the galah

i've always thought forbury a pretty good judge, but agree he just over does the negativity around some personalities who have diminished his returns from punting. When he goes on about the mark purdon amazing dream drive,he is referring to what many believe was an infamous example of team driving.Not everyone has that opinion,but many do.

History shows Brodie nearly always on the money.No doubt will be here as well. Brodie often calls it first.He was on the money when he predicted the TAB policies discouraging winning punters would have a very negative impact on turnovers. Personally i think thats one of the worst things happening to the industry. The TAB is run by people who have no idea of the consequences of what they do. Their lack of awareness of how they impact in a negative way the spend of some of their higher turnover tote punters is hard to comprehend. I've explained how it works before. But when you have the number crunchers at the TAB slashing ff win odds when they take a $20 place bet,with as little as a $10 liabilty to the TAB,you can see how farcical it all is. And if you don't have punters,that link in the chain is weakened and the strength of the whole chain diminishes. That ultimately effects stakes paid and numbers bred and so on.

Yes,mr chin one of only 2 i can think of who are not white. Gavin hampton a few decades ago now. Didn't he retire in the late 1980's.Was he maroon and blue,or something like that?Anything to do with Hamptons road in prebbleton where if you drive past you can see the remnants of a former harness track or two?I think he was well known, just a bit before my time.I do remember back in the 1980's christchurch used to have a morning and evening paper with well known racing writers,and it seemed everyone had an interest in racing. Krug seems to have gone a long way for a horse who seems past his best. I guess all the hard racing when he was young has taken its toll. I did back him a couple of times last year and he won both times,including the invercargill cup.So hes still a good horse,but even if he did get a start i wouldn't give him any chance from that draw.

As to the floods. I had a vehicle effected by a weather event not that long ago. It was a commercial vehicle and the annual insurance premium doubled thereafter.It went from $40 p.w. to $80 p.w when the policy was renewed a couple of months after the event. Then add to that the no claims bonus and hiring another vehicle while it was away for repair it cost me at least $4000 that year. Some did ok if they had agreed value insurance for their car and they were over insured,but insurance companies will need to recoup their loses with increased future premiums.

Something you can't help but notice is how harness racing is dominated by white skinned participants. Just look around, especially in the south island.Can you think of anyone who isn't. Its something that has been noticeable for years. The north island may have a couple of non whites,but you could still count them on one hand.

I think it is you that is out of touch. You mention inca. I think its reasonable to draw a comparison with the thinking between this topic and the INCA investigation.I will explain why. I believe a significant part of why INCA happened was down to the stipes at the time not doing proper oversight of those who it was easily perceived failed to drive their horses on their merits. .Examples involving high profile people, like the matt anderson drive on johnny white and the dexter dunn drive at forbury had no consequences when they should have. So at the time,before INCA,on forums like this some,including myself,were asking why no action and suggested there would be consequences of inaction. So why was the actions of the riu so weak at the time.Well it was because they factored in how they would be perceived by those who ran HRNZ and how industry participants would view policing of things that stipes from previous decades took no action over and they considered the flak they would take on internet sites like this one where issues are judged by many,not on the merits,but based on the personalities involved. So when it comes to this current topic involving the RIU/RIB. We have the very same people who perpetuated the myth that overlooking something is better than dealing with it,doing it again. I wonder if they will ever realise the consequences of basing thinking on personalities and not the merits of an argument.

Pretty much sums up the reality and significance of what occurred. In other words not a big deal. I had thought that its a no brainer that the industry doesn't want trackside coverage of anyone kicking or punching a horse. Its an issue officialdom deal with very rarely,so obviously drivers/starters attendants, etc are aware of that and also know the consequences. I can't see the justification for criticism of the RIB in these cases.. This thread again highlights the them and us mindset that some have.

I saw the terry chimel punch to the gut of his horse on trackside. It was just a half hearted punch ,as he looked to do something like put the hopple shorteners in. My comment to the wife at the time was they will fine him for that and it was a bit stupid to do it when tv cameras may be on him. I'm sure he meant the horse no harm and probably was just reminding the horse not to kick out or something,but drivers must know they may be on TV and that they get penalised for such things.

