the galah

Thanks for that. I had no idea such a rule existed. G thornley obviously just doing what she was told to do,so sorry to her for that. As to the rule It makes me wonder why on earth the contradictory logic of that rule. If the logic is they want the second line horse to still follow out the same front line horse ,for the protection of the punters,then why not apply that same logic when the late scratching happens to a front line horse. By moving the front line horses in they are immediately changing who the second line horses follow out. And it appears that it only applies to mobile starts,not stands. Talk about a rule being confusing,contradictory and sending a mixed message.But i learnt something new today.

I see Rosie Richter is running in a race worth $2000 more at gore this week,plus the owner/breeder would also get the extra breeders pay out that applies to the gore fillies and mares races. Maybe its coincidence,maybe its not.Who knows. Watch the race at motukarara that the chief has posted and make up your own mind.

yes it is on the outside of the track.

Clutching at straws with that approach chief. Using that logic any horse that is drawn either the front or back line can start as wide as they like as long as they are outside the correct horse and inside the correct horse,as you put it..For example you could have the drivers of the only 2 horses drawn the second line agreeing the horses drawn 1 and 2 on the front were slow beginners ,so lets follow out the 3 and 4 horses on the front line as they are fast beginners.Or the sole starter on the second line saying i don't want the get anywhere today so i will follow out the horse drawn 9 on the front. It makes no sense,it would be totally confusing.This matter is black and white,not shades of grey.

The video shows what i say.Good that you posted it. The horse did not start from its correct position. The driver ,not once but also in the false start,did not have her horse in its corrcet barrier position 50m before the start point.That is a requirement that they strictly enforce,until yesterday. The horse that drew inside it started in its correct position of 2 on the 2nd line so your incorrect if you say that horse was not in its correct position chief. As to the driver taking upon themselves to change starting positions in case she wants to avoid a rough going horse,the rules don't allow that.That would make a mockery of having starting positions..Besides she did that in the false start before anything broke.

I watched this horse closely at motukarara yesterday and have watched the replay of both the false start and the eventual race several times. I had a wager on it,nothing major but after my wager expected the ff price to go down,but no it went up instead shortly after. I thought thats strange given on recent form,it was a standout top 2 chance along with the eventual winner seacracker. Well it ended up just going around for a run after its driver elected to give up a nice midfield position on the outside,ahead of its two main rivals who had drawn outside it and had gone back at the start.Not sure why it was driven like that,but the ff odds may have been an indication. I was happy to put the drive down to just poor tactical decision making from a very capable but currently a bit out of form driver.Thats just the way it goes sometimes. But what i couldn't understand is how the driver,the starter and the stipes let punters down by not looking into why the horse very clearly started out of position at the start. If you draw 3 on the second line,you start from 3 on the second line. Rosie richter did not start from its correct barrier position in either the false start or the actual start. How did the driver not know where to start from and how did the starter and the stipes miss that. It clearly started from behind the horse drawn 5 on the second line both times with no reason it did not start behind the horse drawn 3.It also clearly contributed to the eventual winner seacracker being forced to start further behind than it should have as rosie richter was in its barrier position. After the false start i looked at both the hrnz website and the tab website and rosie richter is not a horse that starts from the unruly position.Had it won and seacracka run second they surely must have at least had an inquiry into why it was in seacrackas postion at the start. How does stuff like that happen twice and only the punters notice it?

