the galah

Its a given that the numbers competing at the grassroots level will continue to decrease at an increasing rate. The most obvious reason is there is nowhere to train from. Take Canterbury as an example.Some racetracks can cater for only a handful of trainers,and some don't cater for any at all. The numbers at the tracks that do, you could count on one hand. And the reality is if you wanted to buy 10 hectares and build a barn and put in a track you need at least a $1,000,000. What banks going to lend that to someone starting out without a history of a past substantial income,and you don't have that when your starting out,no matter how talented you may be. And what grass roots trainer who has a wife is going to spend a million dollars on a property to continue his hobby. Only those with a substantial income from a source outside the industry are going to be able to do that and obviously they get that income from dedicating their time to their business. People should take a look around and you'll see what i have said is true.Just take a look at whos still training and what type of properties,how long they have been there, and the incomes they have.I have just recently and its so obvious where things are going. Nothing is being done to address it,i assume thats because the industry doesn't have the resources. Its inevitable. Its just reality. Just recently i was asking a fella whether he had a couple of paddocks to keep a couple of horses on his 10 acre property which had stables. He said no,the dairy farmer who was his neighbour leased it.I said to him doesn't that bloke live quite some distance away and he said yes,but that dairy farmer uses all the land from his house to where this fella lived. I asked him about anywhere he may know of ,to which he went on to tell me 30 years ago his properties 5 closest neighbours all trained harness horses,but there were no horses there now.The irony of the conversation was the dairy farmer who leased the small property used to train,and from the outside had a flash looking set of stables and the biggest training track i have seen. But that training track while still visible,it was round down and covered in weeds and obviously hadn't been used for years. You can't help but notice cows seem everywhere these days, and that has been the major influence in driving land values so high. So thats the way it is. Forget trying to come up with solutions to all the other issues,when racing either hasn't or can't fix what i have just referred to.

Maybe your right about folklore not being able to do work and still win,but when a race is unfolding into a sprint home and you are driving the class horse of the field that broke the track record 2 weeks prior, i think most hope the driver would at least make a move early enough to give it a winning chance.How many horses do you see come from 8 lengths off the pace at the end of the back straight like it was and get up and win. Sending it to trainor seems a good suggestion to maximise its earning capacity if that is what they are about. I actually backed one cox drove yesterday and he gave it every chance,making a move when the pace was slow,but it faded late,just not good enough on the day. Good drive though.He does drive a lot of horses that haven't got a high winning chance.

Its always very sad and you feel for the horses connections. During his racing career they must have been frustrated when he continued to hang as badly as he normally did and no doubt they would have done everything they could to discover the cause of that habit. Its not unusual for vets not to pick up a physical problem and sometimes they just give treatment in the hope that they may help. Now whether this was the case with mackenzie lad,i don't know but horses are so willing and eager to please and often very courageous that it can be to there own detriment.

So 2 of the 6 rides i mentioned sat 3 wide,so whats your excuse for the cut throat tactics of the horses inside them.Besides,just look at how they finished off their races to see what works.It also seems you are happier when jockeys press on if caught 3 wide even if their horse is out of its comfort zone and irrespective of the tempo .I would rather see one 3 wide and travelling,than being chased along just because the jockey has a pre determined mindset.

Looked an exciting day to be on course,but didn't the racing produce some cut throat tactics by some of the leading jockeys.V colfan,G grylls M cameron and A goindasamy twice all seemed to think the finish was at the 600m peg in the bigger races.Even O Bosson got in on the act in the last although to be fair to him he can't have expected the 2 roughies to engage in such self destructive deliberate tactics.It seemed the occasion got the better of them .

Never said you make things up.Not sure what that comment is supposed to mean and won't spend any time working that out. Like i said i am no expert on fertilisers but i thought manganese levels can be effected by the use of fertilisers. If you goggle it,it says if the levels are too high you add lime or farmers could try waterlogging.And if they are too low,milk production will be reduced.But i'm not going to tell you whats right or wrong because as i said ,you know more about it than me.

sounds like you are looking at it from your dairying background perspective. I know you know more about it than i,but there is so much dairying down that way now you can see how some could draw the connection to a problem they didn't use to have. Apparently the council is hoping engineering work will 'increase the level of natural filtration by the river bed prior to the water reaching the intake". So sounds like it flows through a river at some stage.

Three waters legislation. I visited timaru last week where they are anti the proposed legislation. Well it seems some of those who live in town may be changing their views after 3 weeks of heavily discoloured water and tankers being trucked in daily with clean water for anyone who wants to collect it. Same town which they said won an award for top quality water a month before.You have to laugh. Apparently it took them quite some time to work out the cause,which they ultimately discovered was too much manganese. I'm not an expert on fertilisers,but isn't that a key element in maximising milk production in dairy cows. Chief may know more about fertilisers and leaching given his background.

