the galah

obviously your both entitled to your opinions,but theres no doubt whatsoever the stats show you are both well and truly off the mark. Prior to today,her last 50 rides had resulted in 8 wins,7 seconds and 2 thirds. today she rode 2 more winners with 2 2nds. I too watch the south island gallops and to me she is clearly the most in form jockey in the south island. as to the comaprison with o bosson. what a silly comparison. Shes an apprentice, but even having said that,your comparing the 2 ignores recent results. o bosson had prior to taday, 8 wins 7 2nds and 5 3rds in his last 50 rides. And of course he would be riding more favorites than bakker. So really her stats are very obviously just as good as his. Sure he had a good day today,but so did bakker. personally i think the reason bakker has become so successful is simple.she ihas become a go forward jockey and horses run fior her because she doesn't fight them and she allows them to run at a consistent speed. The mr pacquio ride was an example of her using the go forward tactics that are the reason for all her recent success. It may not work sometimes ,but it doesn't change the fact it is why she has become so successful in recent months. oh,and did you bother having a look at her ride on mr pacquio the start before. Perhaps you should.And did you ever think the reason it got keen at kurow was because the trainer added some new gear.

trendy van gogh, ran 6th,rather surprising since it wasn't even a starter according to the hrnz website(was scr according to them)

at least we didn't have the drone

probably good advice as far as chilcotts horses go,but i don' follow hers much anyway and am betting less and less on northern harness racing these days anyway.At least when chilcott drives,you know shes trying. With many of the drivers up there,i'm not sure whether they aren't trying sometimes or whether they just are poor tactically. But the village rebel drive. I found it funny strange type of thing, watching, as i thought every driver in nz had seen tyson race and would have been happy to sit on his back. But obviously not.

race 11 you had them run a 65.4 middle half and the horses 3,4 &5 back the inside all just sat on the marker pegs and the 65/1 shot driven by h orange was the only one to show he could judge pace,as he made a move from behind them while they just sat there asleep. then in that last race.you had m mckendry make a good move mid race as the pace slackened and you would have thought village rebel racing parked, driven by s abernethy, would have welcomed the perfect 1/1 position,but no,that made too much sense. Village rebel actually may have won with a smarter drive as it stuck on. I didn't back abernethy,i hardly bet on auckland racing anymore because i never know what some of the drivers may do,but that was auckland cup night, so you would think they would be trying. i can see the funny side of it,but why would any clever driver do what abernethy did.The answer has to be, no clever driver would,so theres the answer.

i'm not sure whether anything exciting happened in races 6,7,8, & 9, as i didn't bother watching. But i did tune in and catch the auckland cup and agree it nothing a non win race at motukarara didn't have. Only difference was the auckland race had a very messy start with 8 runners whereas they have much fairer starts with 14 runners at motukarara . Rather strange if you look at the video. Like you say brodie,just a fast last 800. Akuta probably could be called unlucky as he didn't get a fair start.

blaming poor programming for westports small numbers seems misplaced to me. Isn't it obvious,the reason you the bigger fields in canterbury and the numbers are dropping off in westport,is because people are just racing where they prefer to race.Thats the way programming should work. Provide races where the demand for them is. then,isn't accomodation very hard to come by over the coast.Of course theres other other factors as well. so the small fields just reflect the supply and demand thing. as to saying nelson wasn't happy with timaru. What were you wanting,another methven/kaikoura type thing where they don't hold a canterbury meeting so as to get more horses running at nelson.Suggesting that suggests you want owners options limited so as to encourage them to spend big bucks travelling to race where they don't want to race.That just makes no sense to me. the mares races that hrnz have been promoting for nelson.big deal,so they may get another 1 or 2 starters in those races. What a waste of sdtakemoney that could have been distributed to more needy industry participants in canterbury racing who provided the horses that resulted in the big turnover at motukarara.Maybe nelson having a moan about the dates like you mentioned was why hrnz came up with the mares races thing. Thats the way hrnz seems to work.Through money at whoever it is having the latest moan to placate them.