I see reading the peter profit site headlines, it says your favorite victorian stables horse mach dan,has to go through the procedure of presenting early and blood tests for a while,due to having a tco2 level over 35 last week. Reading the nsw harness site it doesn't say what the level was, nor that charges will follow. I guess its just one of those ones where the tco2 level is a sign of something else being administered but not high enough to warrant charges. Just one of those things that a stable like stewart gets. I thought they would have had their own analysing equipment for that. Thats what they say a north island trainer who no longer trains used to do,then he would scratch them before he got to the races if the readings wre too high. Whether that was true,but that was what i was told back then and he sure did late scratch a few and had a few breaches of the rules back then. I see yole has 37 horses in tonight at hobart. All 7 starters in one race.Only the stewart stable with 28 at one meeting have numbers near that level. If it is bad that the yole stable has such numbers the same logic should apply to any other stable.e i see sherlock ran the last 400m in under 26 seconds when winning last night. My granny would have been able to keep up for the first mile as they went that slow,but not the last 400m. I watched a bit of australian harness racing this week. Two drivers that seemed very talented that i haven't heard of much were a n rothwell from queensland and i think it was b or j hughes driving at tamworth. Both seem very talented. I think n jack and one of the turnbulls,(maybe n turnbull) are the best over there. That n jack always seems to do things that arec split second decisions but makes it look like he has had all the time in the world.

i think your right,but it is a strategy that appears to be able to increase their winning %.That seems to be all they focus on.They don't seem to worry that they are suppressing turnover on the ff and also the tote,as the tote dividends for the 5 favorites reflect the ff odds and consequently are less inviting as well. They seem to work on the idea that its better to win 20% of $1000,instead of trying to win 11% of $2000 invested. Mathamatically they could be doing better and encouraging betting,but that doesn't seem to be their stategy. they open everything at about 15% under what they assess as a realistic price,then immediately slash the odds if any horse receives support in accounts held by punters who they have tagged to receive alerts on bets placed. Thats why if you observe the whales selections you are betting on them after they have opened at 15% less than they should, then have been immediately slashed another 15% when he places his own bets as soon as the ff markerts are out,so in effect anyone backing the whales selections half an hour after the odds come out are betting on a horse at 30% less than what the bookies asssessed as a fair price. as you point out the tote pools are too small to justify any significant spending.

If that were the case,it doesn't say much about how they look after their horses if they have horses getting dehydrated at their stables so badly they need to put them on a drip on raceday. Do they not provide proper stabling or feed or access to water or electrolytes?Anyway if the horses were that bad,how poor a trainers do you think they are to only recognise the horses were dehydrated on the day of the races and not the days proir. If it walks like a duck,quacks like a duck,then its very likely its a duck.

i've read your comments over the years and realise you don't condone cheating and believe a horses physical welfare is of great importance and horses should be treated with respect. Having said that,in this case i think you are being far too charitable and in looking for a best case scenario to paint the stewart stable in a better light,you are ignoring the obvious. Just google I.V. drips in athletes and horses and read what they say it can be used for and why they are illegal within the time frame that applied in this case. It says on many sites "I.V. drips are banned because they can increase performance by increasing plasma volume levels,mask the use of prohibited substances and distort blood test results and other physiological measurements obtained and used to check for descrepiancies that might indicate doping." I think its pretty obvious what they were doing and they should be disqualified for a long time.

Yes and to become the best they obviously have been cheating. How can anyone have respect for their achievements knowing that? Its guaranteed that this won't be a 1 off. Like who would believe they don't cheat in the high stake races when they do it at a country meeting. What a bunch of weak-kneed people the administators over there are. Why haven't they immediately announced they will be suspending the payout of any stakes that stable has won that has not already been paid out. That includes the $2 million dollar race. Why haven't they announced that depending on the results of their investigations,they may be doing retrospective testing on all group races won by the stable in the last 12 months. Why don't they have a rule whereby any stable that has a horse return a positive,has to comply with a rule where by they are required to install cameras and monitoring equipment on the training properties, which the Intefrity Unit can view at any time. And why is there not a requirement that the cost of installation must be covered by the offending trainer or whoever it is that wishes to train from the offending property. Why have they not come out and condemned the trainers actions? What about the other trainers. Surely they must have a trainers/drivers association over there. Why haven't they immeduately issued a statement. You know,it reminds me of those cases in the USA a year or so ago, where 29 people,mostly trainers but also vets and their staff,who manufactured,distrubuted and used what they accepted were perfromance enhancers at tracks like yonkers.The one where they mostly got around 3-5 years jail after mostly pleading guilty and were ordered to pay huge costs despite no positives. What did the the main Trotting association do over there. They hit hardest those that came forward and admitted their wrong doing early and provided information to authorites about others. The likes of jeff gural who ran the meadowlands was on record as saying he felt the U.S.trotting association were deliberately sending a message to people not to come forward,not to do the right thing and say something about the cheats. He said the US trotting association were undermining his efforts to stop cheating.Many over felt there that was due to the self interests of the administrators and influential backers of some adminsitrators,wishing to try and cover up dishonest behavior due to their links with some of the accused. The point being,no matter where you are,people cheat and the turning of a blind eye makes anyone who does that an enabler.