I understand why punters get frustrated with cox,he tends to have a go with the flo type approach to his driving and its unusual for him to show much aggression tactically. His natural instinct is to go back,hes consistent that way so you know what you get when you invest on him. Take Folklore at cambridge a couple of nights ago. A red hot favorite who is best saved for one run,but you knew it was a race where because of its superior ability it could be driven more aggressively than normal and still win in the field it was against. But cox never altered his normal driving style and came with a run that was way too late. But didn't punters know he was likely to drive like that so should they complain? Well i think the answer is no they shouldn't,but complaining does ease the frustration they must have with some of his drives.Personally I don't mind backing him if hes paying a good dividend,but believe if hes driving a favorite i would get better value backing something else.

its amazing that so many people just accept the direction they are pointed in by the government and media. People just go with the one size fits all mentality and just don't seem to consider individuals have their own unique state of health. There's so much information out there,and in my opinion its apparent from listening to overseas doctors who have been dealing with covid for almost 2 years,that recognising the symptoms and being aware of what stage your infection is at is very important and that receiving the right treatment/medication at the right time for the differing stages of your illness makes all the difference.Flccc.net is a website created by a big group of doctors in the usa which seems as good as any in explaining that.But the question you have to ask,why the current lack of education from the government around that.All you get is vaccine,vaccine and the virus is going to get you and be scared of the unvaccinated. Its such a depressing message and based on fear.Thats their main strategy.Why not promote some of the obvious positives that are becoming more apparent as each week goes by. And you really have to question the ability to form their own thoughts of those people who are scared of catching the virus from someone unvaccinated more than they are of catching it from someone who is vaccinated.Yet there is so many that think that way,apparently convinced by the government and media.I mean you had that model that came out a couple of weeks ago in nz that speculated omicron may possibly infect 50% of nz in the next 9 or so months.So going by that even if every unvaccinated person in nz caught it,you would still have 4 times more vaccinated people with the same viral load spreading the virus,yet the half wits that run the government and the likes of the TAB still through their segregation policies promote the message that the unvaccinated are to be feared more when it comes to the virus spreading.

If you get a mosquito bite do you just blame the bite for all your agitation when it was the mosquito that did it to you. Shouldn't you consider the cause instead of blaming it on angry pills or firewater as you have?

Well the World health organisation recently came out and endorsed research results which have found 2 doses of the pfizer vaccine was only 30% effective in stopping you getting infected.Then they said it goes up to 70% with the booster but that also wanes over time.So its no wonder so many vaccinated have caught it. And what about the recent study in california of 52,000 omicron patients which found that omicron patients had half the chance of delta patients of ending up in hospital,and ZERO omicron patients had ended up on a ventilator. One patient of the 52,000 who had omicron had died,but no doubt it would have been a patient with significant other underlying conditions. And aren't the researchers suggesting omicron will be end up similar to the seasonal flu in respect of death %. Now more people will obviously catch omicron because it is highly infectous and you will get more off work,and more in hospitals and those who have significant health conditions may need some protection,and delta is still out there,but you have to ask why are they scaring everyone about omicron to the extent they have.Whats it doing to so many peoples mental health? Its just crazy and our media and politicians continue to have fear drive their argument.

While i don't agree with some of your post ,i do agree that the likes of adern have preached caring and inclusiveness, yet their actions and words have delivered the opposite. I too can no longer have any respect for their like.I fully understand why aquaman feels so strongly. As to racing choosing to exclude non vaccinated people. I too greatly resent that action. And for what?When the last ashburton galloping meeting was held i drove past the public entrances of the racecourse. I saw people stationed at each entranceway just before race 6,and then noted there were 4 cars in the public carpark.Did anyone take note of the last midweek harness meeting at ashburton. From the pictures on trackside, they had 5 to 8 cars in the public carpark all day. I noted the grandstand had not one person in it prior to a couple of races. As to the tab banning the unvaccinated. That too is a joke.Compare that to say central christchurch or the shopping malls where 90% of businesses don't require vaccine passports. One thing is clear to me. And that is there is a lack of understanding by too many as to the resentment caused by dividing society on the basis of vaccination status.

If you look back it was on 29 november 2014 that barry lichter wrote a story titled "Auckland trots out costly gamble to rescue racing". Lichter it seems is one of the few real racing journalists in the north with any credibility on this matter.At the auckland clubmeeting in which only 100 of its 600 members bothered to turn up, a vote was held on the property development that was to save the auckland club from what appeared to be a dire future. ATC board chairman,kerry hoggard and his board gained almost unanimous support from members,and described the vote on the board recommended decision as a real vote of confidence. Only 6 members voted against it,with one,a gavin logan saying property development was the most dangerous game they could play and predicted the decision to proceed would eventually lead to the end of trotting at the clubs headquarters. So,there you have it. It seems everyone at that club knew if the property development went bad,then they knew that would be the end. Yet here we are today,and they still blindly plough on,apparantly ignoring the inevitable.