having watched the first 5 races,you can't help but think racing at any south island grass track is so much better than anything auckland ever delivers,even on their supposed best race day. and that is where hrnz is pouring all the money into. those last 2 races have been totally ridiculous. in race 4, only 3 went away then they ran what the commentator said was the slowest mid race half he could ever remember in 30 years of calling,yet no one at the back showed any intent to improve.. then that race just run,i thought a bit of a joke myself. Sure david buthcer won,but anyone watching the race must have thought what a ridiculous spectacle. David butcher just drove to block anyone behind him. He moved out then in then out then in then out then in then finally out again, whenever anyone behind him tried to move up. None of that rubbish ever happens at a south island track .

motukarara had no nz galloping meeting to compete against ,as had been the case in previous years,so that would have helped the turnover. westport had several false starts and that would have helped boost their figures as well.

the tote turnovers for todays motukarara meeting appeared to be very good. The turnover will have been miles better than they will get for the upcoming auckland trotting cup metting. you would know more than me about the ff restrictions they put on people,but as you mentioned in a recent thread they seem to be accepting big bets of $5000 on horses that you scratch your head about. back to the hrnz website,it really is poor when you comapre it to the galloping website. They can be an hour or two putting up replays yet the gallops website always has it after about 10 minutes. the continual breakdowns of the hrnz website must be costing the harness industry in turnover.just how much,you could only guess,but you would think quite a lot. Its really strange that hrnz has not fixed it as its gone on for so long now.Most would think it should be a top priority,but i guess it is hrnz.Thats part of the reason people wonder about them. But its not just hrnz. i was a customer of meridian energy in recent years. i chose them because their website was so easy to follow. well about 3 months ago meridian energy said they upgraded their website. What a disaster that was for meridian energy. their new website i couldn't follow at all and to top it off,a few weeks payments just went missing in their system. When i rung up and complained ,they just said,yes we know,we are gettiing on to it straight away. Apparently the payments had disappeared into a black hole in their new system and they took a couple of months to work out where and how to get them back on peoples accounts.. I just changed power companies. i wonder if hrnz uses the same website making firm as meridan.

groundhog day again. Hrnz website not working as per normal. HRNZ would have to have one of the worst websites in existence.. the love racing galloping site never has those type of issues. Hrnz must cost the industry lots in turnover.

yes,if you slow down and stop the video prior to and as the tape was released,the horses weight was clearly on the back foot,but it was the releasing of the tape that triggered the backward movement from the horse. Similar to what we saw with evangilist who reared at westport. The concern about the hobbs decision is it indicated the stipes in charge were influenced by the fact the horse was the hot favorite and driven by nz's leading driver. They should not in anyway be factors that influence the stipes in determining whether a horse is late scratched or not,because if they are,you get inconsistency in stipes decisions which leads to discontent amongst punters and licence holders who are treated differently,depending on who they are or what horse they drive. sure,hobbs backing away straight after the tapes went wasn't a good look,but everyone should have the rules applied in the same way and preferential treatment should never occur. That should be the aim in an ideal and fair world.

the westport cup was a strange race. a false start was decleared because the starters assistant failed to release the hand held tape fast enough the first time,causing the backmarkers to be slow away. the stipes report noted she was spoken to advisedly. Maybe something like,next time do it with your eyes open.The result of the restart was evangilist got annoyed and reared up. The horse had its chance to go away,simply had decided not to after the false start. at least they didn't have the vet holding the tape like they did a couple of years ago. I remember starting a thread that the vet was too slow in releasing the tape and cost a backmaker some ground and wondered why a vet was holding the tape in the first place. then in yesterdays westport cup,the eventual winner jumped what appeared to be some white paint markings on the track and lost ground.That seemed very odd,why were there two very obvious white markings on the track close to each other.How does that happen. strange. my skatjie was denied a chance to line up as there was another horse in its way.I've often wondered if they pay the connections the starting fee if they are late scratched.

