the galah

well,the easiest analogy would be to say,if your driving down a 3 lane highway in your car on the outer lane,next to someone in the middle lane,with no one on the inside lane. And you get even just a small portion of your car in front of the car to your inside,your deemed to have an advantage and you are fully entitled to manouvre into the middle lane in which the other car is in.if you wish. You don't have to indicate. as to the point you make,You can just do it,as long as you just don't veer in sharply. You can continue to move in irrespective of whether the car inside you is still there as you make the manouvre. legally if you clip the car to your inside and that car veers off the road and crashes,well its that drivers fault and he will get a ticket as the law says they would have seen you coming into their lane and therefore should have braked to let you in front of them or gone to the inside lane. Like i have said, the driver in the inside car knows the law and should concede.Irrespective of whether he ends up following granny who he knows always drives slow.

2 drivers refusing to supply a blood sample tonight at auckland. When there were probably only about 30 different drivers competing on the night,thats not good.. Interesting that both drivers/trainers use the same training complex.D balle and z meredith. Z meredith now likely to have 3 breaches within the last 4 years.

i know it looked a bit dangerous the way her cart hit the legs of oranges horse,causing that horse to break,but the rule says shes allowed to manouvre her horse in like that.and mr orange should have just gone on the fence,even if it meant he effectively was diminishing his chances of placing. That is why i've started a couple of topics on it in the past,saying its a silly rule because it can result in potential danger if a horse breaks,as horses being knocked around tend to panic,especially if their legs are hit. the rules been like that for decades. i believe the reason you don't see drivers pushing in all the time is ,i think,drivers have their own standards of safety for themselves and others and their horses anddon't bother to do it. . It can get dangerous when you have drivers who ,when being pushed in,actually believe their horses have a slight advantage so resist the driver outside and jostle,often relating in one breaking. also,in years gone by,i'm aware of cases where the jostling has happened on the bend where the trackside coverage is difficult to say who was slightly in front of who,and the stipes have used the position of the carts to say the outside horses cart was in front of the inside horses cart,therefore that meant the outside horse was in the right.They said the size of the horses was irrelevant nor would they factor in the fact that the much bigger horse who was on the inside,and was not only bigger,but had a cart with cart extensions on. In other words you can have one cart in front of another,but that doesn't necassarily mean the horse who's cart is in front actually has its head in front of the other,given the size of the horse and the length of the cart.So sometimes drivers had got blamed when they shouldn't have. so,i agree with you,its not a good rule,if reducing interference is what they are trying to achieve.

I watched that and thought straight away mr orange would get a suspension. The rule is ,if the horse outside him has an advantage/slightly ahead,then if it wants to push in then the driver on the inside must concede and go to the inside,or as normally happens,be restrained to race behind the horse moving in. i've always thought that rule is not in the best interests of safety as many times you see drivers failing to concede their position one off the fence and consequently they break and then the horses behind them get checked.The thing is often the driver trying to maintain their position one off the fence can manoeuvre their position enough to get the advantage back and leave the horse 3 wide. i've actually started a couple of topics on it previously,suggesting its not a good rule, giving examples of how interference occurs when both drivers think they are entitled to be in that one off position. but as the rule stands currently(and has done for some time),mr orange was always going to be found guilty,or plead guilty like he did. i've often wondered if the rule in australia is different as you hardly ever see it happen over there.

next time you see alan pyers or wilson house ,ask them why it happened in the final 450m at hawera over the weekend.

