the galah

Google is a great thing if you want to learn about this stuff. After doing a bit of research my take is these trainers are highly likely cheats who will access and use the latest designer drug that they think they can get away with. Why would a feed merchant have any of this stuff and why if they did would they put it in the feed they sell. That explanation makes no sense at all to me. I don't profess to be an expert on all the different things that some steroids metabolise into when put into a horses or humans body,but what is logical is the drugs that were detected in the system of the 5 trainers horses who returned positives,were designed to enhance performance and build muscle and increase strength. Formestane has been recognised as a performance enhancer and been banned from human sports for some time and its use in equine sports has been detected in the last decade or so and banned in equine sports as well due to integrity being compromised. It seems formestane rapidly breaks down in the body, it metabolises into several different things,one of which is hydroxytesterone which is an anabolic androgenic steroids(AAS). AAS make the body build muscle and increase strength. Anabolic steroids can have long lasting performance enhancing effects while no longer being detectable in testing. Studies have shown the use of formestane is best detected by testing for hydroxytesterone and one study said can be detected up to 34 hours after use. These type of steroids are associated with delayed development of epiphyseal growth plates in standardbreds which are crucial in bone growth and elongation. There use has potential long term risks of injuries in training and racing. Obviously if used in standardbreds,trainers may have to use things like pain inhibitors to allow horses to race and be trained while having soreness. These trainers deserve to be disqualified for some time in my opinion.

My thoughts?No one uses a known detectable drug. They only use drugs that they believe aren't detectable or believe will have left the horses system enough to not show up in testing,but still can enhance performance.E.g. epo Your comments about the control sample appear correct.I bet someone was relieved they got that done. I think gammalite has very likely hit the nail on the head when he has said ........might be the same sort of stuff doing the rounds. History shows when you get clusters of these things,they often can be traced back to one particular source.

yes a good summary of what happened. Bdjoe too good. The Telfers have him back to his best. 3.11 a very good time from a stand first up. my tip All americanlover went a nice race but just worked a bit hard when taken on early. Johnny cox continued his good form when harold smith was too good. Hes a very fast horse with speed to match all but muscle mountain and may be able to sneek a place in some of those better trots,although may need another season to get used to the best. Beach ball was a good win. He looked the one but i wondered whether he would back up on his hard run last week,but kevin chapman seems to condition them to be able to do that. Tokyo rose showed big improvement in her race,but maybe the field may not have been as strong. Still she won easily.black pearl and cyren shard went well in that race given the runs they had. Now i'm going to watch and see if olivia thornley can get With Style off the fence to win the last. An entertaining nights racing it has been.

Yes a nice john dunn drive and aardiebythehill toughed it out very well.. Rather unfortunate that the starter let them go when midnight dash was in the process of swinging side on. i think horses that do that just before they start,they often keep going sideways and that is exactly what midnight dash did and Muscle mountain copped a very bad check. rather unfortunate,but it happens sometimes.

A wilson house ,wake me when its over drive in race 3 tonight on johnny mac.. I wasn't on,so had a chuckle,but he must be getting close to being ready to let loose? Problem is he just killed any next up dividend by coming home too quick and you still can't be sure what he will do next time. Oh well.

The hrnz website advises that the gore all weather track is back in action later this month. As far as racetracks go,gore's is pretty and has a relaxed feel to it. I think its a good thing they can race there again as apart from re engaging the locals,it provides a track with a different style of racing and suits horses who have good manners and can get around the smaller tracks well. Also,importantly,in the past if you wanted to find a track which had a welcoming attitude to visiting trainers and also how they did their best to cater for anyone who was looking to train a horse, then gore was such a place. Sometimes some racetracks are run by interest groups who while well meaning,often cater to their own personal interests when it comes to the management of land and facilities and put self interest ahead of the sport and ahead of supporting those wishing to find somewhere to train. Gore previously was run how racetracks should be run. To promote harness racing and participation in the sport. Hopefully things are still the same now as they were not so long ago when they used to race all their meetings on their home track. The hrnz decision to change to allow racing at gore i think is a good one.