just the luck of the draw betting on the trots sometimes. If you slow it down you can see the horse had its weight on the back fee, but only started going backwards after the tape went. It was never going to go awaya with its weight on the back feet,but you see something like that in almost every non win stand ,especially in southland. So an inconsistent decision but thats just the way it goes sometimes. a recent example,hacksaw ridge at wingatui, was actually going moving backwards for some distance and the starter still let them go,no money back for punters. I think they contact the tab straight after it happens,if i've have bet on them they deem it a starter,if i have bet on something else that has run a place,they late scratch the horse concerned so as to cut my price.At least it seems like that sometimes.

i never consider them if they are running on wet grass tracks.They never seem to go much good. And you have to factor in they don't travel well if going to places like the coast but the opposite applies when they go to southland,as they seem to go even better there. Theres been those patterns for some time now,obviously theres a reason,but you could only guess. Thats why i said earlier ,you would go broke backing them,even though they win so many races.

i see maurice mckendry driving most of the telfer horses today,instead of j dickie, who only drove the one from the stable who wasn't given much chance by the trainer in the preview. They certainly are different drivers. Mckendry tends to drive at a more consistent speed,but not very aggressive most of the time ,whereas dickie tends to put them up on the speed whenever he gets the chance. because mckendry drives them kinder and the horse doesn't bust a gut trying,the stable may improve,but then again dickie is the better driver if you are a punter. who knows its a stable i think you would go broke betting on,but they are nz 's leading stable on wins. Theres also seems a diifference in performance if north island horses transfer to the south island,they always improve,but then lose a few lengths when they go back up north. the horses in the north isalnd tend to go way from stands ,whereas the horses in the south island tend to always break in stands. Of course there are some obvious exception. then you also have the north isalnd horses go better when t williams drives themif hes up there. i find them a confusing stable to follow. but they look like they will break the nz record for number of wins.

majestic son has been the leading sire of trotters for many years in nz and his service fee is only $5000,so his horses qualify for todays races. hats off to Alabar stud who stand him.They seem more industry focussed with how they price their horses than money focussed.

wll i've tried getting on the hrnz website for a look at todays form with horse profiles and recent videos,but it hasn't worked all morning. its just reflects poorly on hrnz.

in 2023 hrnz made a big deal of announcing the base funding for low key provincial races was a minimum of 10,500 and provincial standard race funding of $11,500 minimum. yet,when on another thread this week,you had westview saying the reason methven paid out such low stakes yesterday was because hrnz only funded them $8,000 per race. so,if we assume westview's figures are accurate,then funding by hrnz for provincial races has already dropped by well over 20% in the last 2 years. Yet they still are throwing money at the elite level of horses. Like i have said many times,its currently all about prioritising stakemoney for small interest groups who have the ear of those in charge,then when the peasants in the cheap seats have a moan,they throw a few crumbs there way to placate them, while cunningly quietly,cutting back on the stakes they are paid elsewhere.Isn't that what is actually happening?

stopping the rebates must significantly impact turnover. Its just simple logic that it will be costing the tab/entain significantly in turnovers. the reasoning is simple. take every win and place bet that a person who got rebates makes.The tab take out of every $ spent is 15% on those bets and the rebated punter was getting back something like 1-2% at the end of each month,depending on what level the rebated punter fell into. so every $ a rebated punter spent,the tab was still receiving a minimum of 13% profit. then you look at the exotic bets like trifectas. i think the tab takeout % on those bets is 25%. They pay the rebated punters up to 3 or 4%. So the tab was still making at least 21% on every $ the reabted punter spent on exotic bets. So for every $1000 a punter spends on tritectas the tab is making at least $210,aving paid the rebated punter $40. so if you extrapolate that out,say the punter was a break even punter,which not many are,but say they were. Then that means every $100,000 they spent the tab got $21,000 and the punter $4000. But now you start to get real,and find that punter who was spending $100,000 was losing 4%,but was getting that 4% they were losing back in rebates,so were therefore breaking even. so now ,with no rebates,that punter is losing $4000 a month,or $48,000 a year. so very ,very quickly that punter will just stop betting or just cut right back on there spend.Its inevitbale.its just common sense. There can be no way the tab or entain could possibly have calculated the negative impact of taking away the rebates before they made the decsion to do so. The only indicator they could have used would be to compare the spend of punters who recieved the rebates before they got them ,against there spends after they got them.