I was saying the chiefs suggestion that you disqualify everyone,whether it be accidental or not ,would be a consistent outcome. I was not agreeing with the chiefs suggestion,quite the opposite. So yes gammalite ,i agree with your point that every case is different. i actually referenced the tasmanian race you refer to and suggested someone put a video up of it to show an example of hocking. i did that when i started the topic about the moran drive,on another thread, about 2 weeks ago. If you saw the video of that,there is no way anyone could ever compare what moran did to what the tasmainain driver did. i also have referenced the queensland race from last year and suggested that video be put up. again that was an example of hocking ,but it could only be compared to the tasmanian driver in that he hocked for 3 strides,nothing anywhere near as bad as the tasmanian driver. And of course,as i've said several times now,that queensland driver got off on appeal ,despite it being acknowledged that he made contact 3 times. you see the appeal judges found it may have been accidental. Just like at hawera at the weekend. anyway,i did like the photos of the galahs you posted. and i could see your little dogs face in the side mirror watching them. I enjoy seeing those type of posts. it reminds me of when we had a wonderful wee dog. He was like a son in a lot of ways. keep up the good work.

i just finished my post about bird flu,turned on the tv 1 news and there you go. The very first thing that i see is a segment about unemployment and they interview a maori man who goes on about how it is the maori and pasifika people who seem to be impacted the most.Then they show the PM luxon,making out its somehow his fault. of course i said to myself,why do i watch this crap and why does our media continue to sow division and tell the maoris they are always victims of governments decisions. our news media really are pitiful.

Maybe they should do some gain gain- of- function research on the bird flu,just in case there is a pandemic in humans. Maybe get dr fauci to fund it and have the wuhan lab do it.? hang on,that type of research on the covid virus didn't turn out too well i suppose. Actually i had read recently many scientiists are advocating for exactly that to protect humans down the track..Others aying,well duh,haven't you learnt anything. some countries are actually stockpiling a h5 vaccine for use on humans,should there ba an outbreak effecting humans. the likes of the Uk,usa,eu,japan. I was reading a week ago about how some countries vaccinate their chickens for the bird flu and some don't. sounds exactly like covid or the flu though. vaccinate for one variant then the virus mutates into another variant making your vaccine not as efective. I wonder if chickens could be mandated to take the vaccine. probably i suppose.I wonder if they could just give up there jobs as a laying hen if they didn't want to take it. chickens don't really have freedom of choice. actually they do vaccinate the chickens in lots of countries to protect agianst the bird flu,and in lots they don't. theres major trade issues and some believe the vaccinations could do enough to hide symptoms enough, to allow it to spread,(e.g exported birds) and then kaboom.I used that word kaboom because i used to be a batman fan. then there seems a school of thought that the vaccinations are directly linked to how the virus is currently evolving.Some uk research found the unvaccinated got the virus more,but in countries with the vacciantion, the virus just mutated and evolved,making the vaccines less effective. Meaning, the chickens really needed to keep getting booster type jabs to keep up . I wonder if the chickens immune system was effected. i wonder how many suffered side effects. Hang on,doesn't that sound fimiliar. I may give robert kennday a ring to see what he thinks. i think he talks a lot of common sense. gee,what if they did start vaccinating and boosting chickens,would that put me off eating them. I'm beginningn to think i should not have replied to your post chief as its causing my brain to hurt. i need to spend some time on my perch contemplating what is ,in reality, a very serious subject.

Interesting that australian press release emphasis they don't have the deadly strain(h5n1) causing most of the current issues in the usa. i had read Victoria did have an outbreak of the h7 avian bird flu mid way through last year and they culled 1.3 million birds.They had the all clear recently.But you would think its inevitable there will be future outbreaks.It had been reported there were cases in nsw and australian capital territory last year as well. i agree with you gamma when you suggest that authorities must be more worried than they let on,given it can jump species and has been found in 48 mammal species,including even dolphins and polar bears.They are worried in the usa about it having shown up in dairy cattle.It seems to spread by hitching a ride with migrating birds,especially ducks and geese. Interestingly they reckon the first time a strain of bird flu was detected was 30 years ago in china. The lack of media content around the topic is interesting. In the usa,its predicted egg prices may get to record highs in the usa. I even saw one programme the other day where it said a dozen eggs were $19 in one state. (Thats USA $).the price seems to vary an awful lot ,state to state. being "the galah",i am taking particular interest.

