Walt

We know the well worn routine by now. Regardless if it's Barry or Mark the first priority in these big races for the Purdon's is to control them one way or another, usually via a numerical advantage. Barry only has one starter. Cold Chisel who has shown he can win good races on his own merit. Mark has three runners. A victory from two of his runners would be an upset win but Catch A Dream is the real deal and can win from anywhere. I was there on NZ Cup Day when he came from well back on the turn to snatch victory on the line. A remarkable win. I've also seen him sit parked and still dominate. He can win this race without any favours. Robert and Jenna Dunn have two runners and both are drawn inside Catch A Dream. Who will lead? I can see one of the Dunn runners leading but that could result in Cold Chisel trailing or even being three back. Difficult to control the race from there so I wonder if Zac will hold the lead knowing the main danger Catch A Dream would be comfortable to sit outside him parked. If that unfolds, the name Purdon will be controlling another G1. What are Vessem and Walk By Faith going to do? It would be game over for both if they take on the leader and I do believe Catch A Dream will have the parked position. Not an easy choice for Nathan and his quality three year old Dreams Are Free. The lead won't be there for him and I doubt the parked spot will be either. If he moves early he will likely get posted and game over. Perhaps his best option is to sit back and hope it's a truly run race where he can bomb them late with one run at them. Not confident there as the Purdon's control G1's for themselves, not their rivals. He has got speed off the arm to have a dig for the top like he did last week but different story here. Will it be a truly run race? I hope so. Perhaps the Dunn horses may have a say in that. Barring accidents, I think the quinella is sorted. Catch A Dream and Cold Chisel. Third will be decided by the horse that had the best run behind them. I think that will be Dreams Are Free......but only if Nathan is patient. Will be a fascinating race...............but it may well be another predictable control and dominate affair.

You are right about Twista being a gelding. My bad. Re Tate. I don't think he's trained many of those on his own account. He's being under Frank's wing for some time. That aside, your input is to ignore the house but instead focus on the letterbox colour. Is that your thing? Ignore the content apart from attempting to discredit it via reasonably obscure aspects. Nowornever's comments on Josh are correct. They have been my observations also. Can't comment much on the David Butcher drive as I haven't seen it but if his observations are correct re sectionals then there may well be merit in his claim. As a promising three win horse, Irish Whispers ran a mile rate two seconds slower from the front 1.57.9 than one win horse Precious Bet ran also from the front 1.55.9. Precious Bet won. Irish Whispers didn't.

We all know Josh Dickie is a very good driver. I'm not questioning that. The Telfer stable have an excellent strike rate but you can't help but notice Josh gets beaten a lot on hot favs from that stable. Tim Williams on the other hand has an impressive strike rate when the money is on a Telfer runner. He has a don't argue style that routinely results in a win. I noticed two Telfer runners last night at Cambridge that both looked good things. The first was Twista who was paying around $1.70 when I looked. She's been running against good fields. I copped her at Nelson in January. Her work rate and ability to still be there at the finish got my attention. Last night she sat back while the stablemate led. Didn't attempt to take the parked out spot. Ran home nicely for second. Finished faster than anything in the race. Connections would be very happy with the outcome. Not so sure about punters. In the last race Aardi B Miki looked extremely hard to beat after here fine second in the Southern Oaks Final. Matty White wanted the top from the pole. Josh wanted it to but as usual was the first to relent. From that moment on he had a 0% chance of beating The Mighty Sully who had complete control of the race. To my eye Josh settles for second much easier than Tim Williams. I don't mean to be unfair to Josh, just sharing my observations.

That's an interesting number Brodie. I wonder who's arse they plucked that number out of. Maybe they are saying there are 70 stages of madness or they got it from the same place the camel jockeys got the number of virgins waiting for them in paradise after they've turned themselves into flying mince