So you give us an example of the dangers of a racing organisation(australian turf club) spending more than the revenue they generated,saying thats bad, then in the same reply saying your ok with hrnz doing that,because its good.. its seems a contradiction to me.. so having expressed opposite opinions,obviously your are at least half right. I agree with the half ,where you said racing orgainsations should not spend more than they can afford or they will end up in big trouble. that australian turf club story i followed a wee bit but it seems rather complicated and doesn't interest me much as its in australia and is the gallops Didn't they recently reject selling randwick for 5 billion. The VRC has had a few bad years as well and didn't they lose over 7 million in the last financial year?i haven't followed those stories enough to understand all the different possibities of how to deal with their financial worries. But hrnz,once they stuff things up for the future,they will have only limited options and none of them will be positive. most of us see that as the road harness racing is taking. Its just common sense that if you spend more than you generate in income,you eat away at your cash reserves and end up with a weakened business ,which is ultimately less apealing to customers,therefore contracts . There are those who spin that concern as negativity,but if you look at who does that,you will see self interest in benefitting as things currently are. Thats just the way it works with anything. Harness racing is no different.

at least your consistent gammalite. any time you see an inflated stake with a small field,you express the opinion its a good thing,while at the same time saying you see no problem with the plodders running in full fields for $6000 stakes. 1/3 of the races at ashburton are for 3 year olds and the field sizes range from 4-11. thats right,not one of the 3 year old races could get enough interest from the whole of nz to run anywhere near a full field and that was even considering they are paying $1000 for every starter just to turn up. they could very easily have come up with a concept with conditions that would have seen them get 12 full fields,but as usual they weren't smart enough to do so.Just dumb as really. and have you even bothered to see what the tab ff odds indicate as to the gap in abilities of those competeing. There are so many red hot favorites . The current prices of the favorites are $1.50, 1.16 ,1.30, 1.70, 1.50, 2.15, 3.60, 2.10, 1.50,2.40, 1.10, 3.20. So half of the races will have favorites paying under $1.50 and 10 of the 12 favorites come from stables whose trainers are in the top 20 on the premiership. Meanwhile we have another current thread about the stakes levels at methven. On that thread we have the methven man saying,well our club is the club that runs the races that generate the income to provide hrnz with the money to pay stakes. Then in the next breath hes saying,their stakes are low ,because thats all hrnz fund them. harness racing is an upside down world. As far as you saying well done ashburton. Whats ashburton got to do with whether it was a good or bad concept. They are simply the track hrnz decided would be used. Ashburton wouldn't be silly enough to use their own money to run a race meeting that will run at a huge loss financially for them. Thats what happens in the north island,not the south.e.g. cambridge and their slot races.

so what your saying seems to be methven will pay bigger stakes on the bigger days and underpay stakes on days like thursday. so how come clubs like timaru and oamaru pay good stakes all year around,yet don't have the assets ,cash in bank,investments within cooee of methven.. they too being run by volunteers. Just pionting that out. You seem to be saying 2 things. 1)because methven can create greater returns to the industry, it in some way justifies the paying of poor stakes on some racedays. 2)that there is no relevance to how much cash and investments a club may have just sitting around,in methvens case millions,its all about what you are funded by hrnz. Well fair enough,at least your up front about why the club desn't pay owners more, its just ,isn't it reasonable to ask,aren't other clubs who are also run by volunteers, trying harder to help out owners by returning more in stakes to the run of the mill horse owners,than methven. Just saying that appears to be the case as those clubs won't be getting anymore funding than the methven club for their low key meetings.. This post is nothing about personalities or how well a club is run on race day,its about the focus some clubs put on helping owners out through stakes compared to other clubs.

comparing the atc and the methven club is not a good example. Methven had investments of close to 3.5 million in shares and over $400,000 just sitting in the bank. their land and bulidings are also worth over $9m

its well and good to say they will learn from it and change,but when many of the issues seemed obvious in the first place wouldn't you have to ask,how much poor decision making does there have to be, before people realise there is a pattern. as to mr steele saying if things aren't working he will step in and change it. Does anyone take that seriously.What about the ATC?