The Robert Malone it features (fella with the white beard) is an interesting man. I've seen quite a few of his interviews.He lives on a horse farm and has been a doctor and infectious disease researcher since back in the late 1980's. Hes the one who came up with the idea which ultimately lead to the technology used in making the coronavirus vaccines. In his early research he injected dna and rna into mice and found it produced new proteins/spike protein and was the first to patent it.He has dedicated his life to vaccine development for viruses like ebola. He has consistently said that those with the highest risks from covid 19 should take the vaccine,those with all the co morbidities, but has questioned why others should take it and is dead against anyone under 18 taking it. He has been very critical of the lack of transparency around the tracking and suppressing of information as relates to the side effects of the vaccine.He had covid himself,then later took the moderna vaccine but believes the vaccine actually made his symptoms worse and that his health will never be the same. He has said he believes its a mistake for people to be taking all these boosters and early on suggested if authorities were to be honest, they would admit that,although he didn't expect they would ever own up to it.

great minds think alike they say.

i backed american muscle myself,but it was clear it couldn't go round the bends without hanging in. I thought given the way his horses gait was on the bends,his only chance was to make a move down the straight with a round to go and then have more control of the line he ran on the final 2 bends,but he didn't. You just knew that by waiting and making his move on the final bend at full speed and with horses moving out inside him that he was a good thing to gallop,and thats what he did. Hes not there to help a stablemate though many seem to think they are.Can't blame him for that..

not sure the stipes could be criticised too much on this occasion forbury. i do agree that trainers should notify any change in tactics,as you have referred to for merlin,however there isn't any rule around there to enforce and only the trainers who give great consideration to punters perception tend to do that,and its not very often.Perhaps thats because once they notify the public,they are locked in to tactics that may be better changed as a race develops. As to major perry,crystal hackett actually drove with more aggression than normal from my perspective.She tried to get into the race with a move from the 800m,but just wasn't up to it. I often think North island form is often all over the place when you get the same horses running at auckland and cambridge. For example the wallis /hackett horses always have to be viewed with caution by punters when they run at cambrifge. The odd one goes ok,but more often than not they go much better at auckland. I don't know why,maybe they travel a lot further or they are better right handed,but its quite noticeable. Cambridge is a track with a frontrunning/rails bias,but most are these days.

I think if you have a look at the stipes reports these days,you will find that any driver who doesn't have their horse in position 50 metres prior to the start is either fined or given a warning. The only exceptions seem to be if the horse is being urged along and it is considered the horses fault. If on the rare occasions its the mobile driver going a bit fast ,that gets a mention.

Well you have just said it has a withholding period.. So withholding period means the minimum length of time that needs to expire before its use is legal. So obviously its use is illegal if its used inside that withholding period.

Retrospective testing is not something authorities use as a tool to identify cheats who use performance enhancers. Firstly you would have to have authorities who want to identify cheats,and i think it goes without saying that authorities do not want to and have never wanted to catch anyone high profile. Authorities only want cheating exposed if it is low profile people or someone they want to target who has pissed them off. By far the vast majority of people believe that.Its only in very recent years that the current RIU/RIB seem to have started to try and treat everyone the same,altough its also apparent HRNZ leadership have concerns about that change. I will give a historical nz example. When geoff small was having his run ins with authorities,eventually they got tired of his "i can do whatever i want approach",so one day they had the bright idea of retrospectively testing for dmso all group and listed races going back a few months. They had this light bulb moment because it had been noticed several of his team had a really distinctive body odour,in other words they stunk,and they knew this was likely to be a result of his use of dmso within the previous 3 or so days. So while dmso use was illegal within a certain time frame,authorities for reasons only they knew,didn't test for it.So they did the retrospective testing and lo and behold they got him on some positives. But then they came up with unwanted multiple positives from the high profile rogerson/simpson barn and another well known southland trainer had one. Turned out their vets knew that it was an illegal substance,but had not expected its use to be a problem as HRNZ always seemed to have a policy of telling trainers and vets to stop using products that would return positives ,long before they would test for them. In other words,HRNZ would hear rumours what the latest performance enhancer being used was,and then to avoid catching anyone high profile would go public and tell them they would in the future start testing for said product ,so stop using it as we don't want to catch you.Thats a fact,there was several examples of mr gobder from the riu pre warning those who used performance enhancers. So the upshot of the Geoff small case was,yes they got him,but they had better be careful in the future with retrospective testing as they didn't want to catch the wrong person. At the time of the retrospective DMSO testing,you would have had to wonder why on earth the vets,racecourse inspectors and the swabbing stewards completely ignored the likely cause of the horses body odours. I mean ask yourself,it was very well known the smell associated with dmso use,and it was known to be illegal. Obviously they were all just ignorant of something they should have known about ,or they just ignored it. Anyway the point is don't ever expect retrospective testing here as hrnz would only allow that if they could target someone.

i actually was saying it hasn't made any difference. All the horses she has been driving recently,she had been driving prior to any half penalties. She appears to work for mark jones and he has been giving her plenty of opportunities prior,and she has been doing a good job. The rate she is going she will only have another few months and the half penalities will no longer apply. She did drive a couple of m house horses on friday,but they again had been driven by a junior in their previous starts anyway. The main point i make though is hypothetically you could have a horse like lizzie richter winning 6 races in a row,yet because of the penalty concessions it would be given the same rating as a 1 start,1 win horse. How is that fair ?