I see the terms of the bonus relating to nz bred stallions includes clauses "A breeder or breeding entity ceases to exist if they have had no service attempts in the previous 5 years on the hrnz infohorse system". Also "if a breeder or breeding entity ceases to exist there will be no further bonus paid". So from that i take it that the breeders of nz bred horses that earn stakemoney this season, will have to have bred from a mare in the previous 5 seasons. So if you bred a nz bred horse say with the wife in 2017 and it earnt say $20,000 this season,then in theory if you and the wife had bred another horse in nz in the last 5 years you would get 10% of stakes won by the horse you bred in 2017,in other words $2,000 (or $1000 for you and $1000 for the wife).That seems straight forward enough. However,what isn't clear from the terms is for example whether the horse you bred from in the last 5 years was one that was just in your name and not jointly with your wife. Given that is a different entity,does that mean you get no bonus.Or do you still get the 50% share of the bonus the 2017 horse you bred has earned? Given the just published terms and conditions say a breeding entity has ceased to exist if they weren't the ones breeding in the last 5 years,so that appears to mean no you won't get the bonus?

Read what the above actually says. "Clear results for prohibited substances'. It does Not say that the results found no trace of the use of prohibited substances. Theres clearly a difference. Its all in the wording to create a perception that they want people to have. My conclusion from reading the press releases was that prohibited substances may have been found,but at levels below the threshold that would make them illegal. If they truly wanted to be transparent and stop speculation,they would have released the results of the toxicology tests they undertook.Sometimes its more about what information they have that isn't disclosed.

Is that the horse nathan williamson trained. how is he going in australia?

i had to look up colander. yes my mum did have one of those. I would class him as the nearest thing to an investigative racing journalist i know. I have to admit when it comes to the telfer case he does seem to have speculated a bit there. But hey hes a punter so i guess thats just in his nature. But just as he may be speculating as to a link in the cause of the telfer racehorse deaths,so are you when you say there was no evidence of bute. The official reports i have just re read don't state that. They do not state there was or wasn't the presence of bute in the horses system. Why did they not publish the results of the tests they did in full to discount that. The failure of the RIU and HRNZ to be totally transparent in the publishing of the results of their investigation has created the speculation we currently talk about. Their brief press statements around the horses deaths could be taken two ways. Archie butterfly is not at fault for their lack of transparency. So we will have to agree to disagree about that chief.

Fair comment about vets.They do their best and have the welfare of those they treat as the top priority. But i think lines can become blurred sometimes when there is pressure placed on vets by trainers to give their horses the latest legal treatment which may enhance performance.Also i think there is a prestige involved if you are a vet for a leading trainer,and with that comes added pressures. Also i think there occasionally have been vets who have shown a greater willingness to provide their knowledge on some matters to high achieving trainers,than they have other lesser known trainers. Sometimes that may be based on certain trainers being very good customers turnover wise,so thats understandable,but occasionally sometimes its not and there may be a little discrimination that has gone on.But hey thats life and business i suppose. The best vets i have known,(i haven't known that many),are in my opinion those who treat every person and every horse they see the same,in other words do whats best for the horse with both its short term and long term health and performance in mind and give honest assessment of that when required,irrespective of how good the trainer or horse is. But vets also rely on honest information from trainers and trainers are often under pressure to achieve short term results,so sometimes they aren't always totally 100% honest given the pressure they are placed under from owners. Trainers can often feel a lot of pressure to achieve results for their owners. Its a business where there is often high stress and pressure levels for those involved,which is often how a horses health may occasionally be compromised or trivialised.Owners place a lot of pressure sometimes.Its not all straight forward.

