorly thought out scheme which will just accelerate resentment and disillusionsment amongst many who think their degree of participation is not valued simply because they have a horse older than 2.

4 wins and a 3rd from 6 picks ok. Bennie and the jets didn't go as well as i thought it might when running 3rd,while the one that missed,Watch that man would have won had it got a clear run. So as per normal these days,there always seems one that misses and the multi misses.Bugga.

I would give the driver good marks for consistency.

yes it should be deidre franco. I just put total of $60 on it and its price immediately dropped from $5 to 4.80 to 4.50 to 4.20. All in the one price move because thats how their algorythms work when i have a bet. Funny thing is every time i put an each way bet on these days,whether it be the day before or 2 hours before or whatever,there is 3 immediate price alterations in one go and i only place 2 bets(win and top 3). Honestly,i think its a good chance but $4.20 is not a good price.

My tips would be race 1 royal diedre- 3. mileys ace 5.bennie and the jets 6.watch that man 8 .muscle bank 11. milwood indie. all should win easy.I will take a multi and retire from the profits and never to be heard of again on bit of a yarn.

I remember the jim smith who was a trackside presenter was a very good presenter who often used to tip jim smith the trainers horses. He seemed to take pleasure out of his name being the winning trainers name. I remember it being amusing.

I would assume part of the reason the $2k limit isn't available for top 2/3/4 bets is because they can't lay off on the tote, large amounts to limit their losses on those type of bets you mention. The reason being any lay off bets the ff bookies would make on the place tote would be pointless because how a large place bet would greatly influence the place dividend.

i never said divert peoples spend from ff to the tote. That wouldn't work and i don't come up with suggestions that won't work. What i said was encourage resticted punters to take advantage of the rewards they would get if they spent X amount of $ on the tote.. The reward being allowing those punters to win higher amounts on the ff. The tab covering the cost of the higher risk to their ff book with the levies the tab receive from the higher tote spend. Besides even winning punters have the odd lean run so if the tab implemented my policy,then they would make more money at the same time as increasing turnover. Neither of which they do with their current policies.. Its not a scheme that would appeal to all winning punters ,but i know it would work for many. ill take a note of a few roughies prices tomorrow and give you a few examples.

I agree,you wouldn't ,hence the bookies policies are discouraging people from betting on the tote. So maybe you can see why i have been saying that for over a year now. My point is the closing prices displayed on ff for roughies is not the price you could have bet them at. Its all an illusion.

thats because the tab bookies do not offload into those pools. Also you have to factor in the levies per $ invested taken out on exoctic bets can be up to 10% higher than those invested on the win totes. I think if you were going to have a punt on a horse the way to do it would be to start with the exoctic ff pools then put your ff win and place on last. Of course you can only get on with a return of x number of dollars potential return before it triggers a notification to the bookies so i had thought a drawback would be it is time consuming as you would have to place many exoctic bets to get to a point where you have a possible large return. But as you say,it is one way to go. All the complications of it all just discourages punter participation at the end of the day.

Spending 10 k a week isn't too hard if you follow the horses with all the harness meetings they have. About $150 a race which you could spread over all bet types. If your a serious punter able to win $5000 a month off ff then you should have no problem getting close to your tote spend back or making a profit on the tote as well. If you don't want to take that option well the tab can just say,well we gave you an option where we increased your restriction levels and you didn't take it. If you don't want to make your $5,000 or $10,000 or whatever a month then stop your moaning. It may or may not suit you brodie,but there would be a lot who are restricted who it could help.

I think i can answer that one for you as well. Punters need to assume the tote prices will close similar, for the favorites or win movers, that they see being offered on ff. In other words,if you back a win mover paying $3 on the tote as they start that is at $2.30 on the ff,you will see the tote dividend adjust and close to be the same or very close to the same as the $2.30 ff price after you can no longer bet.. Say you punt late on a horse on ff and you drop that in from $20 to $8 on the ff.Well expect the horses tote dividend of $20 to close at around $8 even though you didn't back it on the tote. The tab bookies will have. It took me a while to work it out but that is what i have observed time after time after time. Thats why these days the tote win pools are always higher than the place pools. Its the tab bookies system offloading after when punters no longer can. Also,another observation is never believe ithe ff dividends on roughies at tote close are what you could have got on at. The bookies lengthen the odds of the roughies right at the end. personally i have tried to back some roughies in the final seconds,been shut out due to the race starting,and then had a look at the odds and seen they have gone up even more than what i tried to get on at but couldn't. Its all just a big game.

