Noodlum

Not sure what you are on about.

Nope.

I was at Addington when he cleared out from the field and won by 15+ lengths.

How can you tell? What is your reasoning?

Trials are supposed to be run under race rules. Were the Stewards asleep? Was Pete Lamb the starter?

Yeah perhaps Williams thought the horse wouldn't hand up? Cosmic Major was backed up in 7 days. You would expect a 2 yr old to be a little bit flat. But it has now qualified for the final so......

You are obviously a fine judge of a harness race. If you knew this was going to happen I assume you got a fair decent slice of the $8 on offer plus a bit of Nat's smile?

Full credit Karrots you are a fine judge of a horse race.

Isn't the trial by La Rosa a bit of a joke? Why did the 5 horse start on the second line and the 6 horse (stablemate of La Rosa) start 4 lengths behind the front line? Hardly putting La Rosa under pressure!

I guess we will see on Friday. Should be unruly.

That wasn't the point. Drawn 1 is not going to help it if it has dodgy mobile manners. Also it is more likely to cause carnage from there than being in the unruly position.

La Rosa has blown the start badly 2 out of its last 3 starts from the mobile. Got stood down from the last one and had to trial satisfactorily. Is that good enough? Drawn 1 which can't help it.

How many were tested? In the interests of Integrity (the RIU's middle name) and transparency shouldn't that be publicly notified?

So why hasn't Lamb been fined? Or reprimanded?

So you don't know? Typical! I've never known anyone called Leo that I would call a "mate"! More crap from Flash. So where are the written protocols? For integrity purposes there would have to be written guidelines at least. Although one wouldn't be surprised if there weren't any. Shit if there were Pete Lamb would have been sacked years ago!

Where are the protocols that you refer to? You don't know do you? You just assumed and made it up!

How do you know they are "right"? These "testing protocols" you talk about what are they? Where are they documented? In the past there has been many a good (if not great) horse scratchy or pacing rough in their warmups.

The bigger issue here is consistency. Why only focus on those horses that have significant amounts of money on? Does the Vet check EVERY horse that races? NO they don't. How would you determine the Vet was right or wrong? How many serious breakdown's have you seen on a harness track? The Vet says the horse is lame. The Trainer says no it isn't - the horse always paces like that. Why would it be in the Trainer's interests to start a horse that was lame?

So sufficient interference to warrant a late scratching but not enough to warrant a False Start. No doubt there are NO guidelines what determines either!

Unsoundness was an interpretation by the Vet. Been many instances of where Vets have scratched horses that have actions that don't meet a Vets preconceived notion of being "sound". Remember Kiwi's scratching from his second Melbourne Cup? The difference is the pressure goes on when a horse has a lot of punters money on it. You can't tell me that the Vet looked at every horses action for soundness!

It wasn't about finishing 5th it was whether or not the horse would have finished 4th. I guess they perused the F4 betting records to see if there were any anomalies!

Geez Galah aren't you up with JCA "justice"? If you plead not guilty you end up getting pinged for more if found guilty! Not only that you run the risk of having a vendetta against you. How do you defend something that is entirely subjective in interpretation? Jessica said her horse was finished and would have run 5th regardless if she had hit it anymore. Why flog a dead tired horse? She admitted she stopped "driving it out" (a euphemism for whipping a horse). Rue the day we have first 5 betting!

Depends if you "flicked your wrist" the wrong way!

The current whip rules are a crock of shyte. Take these two examples from last week. Jessica Young-Grant gets smacked a $400 fine at Waikouaiti in the 28th February for failing to driver her horse out in the last 40m and finished 5th. According to the Stipes if she had driven her horse our she MIGHT have finished FOURTH! Jessica basically said the horse had had enough. Same meeting Ms P Wakelin gets a $200 fine for "using her whip in more than a wrist flicking action." Whatever the hell "wrist flicking" means. Stipe Mr N McIntyre seems to be very much up to speed with "wrist flicking" actions - the mind boggles. He said her "wrist flicking was clearly excessive". FFS.

Well House is quick to point the bone but well "what goes around comes around"!