Brodie

Actually I do think Trump is doing a very good job of President as the USA is going far better than many previous Presidents have. Dont believe in everything he does but the Yanks are getting in behind him more than ever and he will bolt in again, as have a look at the geriatrics that is going to be put up against him later in the year. As for the cat grabbing, we wouldn’t get away with it in NZ!!

Ronaldo, what a load of bollacks! Innuendos or whatever, most Harness supporters are aware that they are treated more favourably than they should be. Lily white I repeat! Ronaldo, I asked why do many of the females look like male horses?

To be fair I wouldn’t give the owners a heck of a lot of the credit at all for having winning horses. They just have to pay the bills and would have very little say especially the owners in the AllStars stable! The training and driver are the 2 most important facts. A potentially champion horse could be just average if the trainer doesn’t feed or train it well. A potentially good can be a very average horse with a poor driver on board and we see that week in and week out. Yes it helps to have owners who can spend big money on horses but theses same owners could spend plenty and send their horses to poor trainers and they will not get great results. We have been spoilt in NZ in recent years by having possibly the 2 best drivers we have ever had in Dexter Dunn and Blair Orange. Which one is better is hard to decide and if Blair was driving in the U,S. I am sure he would be cleaning up as well.

Happy, I would say it would be higher than that when you include the Labour and Green voters.

Winston is at Waitangi this week for the vote for this years election. Isnt he a man of his word? Reduced immigration? Yeah right? Very open and transparent Thats right he brought in the Gold Card what an achievement and can’t win his own seat but holds the country to ransom, what a great system MMP is!

Ronaldo, you are probably in dangerous territory yourself! Football might be more your go! What has anyone said that puts them into dangerous territory on this open forum? Yeah lily white we all know that!!

Very dry and stoney at the moment!

Gammalite, the AllStars dominance is in the Group races or all the races with the big money up. If they were winning maiden races and one win races continually then that can be explained that it is due to their better training techniques. The reality is that their horses are far superior to all other stables in NZ by a substantial margin in the big stakes races. You can not possibly believe that it is due to just having big paying owners or Mark and Nat having a better eye than any other trainer in NZ! If it was down To the way they train their horses, then that can not be true or else Blair Orange and other trainers who have worked at the AllStars stables should also know these techniques and be winning far more races than they do. The interesting fact is that when the principals of the AllStars stables are over in Oz, the AllStars horses in Nz racing are always very very disappointing aren’t they? What we do know is that they are not shy in using anything that could be beneficial to a horses racing ability whether it is known to be legal or hasn’t been made illegal yet! The dominance can not be attributed to just being more professional, that is just Bollacks, and you know it!

180 nominations in the North is probably not too bad considering at times Auckland weren’t getting enough noms to even look like being able to stage a profitable meeting. You are correct, harness racing is pretty stuffed in the North Island and not a lot of promising things in the future with it. How on earth Auckland is able to maintain the stake money at the moment is very hard to fathom. No new trainers coming thru, junior drivers very scarce and without the South Islanders going up there, there wouldn’t be races for them. Seasoned trainers getting out of the industry and very few new owners wanting in spells disaster for racing up there.

Commonsense you would think, as the grass would be an absolute bog. Some horses down there will probably miss a bit of work as well so be wary.

So that is your answer? Most people with blinkers off are aware that their horses don’t go without a lot!

Gammalite, a question hopefully you may be able to answer. How are the AllStars stable able to make many of their racing mares look like male horses?

Anyone with an open view to Blood Spinning knows that there is far more to it than just helping out injured horses. Clearly the stables that use the blood spinning must have a heck of a lot of injured horses as it is used continuously. The article on Trackside was certainly one sided and biased and certainly didn’t dispel the theories that go around. With respect though, The Box Seat clearly over does the promotion of the AllStars stable and that is why most enthusiasts only watch the last 20 minutes of the show. They are sick and tired of the Blue and Silver domination which is just so bad for harness racing in NZ. not too many want to hear from that stable wanking on about their horses that have just scooped all major winning stakes, and he’s a lively wee chap blah blah blah!!

Always!

Great to see the harness Bookmakers over the last few weeks, bringing out the harness Fixed Odds far earlier than 5.30pm the day before the meeting! It just makes sense to be bringing the odds out as early as they can to enable punters to have more time to invest if they wish to! Bringing them out at 5.30 or 6.0 pm can make it a bit difficult to get on if you have a 9 to 5 type job with a family and a wife perhaps. At least in the afternoon they can get on before they leave work.

Michael House is keeping Manawatu harness racing going at the moment! This Friday he is providing 31% of the starters if my arithmetic is semi accurate! 83 horses down to race and Michael is providing 26 starters at this stage, which is rather incredible and would this be a record number of horses at any meeting ever in NZ? There is a trainer in Tasmania I think that always has heaps of horses lining up there! Would the Watu still be able to race if Michael wasn’t taking the horses up?

There just doesn’t seem to be many new ones coming thru from racing families at all, like there used to be. Reality is that it is very hard to make a lot out of training horses nowadays and basically impossible for the young ones, with the cost of land etc. No names mentioned but even some of our top trainers have had to have financial assistance from others or they wouldn’t be where they are!!

I note that the 2 year old race is not now being run obviously no further noms than the 5 originals. Sad state of affairs!

Why are there less foals being bred Ranga? Because breeders and owners are realising that breeding a foal and racing it is almost always a loss making venture nowadays? They have very little chance of winning enough money to make it a viable exercise as the group races are not winnable nowadays! The only option is to breed to sell and no point breeding from a poorly performed mare or poor family as you have to pay plenty for a Bettors or Art Major service and marginal if there is anything in it anyway!

Ranga, what do you put it down to then, why there are next to no 2 year olds from other stables willing to race?

Ranga, I repeat I am still in my prime,! There would be far more 2 year old races if there wasn’t the dominance! Trainers know they are pushing it uphill through the early and group races, that it’s HT it is going to be difficult to justify racing horses financially nowadays

Ranga, my point is that 2 year old racing has gone backward hugely to the point that it is just not a happening thing till far later in the season. I can remember 2 year old racing being exciting, but nowadays it is not if not many wanting to start. The bigger professional stables plus smaller stables always had 2 Year olds Ready to race in November but not now. The Grices, Middletons, Smolenski, Noble etc

End of January and Addington has programmed a $10k 2 year old race over 1980m. How many nominations have we got? 5 that’s right just 5! 3 from the all conquering AllStars stable, 1 from Cran Dalgety and 1 from Ross Houghton! I can remember from November there would be 2 year old races week in week Out. Where are the 2 year olds, have they been turned out and not I work or are the owners and trainers just not interested in racing them as early horses, or have they been scared off by something? If there are less than 8 starters then the stake may be dropped to $8k! Pointless running the race if there is only 5 starters and doesn’t bode well for the future does it? !

It was a Juniors Race Eljay. I appreciate that we live in separate islands but you have to admit that your horses that raced yesterday in Rotorua were not exactly top of the line! North Island Racing is going thru a hard time at the moment and probably,isn’t going to improve.

Only watched a couple of races from Rotorua and yes the racing was pretty average, but we all know that North Isla d harness racing is struggling in many ways! Most of the horses are very poor that race up in the North Island nowadays, as many of the South Island cast offs are very competitive up there, whereas they wouldn’t still be racing in the South! Motukarara Racing is always good when the track is firm, not so much when it is a bog.