the galah

You seem to have more faith in the media than me. I've followed the protest quite closely,and to me the coverage has been strongly pushing the message that the protesters have many different goals and represent many different groups. One media report today referred to white supremacists and maori sovereignty groups amongst them. They have gone down the racist path in several reports. Lets be honest,the media aren't going to change mid stream in how to paint anyone who is anti vaccine mandates. Your right about adern.Today she said she didn't know exactly what the protesters wanted,saying"they had trump and canadian flags". I mean, she can't even work out that the Trump flag is because he is anti vaccine mandates and the canadian flag refers to the truckers who have continually said there protest is against the mandates.She has lost touch.

Actually turns out you do have a point there chief. I had a look at a couple of other clubs. for example for the 2021 year Methven received $917,000 industry funding and paid out $729,939 in stakes. Auckland do appear to have a higher % payout for industry funds received to stakes paid than methven. Maybe that might change.Interesting that they have borrowed an extra $1,000,000 to develop some land into a new subdivision. They are selling 22 lots and you would think they can't go wrong selling bare land as sections at the prices they get now days. I see they even disclosed Ricky May liked one that much that hes bought one, in an arms length transaction. Then i had a look at timaru. They had only the 2020 as the latest. They received $512,580 and paid out $333,740. This year they did increase their stakes quite a bit so maybe the % paid has improved. addington was hard to work out as the exact break down wasn't as clear. But by the looks of it Auckland much better than them as well. Maybe HRNZ or the ATC should publish that % for every club so there is some transparency and people have a better understanding of where each $ goes and how much is returned in stakes..

What other clubs didn't?

Well thats what the 2020 annual accounts said they were for. Why would it change? Well the ATC records them as subsidies received and those races as stakes paid out. The point is a large part of why the ATC was able to say they had a profit recorded last year on the racing side of things was because the industry gave them extra funds.They record that extra funding on the income side of things. In 2020 they paid $90,993 less in stakes than they received funding,yet in 2021 they paid $451,816 less in stakes than they received in funding.Using that logic,why not give them an extra million dollars in industry funding,,then their racing side of things would look even better.Aren't they just cooking the books? The money just doesn't materialise out of nowhere. Giving it to auckland means other areas don't get it.

Extra industry funding for the bigger races and sale series races like the other night.

Thats how it was supposed to look. Not sure why it came out not lined up first time.

Ok i have found the 2021 annual accounts. I'm not a rocket scientist,but i can do maths and all is not what it seems to me if you just look at the $642k profit you refer to.Just take a closer look at the figures. You'll have to excuse how some parts of this post line up. It doesn't come up as i have typed it for some reason. Anyway For the 2021 year 2020 year Industry funding 6,940,524 5,538,787 subsidies 1,055252 927,150 total 7,995,776 6,465,937 Stakes paid 7,543,960 6,375,004 subtract industry funding from stakes paid. In 2021 $451,816 90,933 So the ATC received an increase of $360,883 ,in excess of stakes paid,from the industry than it did the previous year. Then you look at totalisator expenses down $251,000 which must mean less staff and poorer service,workout and trials take up $158,390,i guess they have socked the owners to run at those things. Those type of things along with acceptance fees going up 60% while other things has gone up on average about 18%. So the industry is subsidising them more,owners are having their costs increased, all while services provided are being cut. Thats the real picture around the racing side of the business. Haven't HRNZ shut down clubs who actually did have good books?

Fully agree gammalite. Sad for the horse that it was driven like that. Fully agree that its confidence would be shattered,and when it runs in fields where its courage has to be called upon,i would expect it to take the easy way out. Horses aren't stupid. Having said that its that type of drive that adds excitement,and gets people talking.So if someone wants to drive too aggressively and actually comes off looking stupid,well i don't think they should receive any official penalty. It was the factor that helped set up the Magic Four win,by effectively making rasmussen go too hard to retain her position with franco indie,knowing she could not conceed to a horse that had raced so poorly at its previous start. That should have set up the race for Akuta to win,but he wsn't up to it on the night.It was still a great performance from the reid/mcmullan/p ferguson team to get the win. Also the run of Franco Mac probably put some context into how Magic Four won,and akuta underpeformed,as franco mac only just got beaten after suffering a bad check early. You would think Johnny cox would look at that race,or the Kiss The Girls drive yesterday which was far worse,and wonder maybe i should have defended that charge of not giving a horse its best opportunity. Who knows.

Yes,They are still sticking to the story that the vaccine will protect you,even while admitting that the vaccine people have been given was designed for a covid variant that has been overtaken by a more dominant,far less serious strain. New Zealand is just lucky that we have not had the original variants get here before it morphed into something less serious. And the government does deserve credit for that. But any credit they deserve has been washed away in a wave of idiocy by the policies of discrimination and removal of individuals freedom. I think many of those that have taken the vaccine in a lot of ways want to see the continuation of the scare mongering as in some way it reinforces their belief in having taken the vaccine.That is what our government has made peoples thought processes become.

The reason i asked was because i have read the previous annual reports for the years ending 31 july 2020 and 2019.So i think you have got it wrong this time chief. I would have thought the applicable portion of the annual report was under "racing revenue and expenditure". For 2019 they had a loss of $252,273 and in 2020 a loss of $243,715. It appears the reduced racing due to covid in 2020 meant their losses weren't quite as big as the previous year. The bulk of their funding for stakes comes from industry funding. They also receive industry subsidies(e.g. for running the bigger races).They receive more industry funding and subsidies than they pay out in stakes.

Can you provide a link to the latest annual accounts? Doesn't the previous couple of years show the racing side of things was running at a loss? But if we are to believe what you say,then they have somehow turned that all around in the previous financial year,despite declining horse numbers and covid? That would be a positive if it was true,but can you provide some proof of that?

