Noodlum

Hang on a minute. Not excusing his behaviour but this happens every week in NZ. Why does the fact he worked in the Harness industry reflect on the industry? It is only in the minds of the media who have an anti-racing narrative to foster. Also the pressure that some individuals have been put under during INCA would make the strongest of us crack. I just hope that those who started this sorry mess are bought to a account.

Hang on a bit it happens in the other codes too. Lesson one: never ever be an absentee owner if you own a horse. If you don't see it physically from time to time then I'd question why you were in the game. Lesson two: Most horse trainers, if not all, are traders. Especially in NZ as that's the only way they can stay afloat. If you accept that then you will view your ownership differently. Now with those lessons in mind you'll notice a whole lot of other rorts. For example and this is a Thoroughbred one - the Pre-Trainer fees vs the Trainer fees. I was at the trials with a couple of friends and we were watching one of their horse's. "How long has your horse been at the Trainer's?" "About 5 weeks - why?" "Well how come it hasn't been groomed like the trainers others - tail and mane cut etc?"

Didn't CWJ get fined once for not using the whip?

Yep all the All Stars horse talent is suddenly going to get slower. Yeah right! The biggest beneficiaries will be Blair Orange and TIm Williams. Although it isn't clear that Mark and Natalie will be hanging up their race day driving just yet. LOL I see the All Stars UDR is back up to their average and climbing.

Did you read the letter to owners? Hardly a sabbatical as we know it.

All sounds reasonable to me. Must be bloody hard work keeping up the standards they have set with a large team. With all the BS going on in the industry in the last few years and no sign of any admin purges coming wouldn't be encouraging. No doubt they are well off why not enjoy life a bit more. Well earned.

Don't miss an opportunity to seed another conspiracy.

As you were I was thinking of the two year old filly.

Has it won a race?

A long night on the juice Forbury?

Suggest you say that directly to Natalie Rasmussen. Can we watch? I imagine you'd have a new arsehole torn by the time she'd finished replying. Assuming of course she'd even bother responding to your crap.

He's not even a Whale now. More like a Sprat.

As talented as any. Honest as the day is long. With the All Stars down on numbers he seems to be getting more outside drives in races with no All Stars.

Two nice drives and wins at odds.

Give's him more time to sort out his INCA evidence or lack thereof.

I disagree. Just because they can't get it right why change tradition? When did the Cup stop being a handicap? Also by making it a mobile you reduce the field size to 14. One horse would have missed out this year and in a good year it would have been two.

In the early 90's there were race times around 1:54. Nearly thirty years later on faster tracks the time is around 1:51.

You are sort of missing the point. We had a horse that we timed to run 200m in 12 seconds. That was nearly 40 years ago. That equates to a mile of 1:36. Spankem's mile equates to a 200m of 13.5 seconds. As a breed the standardbred reached its physiological speed limit years ago. The difference now is they can run a high speed LONGER. You'll find that some of the sectionals Lord Module ran in his 1981 Allan Matson FFA would be as fast as any today.

Speaking of whips. I see they are racing Cane Toads in Australia and using prods. I fully expect SAFE to get onto this with post haste. It appears that the toads in WA have evolved to have bigger heads and be faster than those in Queensland. https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/animals/cane-toads-showing-signs-of-rapid-evolution-as-they-continue-australian-invasion/news-story/faae4caaac1f3cee3731bb3d666e932a (c) Raceway trials In a separate set of trials, toads were placed by hand at the start of a 2 m wide, 15 m long outdoor raceway and encouraged to hop by prodding their urostyle with a blunt pole. This raceway was constructed on hard bare ground (soil) and had 0.5 m high walls to prevent escape. Trials commenced immediately after the toad was placed on the racetrack. Individuals that refused to hop after 10 consecutive pokes were considered to be exhausted or unwilling to move, and their trial was terminated. We also recorded the time and number of hops for the toad to complete each 5 m segment of the racetrack. All trials were conducted between 19.00 and 00.00 h, at ambient temperatures of 25.4–27.4°C.

Yes but it was 27 years ago that Chokin went 3:59.5. I'm picking he would have been more than competitive. As I said they haven't got faster they just are just as fast but go longer.

You reckon? If you look at the record history you will find that they haven't got that much faster they have just increased the breed's stamina to run faster longer. Well in New Zealand anyway. Armalight hold's the mares 2000m record and set it in 1981 i.e. 39 years ago.

Yeah well racing must have been real crap when they didn't have them! NOT!

But it doesn't actually make them race faster than they can. The good one's don't need any encouragement.

Those horse's in the past that did that in the extreme were quickly moved to the outside of the second row. If you didn't behave you were penalised now days you get looked after! As for deafeners - I'm not a fan of all this extra bullshit that's being used to essentially overcome poor breaking in and poor training. FFS pulling the ear plugs makes a horse go faster?

A "running" standing start is an oxymoron! In my opinion it's due to a drop in standards (that seems to be happening all over this PC world) and the enforcement of them. You don't manipulate the rules to accommodate the poorly trained horses. I remember we had a good horse that was a bit tardy and nervous when starting. We were heading to the big time with him so we decided to spend a few hours every week for a bit practicing his starts. Had the radio on Radio Trackside (its then equivalent) blaring at full noise, the kids lined up in deckchairs with their noisy toys playing their best tunes (NOT!) and encouraged to yell. The dog even joined in barking. One of the owners standing with the barrier bungee. The horse naturally wanted to run so if he bottled it the trainer/driver would quickly pull him up and we'd start again. Turned him into a horse that would stand still entirely focussed on the tape and a brilliant starter regardless of any distraction thrown at him. You could say he became too good at times as we didn't always want to lead so soon! Actually we suspect he started to anticipate the start by watching the Starter. In those times if you kept breaking at the start you'd get put on the Unruly list (when it actually meant something) and if you kept breaking and blowing your chances the competition for starts in ALL grades was such that you had to go get trial form to start again. Now we have horses turning up week in week out failing to pace or trot so regularly that they may as well start them at Riccarton!