I've no idea what peter profit has written and i had thought you had earlier stated that you weren't a subscriber, not sure whether you changed that,but my point is unless people know what hes written in full then who knows whether there is any merit in it. Hes an investigative racing journalist and its hard to think of anyone in nz who could be called that. So i'm not commenting on what hes written,but you have raised the topic of the recent positive returned by a runner from the telfer barn. Heres the thing. The first time i have read anything in nz about the telfer positive was in the RIU decision on their website yesterday,regarding the horse concerned disqualification. Why is it peter profit had a headline about the Telfer positive on his website several weeks before anyone else knows of it? Why are nz racing authorities trying to hide such things by giving them as little exposure as possible? I had a bit of spare time and did a bit of research just for interests sake. The drug the horse returned a positive for (phenylbutazone and oxyphenbutazone )has an interesting history. It was first developed for use on humans in 1949 as an anti arthritic drug which gave pain relief and was an anti inflammatory,but by 1986 was banned from use in humans in most western countries because of its side effects. One of the main concerns was the drugs effect on bone marrow which resulted in some patients who had been prescribed it,(over a period of time or elderly),not being able to make enough new blood cells for the body to work normally. While this was relatively rare, that and other side effects resulted in its ban on use in humans. Seemingly one of the reasons it took so long to see the bad side effects was because the testing trials were done on animals like rats and rabbits. With rats and rabbits and horses too,it metabolizes and is excreted 12 times faster than in humans which lead to misleading models for humans. Vets started using it in the 1950's.it was considered cheap and easy to administer and early on considered highly effective with minimal side effects for treating the symptoms of things like lameness. it wasn't until 1967 that the first vet study on possible effects was officially published. The 1968 kentucky derbywinner returned a positive to it after it was banned. The ban was lifted in 1974.In 1986 13 of the 16 kentucky derby runners had been administered it then it was banned again shortly after as they were getting too many law suits filed,for example jockeys being injured when their mounts fell when breaking a leg while running on the pain killer. Then it got a lot of publicity when it was administered to a horse called wide awake who collapsed and died on the 3rd day(show jumping) of the badminton horse trials in 1976.Many argued it couldn't be linked to that but thresholds came in and then they totally banned it from that horse sport in 1993,lifted the ban in 2009 then banned it from use prior to competitions again the following year in 2010. So in horse racing its still allowed and has threshold levels and its common for vets to prescribe. They say to stop using it 10 days out. Apparently regular use can produce a cummulative effect on the readings if tested. So whats all that mean. Well we all know all drugs can have negative side effects. Doctors weigh up the positive side effects against the negative side effects when prescribing anything. Vets do the same. But are vets or horse trainers actually placing enough weight on the negative effects some drugs they prescribe and trainers use? Are some trainers and vets prioritising financial gain and are they sometimes not giving the same thought and respect to their racehorses as they would a human? Is it ok that this happens.

Friday nights field certainly looks a race worth watching and a field where there will be no short priced favorite. In fact the whole night the betting fields are pretty even and there seems plenty of horses around for this time of year. Methven also has big fields and some nice betting races. I see last weeks turnover at addington was good and you would think this friday may be even better. The new brighton cup looks like it has many chances and most likely will come down to who gets the early lead and who gets to trail. For me All american lover looks ideally placed and hopefully can begin as well as she normally does. Her driver johnny cox is currently driving with good confidence. Perhaps the main danger could be her stablemate b d joe,although he was quite inconsistent at the end of his last campaign.At his best he would deserve to be favorite,but i still fancy all american lover myself. Shes currently paying $8ff and $2.80 a place which seems about the right price to consider a wager,especially a place. Muscle mountain at $1.40 seems a fair price. Horses like him seem to suit being on the ur so he should go away no problem,which means $1.40 seems a reasonable bet.

Just read his hearing decision on the RIU website. It said because he had a clear record and admitted the charge he got 2 days off,so i assume the admitting the charge saved him one day suspension. My opinion is similar to brodies. i.e.you see others do the same thing sometimes and not be charged. Still he did plead guilty. As far as the 6 day suspension including every canterbury and otago race meeting between yesterday and the 24th of september,well that seems strange given Mr clark has only had 11 drives so far this year.They said they factored in the 2 year old having broken its pedal bone 5 or 6 months ago.From which you can only conclude,that to include every upcoming meeting, they must have believed the 2yo trotter was to be given 6 starts in the next 3 weeks. How come other drivers can't say that when their penalties are considered?

Some may not be fans of mr clarks driving sometimes,but it seemed a bit of a stretch to see him suspended for 6 days for his drive on his 2 year old trotter imperial command yesterday. Seemingly he diminished his horses chances by pressing on and trying to take the lead.Of all the drives hes done,they seem to have picked on one that looked nothing much out of the ordinary to me. The strange thing is Mr Clark plead guilty,so with the benefit of hindsight must have agreed with the stipes. And the penalty seemed a little unusual as well.He was suspended until 24 september,which they said was 6 days. In the past they have based the length of suspensions on the number of recent drives for other drivers. For example an amateur recently got a 3 month suspension for a 6 day penalty. Mr Clark has only had 11 drives this year.

