the galah

I think age doesn't make any difference.Its just whether they are up to it tactically, and still have the desire.It would make a difference if they had a crash. The mcmullens do drive well. I have noticed pete mcmullen is very good overall,and narissa mcmullen very good in front in sprint races. Shes not as good in the longer races,as her horses over race too much,and not as good if not in front.Those other 2 don't seem to have driven much lately. I did think taleh mcmullen drives well,but Trent lethaby seems to be doing most of the driving for the J mcmullen stable at the moment. As to Grant dixon,i think his wife drives better,and chris petroff the best from that stable,but he doesn't get that many opportunities.Grant dixon drives conservatively most of the time,but does drive them well when he knows he is on a top chance.Maybe the conservative drives are because he also trains them.

Brittany graham one of those drivers who horses run for,and also has a very good tactical brian.A lot cleverer than her father when driving. He should leave the driving to her.

North island harness need to develop a proper business model which sees the sustainability of racing. For a start,stakes need reduced,and the bigger trainers up there should reduce their training fees accordingly.Auckland still has an asset than can be cashed up and racing continue elsewhere in the region.Thats just one of the most obvious is it not?

You have to laugh when you look at those bets.I guess its not their money,it would be like an imaginary game. Good on the TAB for giving the losses back. Its a good PR decision. They are a business, and it will help the tab long term. Anyone participating in the BGP syndicate should realise that. The TAB of course play the long game,and know the overall figures.

You refer to the auckland trotting club confirming a loss of $90,000,000(thats a lot of zero's),for the previous financial year. Money that could have been spent in areas which would have ensured a future for those in the industry up there,has gone,never to be seen again. It will ripple out to those who make a living from the sport. All rather sad. But the reality of today has to be faced. And are those who run the ATC living in the real world. Heres a quote from rod croon,president of the atc. Its the last sentence in last years Annual report on the clubs finances. Of note this was made only 10 months ago. "In 12 months time,as a result of the hard work and energy we have all brought to the club,i believe we will be able to look out from our new facilities and look forward to a prosperous future". Delusional is the word that comes to mind. So what conclusion could you come to. Well i would have thought the obvious one is those leading the ATC are either really stupid,or have been deliberately deceptive, i guess so as not to be seen as incompetent. What else could you conclude. Did they really think anyone with any sense would believe them.Why don't they face reality,tell it how it is.

and the winner was ....doug

I do have one driver that is only good for raising the blood pressure,and that is B barnes. He seems to get a lot of drives for unknown reasons to me,and drives the odd winner,but he drives an awful lot of very poorly judged drives.

I also think its a combination of faster tracks,and g dixon the trainer gets his horses to run consistently,which it lacked here. That may be partly due to when it first ran in australia it was against horses of slightly less ability than it raced in nz ,but the last couple of runs its been able to maintain its form.If you look at the horses it beat last night when they went 1.53,they included skippys delight,franco nandor and sense of occasion, all ex nz horses. Skippys delight still is the same skippys delight from nz. Near the end of his nz career he always ran here like he had some type of issue holding him back,and over there hes pretty much the same. Horses like him who pointlessly are asked to chase round horses that run forever in fast times in age group 1 and 2 races generally pay a price.Having said that hes getting to run in many 1 mile races now which should suit him,and surely he may get a win one day soon there. I've been following the queensland races recently,and i don't think it is the state where any improvement in a nz horse can be put down to something illegal going on.

someone who wants to make an informed comment on it.

I agree logic says the vaccine is being oversold,but the same message has been delivered worldwide by many governments,so its not just here. I think the worry is once the virus does start circulating here,how much stress will that put on our health systems and what will its flow on effects be? I think we should all be considering that and giving thought to what steps we take now so as to maintain our own personal health in the coming years.

Just seems like he made a silly decision to start his horses at the trials due to forecast inclement weather,but there doesn't seem any intent to deceive anyone,nor gain an unfair advantage.Hes put his hand up and admitted his mistake. The people in glass houses comment from long owner,whatever that is supposed to mean,sounds unwarranted. From a punters point of view its interesting to see reininm patron is considered a low grade bleeder and receives treatment for that. It's always raced like it has had some sort of issue which holds it back,it only being a sprinter and never quite finishing off its races after appearing to be travelling easy at the 400m. This case nothing to get excited about,Just the system working as it should.

And chris petroff.He should get more drives than he does.

i've been watching the queensland trots.Seems everyone is trying,except the odd exception. It does look like a few of the drivers go out there thinking they havn't got much chance and drive conservatively , but thats understandable if they assess the form right. You seem to have a lot of good drivers. The likes of m elkins,n dawson and l manzelmann.

I had googled that myself previously. Apparently they don't recommend the antibody test,because the results could be misleading. They say thats because the tests have been designed to pick up the antibodies produced when attacked by the original virus,and the vaccine makes the body produce the antibodies once its attacked by the virus,seemingly can be two different things. I guess we've all become google experts now,or so we think. If you go on the u.k. figures and your going to get the vaccine,it makes more sense to get it closer to when they say they are going to open the borders,as if you had it say in april it wouldn't be as effective.(unless you get the third shot).The only risk of that is if there was to be a big outbreak in the meantime i suppose. Best to put all the virus thinking on the back burner i think,and focus more on picking winners.