So you've swapped one junior concession driver for another concession driver. That is a new drive for m hill,but i could argue that if thats why you put him on,then thats an example of the new half points system costing another junior with under 50 wins(yourself) a drive.You have after all driven it in its last 3 starts. Good luck on sunday.

Just looking at the 4 south island race meetings this week. Going through the fields it appears no trainers are using the junior drivers with half penalties any more than they would have before. The small number of juniors who fall into the category that its supposed to help,don't appear to have picked up any extra drives. When they are driving,its on horses they have driven previously before the half penalties. In the future the likes of carter dalgety may get extra drives until he reaches 50 wins,but he doesn't need any extra help.

the answer is they should have put a cap on the number of half penalties any horse can receive. As simple as that.Why didn't they do that? There are so many race conditions they could apply to any race which would give incentive for any trainer to put a junior on without compromising the integrity of their stated objective of the handicapping system. But the point is when you give excessive preferential treatment to one group you do so at the expense of another.By providing an incentive to continue for one group ,you create a disincentive for another.Its just common sense. As you have stated earlier,there is already many races where 1 win low lifetime start horses races against horses with double digit wins.Many people are already asking why do they bother. Now the powers to be have caused even more frustration to many.

They have always said they are trying to provide a handicapping system which treats all horses as fairly as possible and provide races where horses can compete against those of reasonably similar ability and form.. So thats what they have said is their objective.Its in writing on their website. Well allowing unlimited half penalties for any horse that wins,as long as they are driven by a junior with 50 or under lifetime wins,is clearly making a mockery of their own stated objectives. Case in point-lizzie richter.

race 4 at oamaru showed even a non win r4O can be an exciting watch. It was a race where they went hammer and tongs throughout and in the end it was the tomolinson sisters who quinellaed the race. Commentator matt cross noting that the trainers son was cheering his horse home loudly all the way down the home straight. The close up of the last 100m showed both tomlinson sisters with a big smile on their faces as they fought out the finish,and matthew williamson and gary shand who ran 3rd and 4th also smiling just after the finish. None of the horses in that race are champs,but they all have a place in the hearts of their connections. Thats why harness racing is so appealing to many..

When you look at how the new half points thing works for junior driven winners,the only conclusion you can come to is that they will encourage and help the junior drivers have increased participation,but they will also provide an opportunity for some trainers to take advantage of a rule which makes a joke of the handicapping system being fair and will encourage others to become disillusioned. Its just like the old penalty free 2 and 3yo wins system,but this time its the juniors getting the preferential treatment. Take the horse lizzie richter for example. Hypothetically If it were to win its next 3 starts,that would make it 6 wins in a row if driven by the same junior driver. And that would take it to R50.And then compare that to a horse winning its first start at the races. It would also be given an identical R50 for just the one win. Now i know that lizzie richter ran a lot of unplaced runs to get to its lower rating before it started its winning streak,but how is it fair having a system which gives so much favoritism based solely on the thinking that you need to give juniors the incentive to stay in the industry. Whenever you give preferential treatment to one group it comes at the expense of another.Thats how these things work. To me,people who are making decisions like this one either aren't too bright or simply don't care whether others look at what they have done and say whats the point.

Didn't see the fella on the roof. Did see in the main race on the 2nd day at nelson, a seagull try and get out of the way of the mobile,didn't make it and flew into the mobile arm,then lay dead on the track just past the winning post. If you were going to a place like omakau from christchurch it would have to cost close to $500 for a return trip if you had a petrol vehicle and were towing a double horse float.Then add to that the cost of accommodation and it must be an expensive trip if you didn't get anywhere.How much money the owners have to spare would have to be a factor with horses that travel that far.

In the previous race,after i posted that,i backed the horse 3 back the fence. Never got a run and may have won had it done so. However tomlinson from 4 back the fence did get an inside run ,inside the 3 back fence horse,and ran 2nd.Ottley has driven the next 2 winners. Maybe a bit late to get on the bandwagon i suppose.

One constant through all the races over the two days is sheree tomlinson is driving in great form as is sam ottley.