None of that is necessary. No point in changing something that isn't broken. Just keep applying common sense as has been. Mandatory disqualifications would just end up with situations where such an outcome would be unfair. e.g. someone accidentally drops a leg when winning by a margin. The victorian stipes used a sledgehammer to crack a walnut and left the perception of fairness and balance squashed for many. but hey,it will all be sorted on on appeal i guess,but perceptions will remain. I'll move on now from this topic. All those chickens that are dieing or being put down because of the bird flu, in the usa, is something that interests me.Quite an amazing story that our media seem to be ignorining.Every time i turn on our tv news,its always about how bad the coalition governement are treating the maoris and also a story about how bad something donald trump has done.No wonder people don't watch them like they used to. In the usa its being reported 17 million chickens died or were put down because of it in just a couple of months. That bird flu seems to be sending panic around many parts of the world. A lot of the talk about vaccinations to protect the chickens,although i recently read the vaccine they are considering doesn't work on the stain of bird flu killing everything.I read about one big egg laying company who has 6 million chickens who is seeing ten thousand die every day as they try and implement putting down so many of their chikens. The ceo of that company saying what they are doing to halt the spread isn't working anymore. Apparently some of the big companies changed things about 10 years ago ,when they had an outbreak,like busing in workers,workers showering before and after work on sitye,all vehicles coming onto the site of the factories being washed and disinfected. If i was a chicken or bird living in otago,i would be feeling a little bit concerned about my and my neighbouring featherr friends welfare. coincidencwe they put down all those laying chikens at that big pultry farm and then not that far down the road,as the crow flies,they have had all thsoe birds die of what they say is botulism.

Harrison orange seems to be a special talent. Surprising someone so inexperienced can drive with such confidence and skill.Horses just run for him. A harrison i see is still a junior driver. She drove like she was on a mission to get that first win back yesterday with akatea and her tactical confidence proved accurate.The sport is one where things happen where you question ,how is that fair,but she overcame the hardest part,which to me wasn't the winning,but was in fact showing she had overcome such adversity,just to be able to compete again. also,I wonder what she thought, when at her first drive back,she copped some interference when a driver got tipped from the sulky just in front of her.Life has many twist and turns ,we think we know whats just around the corner,but do we really?

I guess that would be consistency. Only problem with that is ,using your policy,once a driver does drop a foot from the footrest,why would they keep trying, as they know they are guaranteed disqualified anyway. and exactly what point in a race.and why. Just a note. Alan pyers again dropped his foot from the footrest yesterday,this time on a different horse to the first day.He actually did so for over half the length of the straight, at the finish of that race. No foul driving charge again. Just a common sense approach with a $100 fine. You see,although he was in contention at the time he dropped his foot,no one really could say, that he intentionally did it to gain an advantage.Then again,hes lucky hes not in victoria i suppose. Also i note the same driver who drove with his foot out of the foot rest at methven for the whole length of the straight at the start of a race,may actually do it regularly as he did it again yesterday.No mention again as ,once again,i think people know it wouldn't be intentional to gain an advantage. What would victorian stewards make of his driving?

Just tuned in to watch ex nz horse,Laver at menagle,one of my wifes favorite horses. A very courageuos horse over here. Unfortunately it looked like he pulled up with a very serious injury. Hopefully its not as sad as it looked for laver.

who can really know? its too hard to tell from the video,just you can see the drivers feet down near the lower part of their horses leg. its a bit like watching a jockey strike a horse with his whip,when viewing the inital trackside race video.Then,even if you have the right camera angles,its still hard to tell. I guess they are similar in that there is an assumption that it may have happned. i think the key is applying that asumption consistently,either way,is the only way to be fair.

yesterday at hawera. Race 1. a driver warned for driving with his foot down for about 9 strides(same as moran), with 500m to go,then in a race not long after a driver did the same thing for about 4 strides with 350m to go,but no mention at all in the stipes report. i guess the fella in the first is a small timer,but it seems strange to treat them differently.Why did that happen? both horses placed. Both drivers i assume just lost their balance a little when pulling the ear plugs. mind you ,would others assume differently going by some replies on this thread?