I give up trying to explain to you real life experiences of how it effects peoples spend. I can tell you one way for the TAB to never have any punter who has an account that does not yield a profit for the tab. Link the amount of the tote spend to there possible winning ff returns. for example they have identified a punter who is spending mearly all of their spend on ff and making say $5,000 a month off them. Well say to that punter,there is a way where you can avoid being restricted. That is you spend $40,000 a month through the tote and well will allow you to make up to $5,000 a month on ff, Spend $80,000 a month through the tote and you can make $10,000 on ff a month. The levies from the tote spend will always be greater than what they pay out in ff losses. Win/win There i have given you a simple solution to the tab no longer having punters who win off them and who they need to restrict. I'm a genius.

by the way im not saying they can't win,i'm saying there prices are shorter than i would back at myself. And i did back both of them on the first day. I thought miley ace might be one for a price tomorrow in race 3,but just looked at its price and it opened at $6 and is now paying only $4.20. Unreal i think that its paying so short a price. He may try and lead all the way or he may take a sit behind spirited lou,although hard to predict what spirited lou may do as it seems a bit inconsistent so he may want to hold the lead. Mileys ace is a handy maiden,but $4.20 is not a good price.

I think backing Lester paying $5 is very unwise. Certainly he should have won the other day when people backed him at $12. He was at $3.30 a place the other day.He should still be paying $9 in my opinion. backing favorites who are going to be driven for luck like lester is too risky a strategy. There has to be a realistic price to make it worth the risk. as you've pointed out newmarket,theres more depth to that field as well. Then style council at $4.80. I think only for mugs that price also. You couldn't have much confidence going forward if you watched the way it was driven in the straight on friday. Who's to say he wont use the same tactics again if he thinks thats the best way to drive it. I'm convinced there are a lot of punters out there who see a horse they think should win and then just back it on the ff,whatever the price the bookies put up initially. i've followed horses that every time they start the bookies open at silly short prices and every time the horses still get punted. The bookies know they can open them shorter than they should and that it won't stop punters getting on .They can't lose in the long run on horses like that.

you may be talking about perigo. He had his last race 10 years ago. He raced at 15,although these days that would only be 14 due to them changing the horses birthdays. I don't think there is any limit to how old a horse can race in nz, so i don't think he was forced to retire. I just looked it up. He had 4 trainers.Started off with a mrs b wisnewski then A grayling then p.g.young and finally k smith. None of those people are licensed trainers anymore. Looks like they all gave up after they trained perogo. K smith used to run him in races where claimers could start in. actually his record is quite interesting to look at. Even M kerr drove him to win a couple of times when trained by k smith. he raced at meetings held by clubs like northland,morrinsville,bay of plenty,kumeu,franklin,thames,manakau. Some of those clubs no longer exist. How participation numbers and other things have changed in the north island in the last 10-20 years .

Ive got to find something better to do than watch race replays on a friday night before i go to bed.. But i just watched that dylan ferguson drive on luka doncic again for a bit of a laugh.. I've worked out who he reminded me of. The mother in law. She used to love driving down the road accelerating then pumping the brakes. If you were a passenger the head jerking back and forward.

Heres another races stipes report from marlborough today. G thornley was warned for the using her whip in more than a wrist flicking action. So the take away from that seems clear. Its ok to use the whip a couple of times like she used it ,as long as the horse is about to fall over. But you can't use it even once that way when driving at any other time during the race.If you do they will fine or suspend you.

i see the stipes say style council lay inwards in the straight,but it fails to note that was early in the straight. When he finally did pull it out with 50m to go it ran straight as. I'm not saying it would have won but it sure would have gone close. The stipes not asking him why he didn't pull out when anyone watching the race would have been asking that,seems odd.We all noticed it. As to lester. Thats even more of a mystery why they didn't question the drive. Once again,the reason we are talking about it was because you couldn't help but notice it. Obviously the stipes think its ok to angle in behind horses when there is a clear run on the outside.

yes it was a bad drive. But to be fair she is a driver who i have faith in to drive well. thats why i included it in my multi. Just not her best effort today.i suppose had it got out late and won we wouldn't be talking about it,but it didn't. We do know she always tries so no questions in that regard.I guess she may well read this. Must be a bit strange reading what people think when you already know if you made a wrong tactical decision.

what about a couple of drives tonight at cambridge. race 9 luka doncic(d ferguson) and race 10 lord delmar(a poutama) They were the worst today. Watch them and ask yourself,were they driving for themselves or someone else in the race?. Just look at the videos of those races and you will see what i mean.

lester had a gap to its outside but instead angled in behind them. Turned out a bad move tactically.Should really have won. It was a big win mover as well so a few frustrated punters. I just had a look and if it had won it wouldn't have been rehandicapped for the 2nd day.Actually i had a nice 5 race multi finishing on it to run a place .Bugga. And style council. yes i thought that strange as well.