Obviously a very good horse is the winner,but personally i think it would have been better for harness racing if the grant dixon trained leap to fame had won.The reason i say that is the horse performs at the same level every time he lines up,as do nearly all horses trained by dixon who run around on the queensland circuit. I think hes in the mould of top horses from the past,and people can relate to him better and can see if you get a great horse and train it well, you can still win the big races. I think with an emma stewart trained runner winning,and winning quite easily the average person involved in harness racing can't relate to that. Encipher obviously a top mare,but if you watched its recent races ,while winning,you couldn't say you could have predicted last nights performance.Its last start it beat a top field in victoria,but only just won after getting the perfect run and it was a blanket finish with about 6 horses within a length.Thats why it paid $30 last night. Sure it was driven by brilliant driver and the trainers obviously are tops,but it looked primed for the night . The thing about it was how after the race it looked like it wasn't even tired. so thats my opinion.

According to the hrnz website,the betting figures for last week saw a change in the recent pattern,just to confuse things a bit. Addington on friday night,even with its run of hot favorites,had a higher turnover last week when compared to rangiora on sunday. In fact rangiora on the sunday,with similar fields to ashburton ,couldn't even turnover as much in 10 races as ashburton did with 8 the week before.

This fella really is the most obvious example of a driver doing what he can to assist his stablemate. He delivers every time. I guess he gets a share of the trainers %. Race 5 at alexandra park tonight yet another team drive to add to his long list. I know,might have only run 4th at best had he pulled out at the appropriate time,but he makes it look so obvious its a bit silly really. Sits in the 1/1,the horse in front of him ,a roughie,begins to weaken with 300m to run,he looks across to see where his stablemate is,its coming 3 wide around him,so instead of pulling his horse out to give it a clear run,he waits until the stablemate has gone passed as he didn't want to force it over more ground.

Thats an interesting idea. A region like southland having say 3 or 4 slot races on one particular summers day each worth $35,000 which would mean in effect the actual horse owners would be running for a stake similar to $17,500 after the slot owners have taken half the prizemoney.It would be 12 horse fields. Sponsors in southland throughout the year could be given first preference in participating on the day by buying a slot for say $1500 and then having the horses drawn 1 hour pre race. They could have like business sponsors ,e.g. pubs and licensing trusts in one race,building industry in another,farming related industries etc The club and hrnz could each contribute say $8000 to the races. They would be best run on a grass track. I never know why clubs who have grass tracks don't run a mixture of grass and all weather track races on the same day. This could be one of those days. They could make it into a big sponsors day with rides in the mobile and tandem sulky races. The focus would be it being a family day with free pony rides,pony clubs racing up the straight,an undie run up the straight by sports clubs both men and women,trick horse riders invited to show there skills. It most likely would have to be run on a sunday and given southland weather in summer. Maybe thats all wishful thinking but it could happen in a place like southland as the community down there would come together for one of those days out. Just a thought building on your idea.

Is it creating much interest in the media? How was the million dollars harness racing australia put into the prizemoney and the extra money they have spent promoting the race, gone down with the grass roots level participants in australia?

Its been more noticeable recently in my opinion,thus i think there may have been some change recently,either in method or amounts. But if we assume you are correct and you may well be,then its just another reason why punters are turning their backs on betting on the tote on nz harness racing. Personally i don't believe the overseas bets part of your possible explanation because the amounts invested overseas would not be high and would not effect all 5 favorites in the example i gave. But lets assume your correct about the tab bookies laying off bets held on fixed odds is a possible cause. Why should a punter place a bet when he is doing so knowing that the TAB bookies, by laying off fixed odds bets,can manipulate the tote dividends in the last minute so substantially, that the punter in reality has placed a bet on a horse at a dividend that can change 25% in the last few seconds.A punter who bases his returns on receiving for example a 12% profit overall per $ invested,is now having to factor in a variable of 20% which in all reality may make his betting unprofitable. You have 3 choices currently if you want to place a bet on nz harness. 1) on fixed odds knowing the bookies are running the book based on offering returns which % wise heavily favour them,in other words horses at odds shorter than they should be. Also knowing that if you are one of their customers who has an account they have identified as being able to regularly make a profit,that they are reducing the odds of any horse bet on in that account through their algorithms or notifications their bookies get, of placed bets,even for example that a $20 place bet can cause the tab to reduce the ff win dividend of a horse bet on. 2)you can spread your bet on the tote and fixed odds,knowing there is a pattern that for reasons discussed earlier,which can see dividends change so drastically at the end on the tote portion. 3)There is the option of betting solely on the tote. But just think about how small tote pools are at say a thursday meeting in southland,or say one of those poor turnover,hot favorite dominated races at a higher class meeting at addington. Work it out. If there's say a $4000 total place pool and you,in the last minute put $200 a place on a horse paying $3.If you do the maths your $200 place bet will reduce the tote odds from $3 to $2. Or if you only put $100 a place,your causing the dividend to drop from $3 a place to $2.40. In other words nz harness racing provides punters with many races where its foolish to bet any reasonable amount on the tote,because the pools are that small that any reasonable amount invested is having too great an impact on reducing the returns. Thats why looking to the future,turnovers will not improve. The tab,through there bookies,is operating in a way that is improving the $ return for them,but at the same time driving down the total amount being wagered. Now some may argue that the bookies have every right to do this,as there job is to maximise returns. Anyone who argues that is not seeing the big picture. As i have explained above,the big picture is hastening a cycle in reduction of wagering on nz harness. If people don't believe me,just ask any punter who used to make a reasonable profit out of betting on nz harness. They will tell you 2 things,1)its much harder now than say 2 or 3 years ago to turn a profit and very importantly 2) their total wagering on the tote has dropped significantly. People may say,well thats not me,who cares. Well if you don't care about turnover on harness racing in nz,then in reality you haven't thought about having a sustainable harness industry going forward,whether you realise it or not.