you make a good point about how carts these days have been modified from what they once were.. some are marketed with specific comments like, the viper race cart,it says "no trouble with horses hitting footrests...widest wheel span on the market when fitted with viper speed wheels"...and these days sulkies seem designed better to help keep a horses body straight which helps as well. Really i suppose its an advantage in having a horse trained by a big trainer who has all the flash sulkies and could use trial and error to work out what sulky worked best to avoid a big strding horse making contact. Harder for a trainer with just a couple in training to go and spend a few thousand on another cart with no guarantee it will solve the issue..Occassionally some may still have too long a stride or they may still swing their back legs out further and get close to the wheels at speed or whatever. actually its very interesting to note the different actions of each horse when they show the head on films of the final stages. you wouldn't realise how different they can be unless you were driving or positioned next to them. I guess what type of footrests are on a cart can figure into whether a driver is more likely to drive with his foot out of the footrests if unbalanced.

i've always found it very interesting watching the reactions of horses who make contact with footrests. Not all horses react the same. But they all initially seem to get a fright ,which is totally understandable. I also believe contact is a factor in horses breaking,more than is officially recognised. I think its especially stressful for big horses when they are early in their careers as the reason they are making contact is because the length of their stride is so big. to me ,heavens rock was the perfect example of the stress caused by making contact and the long term psychological effects on a horse ,who go through the worry of encountering that stress every time they run at speed,especially early in their careers when they are getting used to the stress.i think it can be mentally traumatic for some. I assume that is what heavens rock went through ,they said that was his issue and i had seen the horse we had react exactly the same previously. Reggie golightly i think is another example of how it effects a big horse. Reggie golightly,a r39 horse who has not won for 2 years ran 2.56 in a trial at ashburton 5 months ago ,running his first mile in 1.54.9,the 2000 in 2.25 and running an overall time of 2.56 for the 2400m,fresh up in a trial at ashburton about 5 months ago. He did it seemingly under restraint the whole way ,winning by a huge margin,at one stage being almost being half the length of the straight in front. . I assume he was running so fast because he is such a big horse and his feet were either touching the wheel or footrest or some contact was being made. i believe that trial was a good example of just how it can mess with a horses head to have that happen. And if you have followed reggie golightly,you would say,well hes won 4 races but he doesn't seem to try very hard moost of the time. But really,if you think about it,its not because he didn't start off not wanting to try,its because ,i'm guessing the experiences he would have had due to being so big. anyway,i have gone off on a wee bit of a tangent and maybe no one is interested,but i think,a lot of traits horses have are a result of their breeding,but horses mindset is also shaped by the experiences they have had.We say this or that about their attitudes and habits,and maybe its true ,but also maybe we should realise we are judging some harsher than is deserved.

yes i understand that. The most talented horse we believe we ever had,was so big he used to hit the footrests. He was just so fast but then the faster he went the harder he hit them and in the end he just lost all confidence and went through a phase where he would bolt then panic and gallop. He was that big we got every bit of gear made for him and even a 76 inch hopple was tight on him. The racecarts simply weren't legally big enough and in the end,with all the bigger gear, he just learnt himself to coast around in 1st gear so he didn't hit the footrests. We qualified first go but then retired him as they didn't make shoes big enough for him and every farrier i spoke to,no one said they could or would make a pair of shoes for him. I knew one of them did,but he had seen him run fast in training and for some reason didn't want to help,so he wore an aluminium shoe that the shoe place said they imported for some clydsdale owner,but they were still too small and the day he qualified he came off the track with 2 quarter cracks bleeding.One time he had an injury and we sent him to a very well known vet for treatment for a week and his comment when we got him back was,you've got a very special horse here. I guessed he had checked his heart out or something but he wouldn't say why when i asked him,just repeated it. Obviously i'm describing something different than a horse getting a fright for a couple of strides,but i know how it can't scare them.