Personally i think our government has done a good job,but the messaging around what happens in the future is misleading in that it gives the impression the vaccine will somehow make living with the virus less of an issue. The U.K. has the most honest official reporting,and this is the latest today as case numbers surge again even with 77% of the population fully vaccinated with 2 shots.The study was of 1.2 million fully vaccinated people. Protection from the vaccine(used in nz) wanes to 88% after 1 month,and then after 5 months to 74%.The vaccine effectiveness is expected to continue to wane,which is why they say you'll need a 3rd shot,and so on.They say it wanes around 1/5 a month after the second shot.In the u.k. they are estimating a possible worst scenario of only 50% of elderly and health care workers,who were the first to receive the 2 shots, being protected by the start of their winter(which isn't far away).Apparently the elderly sometimes don't generate the vaccine protection that good if they have health issues anyway. On the positive front,there are a couple of theraputic drugs which seem to be quite effective,which they are hoping to use more on infected patients.

Yes i read that last lockdown,but of course whats the logic for it currently when hospitals aren't dealing with covid cases.It makes no sense. I think industry leaders seem to have dropped the ball over this issue.Whats happening was predictable .It appears australian racing authorities plan better than nz do. Also how can auckland trainers justify full training fees when they aren't able to fast work even on a reduced basis.

But of course if auckland stay in lockdown for a month or more,there is no way any auckland racehorses could be expected to race within a couple of weeks.The longer the level 4 where you can't fast work,the longer it would take to get them back up to racing fitness. My advice for any punters is if there is an extended lockdown in auckland,which seems likely,do not bet on any auckland races for at least a month.I found in the last lockdown that there was no consistency to the form for about 2 months after it resumed. It was obvious that some trainers could get their horses to race well early after racing resumed,but to do that the lack of proper preparation resulted in a clear drop off in form after a couple of runs. The principles of giving a horse a proper preparation so as to retain form long term still apply,lockdown or no lockdown. So the longer a lockdown at level 4 where fast work can't be done,the longer punters should stop punting once racing resumes.Thats the wise thing to do.

Thats the thing isn't it.The "experts" can't say with any certainty how it will all play out in time. Will it just become another bad flu type thing ,or will it become more virulent than it currently is. Its always evolving, so how can there be any certainty,vaccine or no vaccine?Everyone has their own individual health issues,so there can be no blanket right or wrong decision,its not that simple.And our leaders shouldn't be selling it that way.And why don't we hear more about theraputics? One thing you can say,is the chinese scientists,with the help of funding from institutions run by people like usa"s dr faucci certainly did a fantastic job in creating a virus that could do immense damage to humans. "

The most obvious question that trump haters should ask,is how are things going in the USA now,and how strong is its leadership viewed on the international stage. And does that make the world a less safe place. Not that it will effect us in nz. And why do joe biden's approval ratings continue to fall ,even with the trump hating media and big tech running cover. The usa got what they voted for,and now they are living with that reality. And on the vaccine. I'm not anti vaccine, but is it not obvious that its being over sold. Even the usa cdc has recently released the data which shows after 6 months the protection the pfizer vaccine provides reduces to 84%,with protection against severe illness being gradually eroded as time goes on. So thats after 6 months,whats it going to be after 8,10,12 months? Thats why the usa are now saying everyone should get their 3rd jab after 8 months. What are they going to say down the track?

While i'm not suggesting authorities aren't handling the latest virus outbreak well,you can't help but wonder sometimes. For example,only 2 weeks ago an article appeared in a newspaper i read,which said a hospital in nz, which apparently services about 60,000 people in that area,had in the month of july had 76 people admitted,some in the ICU department,with another 39 patients treated and discharged from their emergency department,with RSV(respiratory syncytial virus). Yet that got little attention or coverage.

Yes c ferguson was the junior driver.When first starting out as a junior driver,he got multiple warnings while others would get charged with the same thing.For example i remember he got warned for the same thing 3 times in 5 weeks,and a final warning seemed to mean nothing.. In my opinion,the stipes had double standards at that time when it came to that stable.For e

Yes he was charged and suspended a couple of times,but of course many believe they were the tip of the iceberg. The silly thing was he appeared to have no reason for not trying other than wanting his horses to place,instead of winning.Back then the main southern stipe,(a nice fella but since moved on) actually had worked for mclellan and you had to wonder if that was a factor.Mclellan also had employed a junior driver at about that time who seemed to get away with much more than others. I guess its human nature not to want to hurt those you like,but the rules have to be consistently applied.

I guess its up to owners who they support. For some its as much about having a bit of fun,but of course there's not much fun in poor results. But the thing is even the least successful are giving it their best shot.Its when you go out there with the intention of not trying your best that you get noticed. And when you do it on a regular basis people can't help but distrust the intentions of the person concerned. Then you get a reputation,and when a horse you used to train wins,you get negative comments .Thats just how it works.

On a day when there was some competitive racing,the kurow cup turned out to be a non event,and they ran one of the slowest first mile seen in a race this season.No one wanted to go anywhere near blair orange in front.They go faster at the workouts.For some reason that seems to happen a bit at oamaru in their feature races. The non win trot went just as fast as the cup,and the other pacing races,including the non win pacers and the trotters races ran considerably faster.

And they show very significant improvement.Its a shame,because as you say brodie he used to have his share of success. From watching his horses over the last few years its obvious his horses think they are at the races to just have some exercise,and on the very rare ocassion they will be asked to try.Its been one of those mysteries that is hard to come up with a reasonable explanation for.Its good to see another stable having a go with one of his horses and being successful.