I have been looking at the fixed odd prices lately and they do seem to be keeping all the favorites a lot shorter than they should be. For example i noticed in that last race at rangiora on trackside the top 5 favorites were all paying a couple of $ less to win on fixed odds, than on the tote as they came up behind the mobile.Thats quite a difference to see every one of the top 5 well under the tote price. It has become a more noticeable pattern and i think the bookies may be working on the theory that keep the horses with any winning chance much shorter than they should be and blow the others out with not much winning chance and who don't get support ,in the last 2 or 3 minutes.

Do you think the australian trots seem to serve up a betting product where it seems the punter is outside the loop. I watch australian harness occasionally and my interpretation of it never seems to change. You obviously would know a lot more than me,but my impressions are these. In nsw at menangle its like theres a group of 3 or 4 trainers and drivers who know which horse is primed to go and they all drive accordingly to suit the one that the money has come for. Then you go to the country tracks and the lower grade horses and less stakes and it seems almost every one is trying. Queensland its like a theres a handful of drivers and trainers that have looked at where they have drawn and decided,not today,just drive it quiet and wait for next week. Its like they have got someone to back their horse to lose on betfair and even if a race is run to suit,they don't take the gaps and prefer to stay on the fence. In victoria nearly everyone seems to be trying,except in the races where you have an emma stewart trained runner and its like they know it will win and have given up beforehand.Often those races have more than 1 stewart trained runner and they just team drive. Tasmania,well with all the ben yole runners and all the terrible publicity,i don't know how that state continues to run harness racing. All 4 of the above makes punters not trust harness racing and must negatively. impact betting. In south australia,everyone gives the impression they always try,yet they have the smallest stakes. same in western australia. they seem to at least be trying all the time. Maybe i'm wrong about some of the above,but only south australia and western australia are the places i would place a bet if i was having one. Compare that to nz. I think everyone is going out there with the intent to achieve the best possible result. Its very rare for a punter to question a nz drivers intent. The santanna mach drive that this thread was about, i think was not a lack of intent to achieve the best result,as it makes no sense to not try when your horse is a very good winning chance.I think that was just a case of a very poor tactical drive.

The betting figures in nz harness show turnovers are nearly always greater on the sunday low key meetings, than the high class meetings at the likes of addington,where you see many all star horses compete. Thats what the turnover figures show . For example a couple of weeks ago the ashburton sunday meeting turned over more for their 8 races than addington did for 9 races ,where you had 3 all star runners start hot favorite. The Nz cup meeting is the exception to the rule,but thats partly because the betting fields then are more even.

i see he went 1.47 .8 and 1.47.6 at 3 and 4.The US aged male pacer of his year as a 3 and 4 year old. dexter dunn used to drive him. His oldest progeny are 2 in the usa. Those sire stake races can be a bit misleading as far as numbers go. In new jersey in 2022 there were only 13 pacers and 5 trotters stand in the state. Having said that they had their sires stakes finals for new jersey 3 weeks ago and bettors wish sired the winner of the colts which ran 1.50.4 and the fillies which ran 1.52.2.