So for all those people who hold this stable as the gold standard,best of the best,why the silence?Wheres the condemnation of what this stable has been caught doing. Just silence. last week they won the richest harness race in the world,then this week dominated in the group one meeting at melton. Everyone happy to say how great they are. Well thats how you do it. You break the rules and you cheat. I'm referring to the media and industry leaders,who just brush over this type of stuff. They are complicit and actively promote a stable that they must know most think are cheats.Even worse,you even get people in the media and industry leaders,who simply have no credibility ,who will actively defend their integrity. We will have people saying,its a one off,they haven't returned positives,the testing system works,people are just jealous,white is actually black,blah,blah,blah,yada, yada,yada. Then there are some who prefer to believe the stable has always been honest,and have given them the benefit of the doubt.I can understand that thinking,but they must realise after weekend,that was just unrealistic wishful thinking. So who are the winners out of this. Firstly the employees of the integrity unit in victoria who were able to catch them in the act.That can't have been easy and they deserve full credit for that. All owners,traines,drivers,breeders who have had to race against a stable that nearly everyone must have believed were cheating. the punters. The horses. And what will be the outcome. Well probably they will get a relation,the farrier,the milkman ....someone who will carry on,beef up security even more to stop prying eyes and nothing much will in reality change and in a year or two the media sychophants will ramble on about how great and honest the relation is.

I think of the some really top australian trainers from not that many years gone by. They could get horses to race at the top for several seasons. So many,the mighty quinn,gammalite,smoken up,popular alm,scoth notch,westburn grant ,sir vancelot,paleface adios and many more.Maybe leap to fame can be the next.All had different trainers and all became household names. Thats the problem now.Top horses just don't last as long as they used to. I think part of the problem is the treatments horses get given nowdays,while they don't return positives,enables them to run faster then their bodies are made to cope with and very few last past 4 or 5 years old... Thats one thing that you have to credit and say the all stars have also been able to do,get some to race 3 or 4 seasons at the top,even if they have a lot that don't last that long.

fair enough. we just see things differently as far as the stewart stable goes. He was a blue magic man wasn't he.I once knew a nz trainer who had trained in aussie who knew the father. One day he was talking about a good horse he had trained over there. He said the key was when he spoke to tonkins father who then sent him a product with no label each time.. He said it made a really big difference,even though he never knew what it was.

its a bit sad seeing that.They had 23 more starters last week. Don't know where some of those have got to. Maybe some racing at oamaru on sunday ,maybe the time of year and the cost pf petrol.Taking a horse from canterbury would cost a lot i would imagine.. For years i backed on every harness race run in nz every year but some of the betting fields these days just aren't appealing enough to warrant investing.

We'll have to agree to disagree. Dropping stakes,turnovers,breeding numbers in victoria. Obviously the stewart stable domination isn't helping any of those. Owners may be queing to join the stable like you say.The reason for that is they know the trainers that trained their horses in the past simply can't get results anymore.And their former trainers would know it.The proof is in the results.That will be the mindset....In my opinion that is even more proof of what i say.