We live in crazy times that's for sure. From a personal perspective I have no issue whatsoever with people out there that are in same sex relationships. I would strongly resent someone telling me how and who I should be intimate with so that needs to be a two way street. We have two shirt lifters in our circle. Both very intelligent guys with very good sense of humour. I take the piss out of them every time we are all together. They do the same back. Never anything nasty or cutting. There is no attempts at educating anyone about the way they live. Interestingly, the only group they ever talk negatively about are the trans weirdo's out there. Those basket cases demand tolerance to the point of unconditional acceptance of every half baked concept they put forward. These people are the epitome of intolerance and light years away from your average "Gay" person. Our "Gay" friends have been very patient while the world slowly accepted them as equals to heterosexuals'. That progress is now being undone by the trans weirdo's demanding with complete intolerance that you accept unconditionally their bullshit. Gay and Trans are worlds apart but in many eyes are now being lumped together. Then you have women. They have fought hard over many decades to be treated with respect in all areas of life. They've had success but it's taken many years with great sacrifice from the days of Emily Davison right up until today. Now you have trans men hijacking their space and forcing the world to accept it. It's become so farcical the enablers have awarded a biological man the award of "Women of the year"...what a complete insult. You have men winning female beauty pageants. You have men in sports destroying the careers of women and removing the names of women from the sporting achievement record books. Then you have the lesbians out there. A percentage of these ladies dislike men yet men are now taking their space in a manner that is not welcomed. The militant way trans men demand and bully for total acceptance should never be the way forward for any group. They are even demanding our normal is changed to their their normal right down to the way we refer to people as he / she / him / her. It's far king ridiculous. These nut jobs love getting in your face and often treat people not like them with hatred and contempt. The irony there not lost on many. The way our world has always evolved results in rational discussion where things that makes sense and work effectively are embraced. Those that don't make sense are rejected and discarded. It's a great system that has always worked well. The trans weirdo's hate that system and have replaced it with their own completely intolerant system where you must accept them while they reject you. There is no productive discussions. It's their way or the highway. As an aside. Do you think the owners of a horse would have the name "Mighty Gay" accepted now Would the Flintstones be allowed to have a theme song about having a "Gay old time"? We have to laugh at all this bullshit but that's not so easy at times. Can you imagine what future generations will say about this era. I imagine one common question will be "why didn't they stamp out the madness?"

I sense posting that was a hard one Shad but once you let it go there was considerable relief that it was well received. As for offended people. We live in a time where just calling a man Sir, Mr, he or him will offend the perpetually offended. When that occurs it's a bonus

haha...I will have to steal that one Shad

I remember those well..They tasted pretty average....but me thinks you've just opened up a window into your soul Chief. I remember eating them while you apparently were playing with them

may have to get the metal detector out around your back garden Shad

I'd imagine a tin like the Cardy one was for a Christmas type treat? I think Aulsebrooks went tits up in the early 80's. It's mostly all Griffins and Arnott's now. Very cool to see kiwi's paying respect to the great Cardy who did so much to put NZ on the map. The buying of NZ harness horses by yanks took off as did the breeding industry benefit. Pity the ATC couldn't pay Cardy the same respect. Dug him up for a carpark

Was strolling around the Nelson market and copped this. Very happy to pay $10 and hide my bills in it.

Not sure it's laziness or incompetence. More like arrogance. I had several chats about things including customer feedback with a suit high up the food chain at Petone. He was brutally honest and forthright about customer feedback. He said TAB customers are losers and we don't want or need the feedback of losers. What's changed? You tell me. Perhaps the only thing that's changed is the willingness to be so forthright and brutally honest.

As far as Treble will-pays go, I can also remember some Trackside Presenters reading the will-pays out prior to the third leg so they've known about this for some years. Perhaps the TAB intends to phase out trebles?

Unsure if I'm looking in the wrong place but I can't find treble will-pays ? Back in the day you had to ring the TAB and if you got a helpful person they would read you the will-pays for the third leg. Then we evolved and the will pays were shown on the TAB website. One of the the things I'd do once I had those will-pays was wager on a runner as a saver that I hadn't covered in the treble. It's puzzling that this option has been left out. Another option I've noticed in the past and used was setting an alert for bet amounts. If for example I was spending $50 on a treble via 5 x $10 wagers, I'd get an alert if I was placing a $100 wager instead of just $10 by accidently adding an extra zero in my haste to get my wager on. I could then amend the error so I wasn't lumbered with a $100 bet for example when I only wanted a $10 wager. Unfortunately, this very handy function was removed when the TAB started their previous new betting platform. That still hasn't been added with the latest upgrade. When you consider the speed often needed when placing multiple wagers and the difficulty and time restraints to cancel a wager placed in error, this option would be a very welcome addition. This is yet another function that could have been considered if the TAB had sought feedback from the very people that will use the platform on a daily / weekly basis year after year.