Johns boy used to be trained by a southland trainer.L veint and from memory kirk larsen used to drive him in his early days. K larsen recently has been driving a trotter,xerion for veint and its won a couple but it seems to have lost its confidence after jumping quickly in the ratings ,like they do over here if they win early in their career. L veint about a decade ago had a really promising pacer,it looked very good,but from memory it had some unfortunate accident or illness and tragically died. Johns boy was a horse that i always followed and was always consistent,reliable and gave his best and his trainer always seemed to have him ready to race.i wondered where he got to. Unfortunately,he was one of those horses that had got too high in the ratings and was at a point where he had to be run for 3 months each week to get back in a grade where he could win again. Doing that to a horse like johns boy, who tries so hard was just going to break his will, and i think they have done a good thing by the horse to send him out of southland and to aussie. Hopefully he can stay healthy and race for another few years and then they find him a nice home when he retires. johns boy was by simon roydon,one of roy mckenzies bred stallions,and would have been the last by that sire to race in nz.

tristan larsen did drive over here just a couple of weeks ago at invercargill. he was the only one i could think of when i started my thread about a year ago about children of southland trainers. maybe larsen was just home for a visit. While i like k larsens training, i'm not a big fan of his driving. He seems to think well ,but horses just don't seem to run for him like they used to. Or he just ends up in the wrong spot.. I did notice what i thought was a significant improvement in his sons tristans driving when he was back. He drove a horse for his dad,ward lamon,who to be fair kirk larsen has done very well training and driving recently. Having said that i thought his son got an extra length or two more than his father would have, out of that horse when he drove it. I think tristan larsen could make a living here if he came back,but maybe hes happier ,warmer and getting more opportunities in victoria. Southland racing,in my opinion,needs to revert back to closing down for 3 months over the winter months like it used to. Why,its just too cold and the numbers can't sustain year round races . If they have a horse they want to keep racing,then maybe there should be some type of travel subsidy and accomodation supplement for the travelling caretaker trainer,supplied by hrnz if they were to be sent to somewhere like auckland or canterbury. instead of putting all those millions into stakes for the high end,spend it more wisely. Like,did you see the hunter cup has a stake half what it was last year,and only1/4 of the nz cup,yet its giot the highest quality field of any race in australasia in the last 12 months. what does that tell you?

Well thats what you think. I think your "Doubling down on stupid" there chief. The victorian stipes have never said his foot hit his horses hocks and the video shows his foot never hit his horses hocks.... The stipes say there was contact with the horses hind leg on a couple of occassions. my advice to you is just look at the video again and you will see the stipes are saying leg,not hock, because the contact is around the bottom of the leg(the hoof of the horse),no where near the hock. I keep saying,if you want to put up a video of hocking,put up the video of the queensland driver who's penalty was quashed 3 months ago. I gave the race,track,date on the other thread on this topic. It will show you where a driver places his foot to make contact with a horses hocks.

i fully understand what you are saying and totally agree with the thrust of your argument.. about a year ago i started a topic along the same lines in respect of families involved in harness racing from southland. There hasn't been the passing of the torch to the next generation to the degree you may have expected there either. But of course theres reasons for everything. I remember working in a stable in southalnd and going to the trials and there were 244 horses that started at the trials. I still have the programme. 244 horses with owners paying the club to start,drivers earning,trainers getting float fees,etc ,etc. Just at the trials. I remember one junior driver i once spoke to said the trainer he worked for had 20 in work but had only had just the one win in the previous 5-6years. That professional trainer didn't line many up and drove most of them,he was not a good driver as he neared retirement,but he still had 20 horses who's owners paid to have their horses trained.He actually not long after won a race with a promising horse and then they sold it and became a champion in australia. At that time dairy farming in southland was not on any big scale and you would drive around and so many of the farmers had sheep and a racehorse or two,whether they be hobby trainers or just mostly sending them to professional trainers. Then within 10 years the dairy boom came and so many of the sheep farmers cashed up to corporations or converted to dairying and next thing in the areas where there weresheep and horses,there were none. it was amazing the transformation within such a short space of time and the flow on effects on the harness industry in southland were very significant.Just something outside their control and dairying has had such a huge impact on land prices throughtout the whole of nz,and harness racing has been a casulty of that industry. As far as generational passing of the batton,often a common denominator is the next generation of children of small time/hobby trainers were the ones to get more involved in a bigger way,so many examples of that,but then their next generation doesn't. But,given the numbers of hobby/small time trainers is steadily declining and little is being done by HRNZ to incentivise the continued particpation of this group of people,then that will obviously have an impact on the sport in the future. Theres pathways forward to everything,but first you have to understand how the industry got to where it is ,otherwise you just keep making the same mistakes.