You don't seem to have any idea where Trumps support increased in the last US election.For example Biden got 60% of the hispanic vote. Trump making a 9% gain with hispanics. Trump made small gains with the black vote as well. He also made gains with White women,but lost some support amongst white men.Recent polling shows he continues to gain support amongst those groups. What is also clear is he made huge gains with blue collar workers,and those without a college degree,especially the hispanics in that group. So either you think Hispanics and blacks are in large numbers turning into white supremist sympathizers, or you have just been sucked in by the media.

Maybe hes come to the same conclusion as expressed in the "dire picture painted by Auckland trotting club auditor" article a couple of months back. Brodsters always on the money.

Brodie,what do you think of the latest media article on stuff which profiles who is most likely not to take the vaccine."the most consistent predictors of non vaccination are things like distrust of science,the police,dissatisfaction with the government,dissatisfied with their personal doctor.The more deprived the area a person lives in the more vaccination sceptic they're likely to be." I read that and thought these people the media turn to are just as ignorant as the "disinformation Experts" they have on the one news. Not one of the 6 predictors of non vaccination applied to me. The morons who come up with this rubbish haven't even worked out that it was how government and media responded to a persons vaccination choice,which has led to the distrust. Just so dumb.

Mark jones is a trainer i admire.He's as good a trainer as anyone. I watched Krug. To me he looked like a tired horse.Maybe thats why he broke the week before. Last night he was gifted the lead from his 1 draw,received no pressure on an average speed,then just fell in to 2nd,fading quickly the last bit. Will be interesting to see how he goes if he keeps racing.

Is there? What was it chief?

Magic four last 2 starts were seconds at cambridge,one behind a handy 3year old in a 1 win race,and the other behind a horse who has had 5 wins from 50 starts,who had dropped back to the 1 win grade because it had been unable to win at manawatu. So i don't think brodie would have on that one. But well done to the reid/ mcmullan team. It was a good race to watch ,but you would have to ask has the dylan ferguson driven horse got to the finish yet. No surprise it was down to a walk before the 200m mark,given the way he drove it. Someone needs to tell him he wasn't driving lazarus. Still he did add excitement to the race,even if he did look rather stupid.

Actually you would no doubt have noticed Brodie,what Donald Trump says,or more accurately doesn't say,when he is asked the question about President Bidens's declining mental capability. Its one of the questions hes always asked. You would have seen his standard answer is never to criticize that aspect of Biden, instead he always prefers to change the subject or talk about why his policies or achievements are better.

So because Trump,the man,showed very poor judgment by mocking a reporter in 2015,that is a good enough excuse for the southern commentator, justin evans, to often make disparaging remarks about trump when a horse with his name races. Thats some strange logic.It seems to be a contradiction to say you condemn that type of thing,when you also support it.

Kerr too honest to do that do you think chief?

Nothing wrong with his commentaries, but why does he always seem to make some disparaging remark about the namesake of the horse Donald Trump. Today it was he wouldn't what to put you through having to looking at trump in the shower.Seriously,this fella can't help himself. I don't get what his problem is.

One can't help but think you are giving a lot of oxygen to this archie butterflys views and publications. Still, promoting a conversation around the use of performance enhancers does has its positives,even though i think by continually referring to the dunn stable you have done that stable more harm than good. Actually i had never given any thought to sundee sons winning the dominion handicap,and had never given any thought as to the dunn stable and performance enhancers. Its not something i personally had considered. But your highlighting in this thread sundee son winning the dominion and breaking the nz record by 4.9 seconds does make me wonder how does that happen? I just used to go on what i saw to form an opinion,but when you analyse it,how does a horse improve so much? I just had a look back at some of the media coverage,and "staggering" seems to be a common word. Deeply shocking and astonishing is the definition of staggering. Keep up the good work chief. People need to ask questions when they see out of the ordinary performances.

I thought the dividend of the winner,better talk art was amazing. It was well favored in the similar race a couple of weeks prior and i thought had put in the best run of anything,just being poorly rated. So never should have paid$37. Just a shame my internet wasn't working when i tried to get a bet on a couple of minutes before the race.Not sure whether that was a nz TAB or a local area thing,as it does happen occasionally. I thought belle of montana should have been retired some time ago as its clearly been running as if it had serious issues,and i had actually thought Better twist had been racing poorly by its high standards,and was actually surprised it went such a good race,albeit unplaced. Gammalite you mention South Coast Arden. I thought in its only recent run from the Mangos stable it looked like it had lost a leg in comparison with its runs from the all stars. Time will tell as the north island doesn't have any depth. I agree with gammalite about gifting races to the top horses by not putting them on a handicaps in races like the nz cup,rowe cup and dominion. Races like that are no longer as exciting,not as good betting wise as they would be if the dominant horses were on handicaps. Also personally i think the connections of some who line up against sunndees son in races like the dominion off the same mark,well they are just mugs in my opinion.Just look at this years race run in record time.The hope pair and bolt for brillance have raced well since,but everything else has dissapointed,but what do you expect when horses get their heads kicked in,lining up in a race in which they were always likely to have a gutbuster for no possible return.

Turns out Cox admitted the charge and got 5 days. Just goes to show Cox obviously didn't think himself capable of arguing his own defence well enough. I guess it just proves that Cox agreed with forbury about his own lack of judgment. Strange but true.

At least we will still get to see William Pike riding in australia,as NSW doesn't discriminate like the other states do. Pike recently was quoted "i'm just a bloke trying to carry on. i'm just trying to make choices that i think are right for me."