Always easy to be wise after the event Gammalite but that was a great price for Mach Shard. His form was there for us all to see but still paid north of $20 despite coming from behind all the same horses last week and beating them. Better Eclipse briefly looked likely but Mach Shard was handled to perfection. ....again Nat has many times been able to drive the best and fittest horse in races in a manner that would result in most horses holding up the white flag before the turn. ....yet still dominate them. Not so last night. Seemed a massive ask last night for a horse that has been up for a long time and run many huge races on both sides of the Tasman

Pretty sure Fancy Matilda raced as a 2 year old filly in the 70's Brodie.

Fancy Fred brings back memories Brodie and yes Gordon trained him. They stood the sire Truant Hanover among others at Milburn Farm. Carl trained numerous pacers but was best known for his skills with trotters, One of the horses I mentioned earlier "Acapulco" by my old fav Lopez Hanover won a couple of races for Carl as a pacer. I'm sure he had better pacing performers that have slipped my mind. There are a few horseman I know of that I've never heard a bad word spoken of them. The great D.G Jones is one, Robin Butt is another and Carl Middleton is also in that same group.

I can't recall the 2 year old winning pacer Carl trained Brodie but my memory is not what it was. He had a two year old trotter called Damion Carlos who won a two year old trot. Lilly The Pink was another of Carl's very good trotters. I wonder if it was her Shad was thinking of giving fields big starts. I'm confident you're right in saying Gordon was Carl's father. Carl sadly succumbed to melanoma

I met Carl numerous times. A master with the trotters and a thoroughly good and decent man. Everyone I crossed paths with respected Carl. His best trotter of course was Fraggle Rock. but a few of his others were Milburn Carolyn, Acapulco, Perilly, Milburn Jubilee, Oslo, Dixie Tryax , Little Rock, Outer Reach , Purple Passion, Butler Billy, Milburn Segil, Westland Sun, Savona, Pink Diamond, Another Love and a host of others.

Hi Furlong, You're onto it. When I'm wagering it's uncanny how a horse's name really stands out to me. I will have done the form and may have been including it in an exotic bet but it doesn't immediately leave me. It stays in my head for about 15 seconds where as other runners didn't have that effect. The number of times that runner actually wins the race is more than enough to get my attention. Something will have have subconsciously been taken on board with Better Eclipse in it's recent runs so when I saw it again it was "bingo!"....then every time I did the form I kept getting drawn back to Better Eclipse. That sort of powerful draw last happened to me was with Gun For Fun in the early 1980's when he won the Grand National Hurdles for Dummy. I just kept backing him as did everyone in my circle. I'm not wagering at this time but still follow harness racing with almost as much interest as if I was betting. I'll watch Better Eclipse tonight with interest and see if I should ignore instincts or place more value on them. Whatever the case may be it should be a good night of harness racing.

I looked at the Messenger field for Friday night and one horse just keeps jumping out to me. Every time I go to look at other runners in an outstanding field I keep being drawn back to this one horse. I don't say this horse is a good or not good bet, just that I can't look at the field without him jumping out at me. The horse: BETTER ECLIPSE. Maybe a big night for Greg Sugars who also drives Just Believe in the big trot. He and Oscar look like the quinella of the season.

You got that right Shad. When I look back at my half century + being a harness racing fan / supporter / participant / punter I can point out without hesitation my all time favourite horse. Lord Module. We all knew his immense ability but he could be an absolute mule on and off the track. He tried to bite my hand and ear off on more than one occasion and watching him start in races was always heart in your mouth stuff. You were about to be taken for a wonderful ride......or have your day written off. I can remember some wonderfully talented trotters with big motors over the years that gifted you increased anxiety right until the finish line. My prediction is Heartbreak Hotel will start getting around in one piece and catch punters eyes with some solid runs just behind the first three.....then when he finally wins he'll pay $1.90

Cheers Rangatira. Found it.

I hope so mate. He's well past his use by date. Mute button gets worked over when he appears. A mate I spoke to earlier said he was charged a small fee to make a deposit today. Unsure if that only applied to him or is the new normal. He turns over 100k per year via the NZ TAB so was a bit miffed on principal to be charged to make a deposit.

There are some positives in there Brodie but they've clearly dropped the ball in several important areas. I did watch a couple of races on the site today. They have a Trackside icon on them to click to view but there are numerous races that are not televised . Fingers crossed they accept customer feedback and rectify the important aspects they've failed to prioritize. To be fair they should have sought some customer feedback prior to pressing the go button on the new set-up. It's a good site but could easily have been much better. Will be interesting to see how the platform handles pressure.