So hows that playing out for auckland harness racing? If you were to look a graph showing the increasing population growth over recent times in auckland and then look at a graph showing the declining number,within the auckland region, of racegoers,owners(thats not counting people like someone in a syndicate who owns a 2% share),trainers,breeders,etc you would see that the rate of increase in auckland population has similarities to the rate of decline in auckland harness. Is aucklands population growth the sole reason,obviously no,but is it a factor,very obviously yes. Urban sprawl,significantly increasing land values which have devoured areas once used for the training of harness racehorses and the caring of harness horses not being raced(e.g.bred/grazed) which has lead to it just being impractical,costly,time consuming to commute,etc. Put simply,its no longer practical for anyone to invest a million $ in a property just so they can pursue a hobby of training 3 horses.Nor can any young person go to a bank and say,give me the million i need to set up as a trainer and that i can show show you my books that show i have 10 horses in training. They would be laughed out of the bank. The same thing is currently happening in canterbury,just the dumbos haven't cottoned on to the future significance of its impacts on the sport. I've given my vision for auckland before and canterbury for that matter. Others have too. reality is,people first have to recognise an issue and its cause before they will take steps to make different plans,thats why you get so many negative comments that you refer to . Just people bashing there head against the wall on social media ,pointing out the obvious in the hope someone in power may change things.Thats not because someone wants someone to fial or an industry to fail,its the exact opposite but people just don't get that ,for some reason.

Interesting thoughts. Kind of ironic that HRNZ and auckland trotting people seem convinced that theres a link between the significance of the future survival of harness racing and the most populated cities. Any moron can tell you thats not the case. the most populated cities in nz are,auckland,christchurch,wellington,hamilton,tauranga and dunedin. Christchurch is the only populated city where harness racing is still doing ok,but mark my words,i can see all the signs that harness racing is on the decline there as well. four of the six most populated cities in nz... wellington,hamilton,tauranga and dunedin..what do they all have in common. Duh,can those in charge not see a trend,population size has proven to not have been a positive factor,yet they try and convince everyone that swimming against the tide will work for auckland. Its a bit like this push to get more young people working in the industry.Subsidise them for this,concessions for that.. I would say the whole time i've followed harness racing,i've heard the same thing. you would think after all these years people would realise what the reasons are that harness racing struggles to retain participation of the younger people once they have worked in the industry for a few years and got a little bit older.. but no,the attitude of the so called clever peoplce ,those who make the policies,is we need to focus on getting more young people.And all the current clever people think their ideas will be better than the ideas of the decades of administrators who looked for solutions to the same issue. i'll give another example of dumb as thinking. A year or so ago i read an article which said 93% of breeders were over 40 years old. It went on to say we need to focus on coming up with a way to increase the 7 %. Just think about the logic of that type of thinking,because it permeates the whole of the industry. Your figures show what your key demographic is,and you then interpret those figures to say, well,our focus and resources should be spent on increasing the 7% and not the demographic which make up the 93%. Just think about that. Itsall so very,very,very dumb. theres a reason for everything. if you ignore the reasons,then you will always fail.

there we go tabmanforever,just one of many ideas posted that you supposedly haven't read. many have posted a lot of different ideas about what the future should look like for your beloved auckland. Not just me,lots of the people who post on here have. like you said in a recent post,no one in charge takes any notice of the keybopard warriors(as you call them). tabman,rodney,old son,matey,... you say that,then wonder why people don't post as many constructive ideas as they once did.