Those races with so many Emma stewart runners surely is a really bad thing for victorian harness racing.In fields where there will be only 12 starters they have 8,7,4x3.They dominate the pacing fields. Last week they had 9 winners at melton on saturday. I can't understand why in tasmania they complain about how bad things are because the yole team dominates numbers wise so many races. Yet when it comes to victoria the media sell it as being a great thing and people seem to go along with that. I really don't get why people are being told something that obviously is untrue. Any stable dominating anywhere is not a good thing. Just look at breeding figures in australia. The 2 states with one stable dominating,victoria and tasmania ,were the 2 states with the biggest decline in breeding numbers last season. Victora was a 23% decline and tasmania was 17%. In tasmania the media blame the yole stable, yet in victoria they go on and on about what a great thing the emma stewart stable is doing. It just makes no sense to me. In victoria they cut prizemoney this coming season by $3.9 million due to wagering falling 8% and they are making a further $6 million operational cuts. The media tryed to blame the reduction in breeding numbers on Harness racing australia for introducing a levy for shuttle stallions which meant in effect breeders were funding the $2 million slot race for 10 owners that started in that race. Funnily enough won by an emma stewart runner. Now that may have been part of the cause,but why did that impact victoria and tasmania more than other states. Well the most logical answer was there were other factors in play. The worst thing that happens in harness racing anywhere is when you have grass roots owners and breeders seeing races dominated by one or two stables and seeing the horses from those stables run in a way that people think they are on something. Also the biggest turn off for the average punter is races dominated by one or two stables where you know for sure there will be team driving. Punters who love the $1.60 favorites are not the majority of punters. I know that for certain. personally i understand they are out there as social media seems to have people say that. But i can't ever recall meeting a single punter who likes those type of races to bet on. Harness racing in victoria is on the slide downhill that they won't get off. Of course there are other factors,but not as significant.

Reading about hair testing. It seems it has its limits. It doesn't detect recent use.Normally they say it takes at least 10 days to show in hair. So as well as being more expensive,you can see why they do urine and blood. As to the original topic. The bute positive by the telfer team. The amount of bute given to a horse will decrease by 50% on average every 7.22 hours. Each horse metabolises at a different speed,some may be as fast as 5 hours and some as slow as 9 hours,but the average is 7.22 hours. So by the end of day one,90% has been metabolized and by the end of day 2 only 1% of the original dose remains. So if a horse is given the recommended dose he should not be returning a positive above the threshold level around 2 days, long before the withholding time which is 9.8 days. Then there is also a measurement uncertainty level which labs factor in to cover a horse that metabolizes it slowly. Again,with that measurement uncertainty factored in,even a slow metabolizing horse should be under the threshold level around 2 days after treatment. Also the levels in the horse include all its tissue,not just the bloodstream so in effect the bloodstream level should be slightly lower. So really theres no excuses for a horse to be presented to race with bute above the threshold level if the withholding time had been adhered to.

By the way chief,i see you sort of answered my question with your reply. Hopefully your right and they can always detect it that way. It would be interesting to know what % of tests in victorian gallops racing are done on hair compared to urine and blood. And what about nz,what % ,.i guess they would only do that if they had intelligence or a positive from urine or blood. They should be transparent about stuff like that. I would imagine ,given the higher cost,the % for hair testing would be very low It all seems like doing something after the fact. If they really want to catch cheats,in my opinion they should do more out of competition testing. I have always thought they should be working more closely with customs as well.But they don't seem to bother doing that. Personally i think recentlythere has been a shift and some who are employed by the riu are actually keen to catch cheats,not everyone though . And i think HRNZ isn't on the same page and would rather they didn't,especially anyone high profile. I think its nearly always been like that.

They said it was because they had washed the curtains and the thermal lining stuck to them. You would know more about that type of stuff with your property background. I'm with you though. I think it was mould as it was black and the previous tenant didn't open his windows and we noticed they dried the washing inside.people should air their house shouldn't they. More healthy that way. I guess it pays to check the curtains beforehand like you mention. I Did find a product that removes mould from curtains. Only $70.made in nz.