Interesting story on stuff today. It seems nz fire and emergency have got permission to push back the vaccine mandate date by 2 weeks to allow them to prepare contingency plans for reduced staff numbers to respond to emergencies. Seems there are approximately 1830 career fire fighters in nz and currently 300 of those career fire fighters have either said they haven't taken the vaccine or will not disclose whether they have. So thats a large reduction of staff overnight if they stick to their beliefs. If the same rates apply to the 13,000 volunteers,then obviously there will be a serious impact to that agency and its clear that this current government is intent on making those involved lives as miserable as they can to force them into submission,and make everyday new zealanders lives less safe at the same time.For those involved and their families the stress must already have been enormous. There can be no other way to assess the governments stance. So many who have dedicated their lives to jobs that serve the community will be tossed on the scrap heap. This government doesn't care.If ever there has been a time where division and discrimination of others has been actively promoted by a nz government,this is it.

I don't have a problem with them promoting the vaccine,but they could have done so in a way that didn't divide,but they have deliberately chosen to divide. The media is just as bad as our political leaders. I was watching a video clip of bill gates the other day.Hes been one of the biggest promoters of the vaccine worldwide.He said the current vaccines were keeping numbers in hospitals down,but weren't stopping the spread and they needed something better. Hes just saying what all the data indicates,but we are still having the spread placed on the shoulders of only the unvaccinated,and they keep upping the fear factor.And all that does is scare everyone and impact on so many peoples mental health,vaccinated or unvaccinated. How can you respect anyone who thinks that is proper leadership.

Didn't that nz thoroughbred announcement a couple of weeks ago ,that has a thread on the gallops forum, say it was their intention to bar unvaccinated from stepping on a racecourse or being employed in racing. So while adern has preached the message of division and fear, by continually saying the unvaccinated are dangerous and selfish,it the racing leaders who will become the ultimate enemy of many. Thankfully harness leadership have yet to say anything along those lines,but brodie as far as racing goes,you will need to redirect your attention from adern,and instead focus on racings leadership. So while cup week with the public didn't go ahead,nztr have already said you weren't welcome anyway.The worst thing adern and so many others have done is create an environment where so many will and have got serious mental health issues. Its crazy,they are supposed to be leaders,but thats what they have done.

$4 a place for second in the last race. He still gets the best out of his drives.

i have been watching his driving today,and in my opinion hes driving as well as he normally does,which is very good. apart from one drive which he drove perfectly and it showed nothing,the rest have been horses with not much chance no matter what run they got.So hes driven them conservatively.The horse he drives in the last would be his best chance on the day,and although not expected to win could place.

I may be the only one reading this at this time of day,but i kept the faith and robbie close has gone from burnt toast to champagne and caviar in my opinion. How a punters perspective can change with a winner. $5 a nice price.

I see i have the robbie close drive in the next as the clearest winner of the day.To back him,or not to back him. Maybe i should hope for a change in tactics.

Race 4. star casino from $7.50 into $3.80. How was that horse backed into favorite? I must admit i had a small tote investment ,expecting it to be paying $12-$15,but was amazed that so much money came for it on the fixed odds and tote. It had a bad draw,and an out of form driver,yet it plummeted in on the fixed odds and tote. It did go a nice race as expected,but was driven as you would expect.i found its price crazy. And the previous race you had crystal daytom favorite. How could that happen on form. It ran a nice 4th ,but its ff and tote odds seem to hover around the $2.50 to $3.Again crazy money when you look at its form and driven by robbie close who ,while very talented,is very out of form and seemingly always trying to get the 7 back the fence position. Is their a tipster with a big following tipping these horses someone knows of? I can't think of any other reason why?

I don't know whether he's quite as good as he has been previously,but he still looks like he should win if he gets handy early. there looks to be only 3 realistic win chances. Vacation hill is an interesting runner. If they ran it hard you would pick it to run last.

I agree with what you have said. Oscar bon evena does seem to have been gifted that race.Good on the connections for taking advantage of that option as hes not a 2 miler.However you would have to ask questions of those that programmed the race,as clearly they have made it a non event and the handicaps they set appear to be a joke. I would also ask why would some of those in that race bother to line up. Seems extremely poor placement for many of those lesser performed horses that are set to start in a race they have no chance of winning.If form is anything to go on,those off the front have little chance of paying a dividend with the back 3 so well handicapped.

i think so