Talking about testing.Not horse related,but not that long ago we rented a house that appeared it may have mould on the back of some curtains when we moved in. A nice house,but hadn't noticed the back of the curtains. Anyway,the real estate lady said they had been told it wasn't mould,even though they agreed it looked like mould.So i did my own inquiries. I found to do the proper test for mould would cost me over $2000. That curtains aren't covered in the tenancy act according to the tenancy tribunal lady and the healthy homes people said that wasn't their area of expertise. Luckily the real estate people agreed to replace the curtains but i found it all a bit strange and seemed to be a loophole to expect a tenant to have to pay such high testing costs to prove mould.

I haven't been able to find anything specifically about that or what people or trainers do to avoid detection of that method,but maybe they should focus on hair testing more.All thats a bit over my head. it obviously would be an expensive process.

So say your a trainer, or say you were a bloodstock agent on the client list of the recent performance enhancing dope pusher in the usa and made regular trips to where many of his other clients were,or say you were an owner associated with a stable,or a combination of these Your saying every time they travel overseas, they are searched at the airport or mail they may have sent to themselves or an intermediary person is searched by customs. Who are you kidding.You know that happening is very rare. No i haven't contradicted myself. As far as links,i don't know how to post them.Just google it . Many there .the most recent one i read was from about 4 years ago. If you insist it can be detected at least a month after use like you say it can,then how about you post the link to that. i don't think that exists.

Yes ,i have assumed guilt.Its like getting caught for drink driving. Theres the same assumption of guilt as test results are pretty straight forward. Just googled it and it comes up for sale on line,mostly overseas gyms and places that sell body builder products. Read some of the body building chat sites and they talk about the high it gives users,that the sense of well being is unreal,that they feel a million bucks,etc. From the studies i have read,after use it only is testable for days,not weeks like you suggest. Also depends on whether the horse is treated with something else to help limit the time its testable. The best way to test is out of competition testing. Thats how they caught the trainer of regazzo mach. He was using a different steroid. Also ,depends on the type and capabilities of the testing to uncover it. To avoid detection and still gain benefits,its used in pre training to gain muscle mass which will be retained for a period of time after steroid use is discontinued.Thats why out of competition is so important. They should be focusing on out of competition in nz more,instead of using resources to target people who obviously don't give their horses anything.They should be doing regular out of competition testing at stables that have had positives in the last 5 years. The theory you have about no one off/top up treatments. Why would a user not do that if they believe that it is not testable after just a few days.

I don't need to google again. I never mentioned one shot,so don't know why you suggest i did.. If they are going to use performance enhancers,then i'm sure they would have taken advice as to how to use them to get the best effects. Obviously given the positives,they got the testable time frame wrong. Anabolic steroids are used to increase the bodies natural rate of building muscle and in turn fat burning capabilities when adhering to a healthy exercise and diet regimen. So when anabolic steroids are used with a healthy body,their body will use the hormones to increase their weight through muscle gain,thus improvung performance. I think the trainers concerned don't treat their horses with the respect they should. i goggled the harness trainer gammalite mentioned,Mark reed who trained regazzo mach.He was found to have used a different anabolic steroid on Regazzo mach.That was after out of competition testing,not race day testing. Gammalite said they paid a big price for him. Now hes stood down from raving for 12 months. People shouldn't have any sympathy for the owner of regazzo mach. He had his horse trained by someone with a terrible record. I googled Mark reed and he has been put out several times over the last 2 decades for milkshaking both harness and gallopers as well 3 times being put out for his own drug use for the likes of meth.Twice in the last 5 years. And that is who the owner of regazzo mach sent his his horse to. What a mug. Mark Reed actually is what i believe is a typical case.I believe the trainers who use performance enhancers in the past, will very likely be looking to gain an edge in the future,irrespective of whether they have been caught previously.And trainers who take drugs themselves,whether it be meth or mdma or whatever,are most likely to view the use of drugs on their horses as being acceptable.