Brodie

Lol, Rusty you are the type of enthusiast racing definitely need at the moment. Unfortunately the way things are going, I think racing as we know it is going to be dead in the water unless the government bails it out big time and that is doubtful with this government. They do not want business to be successful either do the big wigs at RITA or TAB! Would be interesting to have the TAB bosses actually tell us punters what they actually do each year for their salaries of up to $750k? As for my kids, no they will never be interested as they have other interests and they are fortunate that they do not need racing to support them. I have really enjoyed Harness Racing from a young age and for many years but it has been allowed to deteriorate for many years now unfortunately. This Covid19 has just sped things up dramatically and there are goi g to be one heck of a lot of people in the industry that are now going to need to contemplate their future. Owners are not going to continue to plough money into an industry where there is now no chance of a profit, where many now will need to plough this money into their business or their savings for retirement! Hopefully Brodie is totally wrong here and I would be more than happy to have egg on my face providing it is not too hot!!! Keep up the good work Rusty, and bring on the Addington racing.

Galah, exactly my point! If people who are in their 20’s are not interested in racing now they probably won’t be when they are 40 years old. Therefore if these people aren’t coming thru then racing is dead in the water in years to come! I have been interested in harness racing since before I was 10 due to my mother and her father having a bit of an interest in racing. None of my children have any interest in racing whatsoever and probably never will. Believe it or not I have a few mates or acquaintances who also have children and none of them appear to be interested in racing either. This is a major problem that racing is going to encounter and you only need to see the number of young ones on course nowadays, apart from the industry participants. Personally speaking, even I haven’t attended on course as many meetings as I used to as if you can’t get a decent amount on, then I might as well stay at home and watch on Trackside, as the atmosphere is not there any longer!

JJ, Brodie smarter than what? I am as smart as I need to be, anymore smart and I would be pretty dangerous. Of course we all know that the TAB and RITA were wasting too much money and not operating very well at all. We have been advised that there were 10 employees being paid by the punter in excess of $250k and up to $750k currently and previously $1million. This is just plain lunacy and exhorbitancy that the industry can not afford to pay if the racing industry is to continue. The people that provide the entertainment work long and hard for not a lot of return and yet these big wigs week in and week out draw massive salaries for doing exactly what???? Yes there will be savings by effectively sacking over 230 employees, but if they had all these extras why wasn’t this action done previously, and don’t blame Covid19. These employees who have been taking home these big salaries have been making blatantly stupid and costly decisions and yet they will remain on the RITA payroll drawing just as ludicrous salaries they always have. I have no idea what Dave McDonald, Guerin, Whale etc were on or how much it cost to run Trackside radio, therefore what the savings are going to be! However JJ, what I would suggest to you is that the punters that we need to be offloading on racing, is not going to be bothered having a crack at Dubai Camel Racing as they won’t know the form of the bloody camels, although the track will always be sandy! Trackside TV racing in NZ is going to be pretty bland and boring without any presentation and the wall to wall that comes in from Australia whether it be dogs, harness or gallops is pretty mind d numbing. As for being selfish JJ, who is being more selfish in your opinion. Brodie for wanting to be treated equally with all other punters in NZ or the RITA big wigs who are receiving massive salaries for doing two fifths of eff all?

Galah, yes you are correct that racing has to be promoted to people that want to currently punt! However racing thru the 70s was very popular as the stands at Addington were often full on a Saturday night. We have an almighty problem coming up if there are no new punters coming thru at all if they have not been attracted to racing. They don’t all of a sudden develop an interest in racing when they are in their 40’s and start punting on horses. This means no new owners as well, so without promotion to the young people then racing will be dead in the water. As someone said the average age of trackside viewers is people in their 60’s so the industry has a lot of work to do!

The big wigs on the $750k salary know they need to cut costs, but need to protect their own salaries! How do we do this, either get rid of others or drop ours? Eureka!! They need to make the product better not worse or punters will vote with their feet. This is not going to go down too well with punters when NZ Racing is going to be on equal promotion with overseas racing, as there will be no special promotion.

Instead of paying these Baboons in RITA $750k per year ditch those morons that make stupid decisions and pay the ones they are letting go some of these savings. Seriously, they need to make changes to save but they also need to attract new punters and people to the industry. Without more wagering then there is no real hope in the future! Larger punters encouraged to offload without restrictions to get turnover up?

Yeah, this is brilliant it is going to bring in heaps of new punters no doubt, as there will be more gallops from Beaudesert, and camel racing from Dubai. FFS, what an absolute bunch of drongoes! Harness Racing is stuffed, punters don’t want wall to wall racing, this is part of the problem.

Are the big wigs at RITA being retained? R.I.P. Racing NZ.

What a very accurate article, very well written. Know from personal experienceI have been treated very poorly by the NZ TAB! Apart from massive restrictions and treated like a criminal, I have been lied to and not treated equally . Allen was useless, Saville is totally incompetent and most of the big wigs should be down The road for the decisions they have made. NZ Racing is stuffed as it has not been marketed to younger ones that should be coming thru but aren’t. There appears to be that many overpaid turkeys there it is not funny and it will be one of the downfalls of racing in the next year or two.

We hear on the media that Oz want to swap? Take her with open arms, although the diggers wouldn’t be taking her socialist crap that many in NZ accept

Ok We have probably thrashed this out to death Happy and obviously it is a very divisive thing this Virus clearly, and Chief has had enough lol. We are being dictated to Happy, as the police have been brought in to police and charge people! Holy Crap, is preaching Socialist BS from speeches! Finally, I want the best for NZ and its people. What we are getting is a prime minister that is trying to get her ideals thru by use of this Covid19, she has stated this Happy! She has clearly stated that this pandemic is an opportunity to close the gap of inequality! That is just BS, and rather than try and bankrupt people by making them poorer, she should be encouraging the poorer people to improve themselves, but that is not the way of Socialism is it? Very interesting times Happy.

Happy, his rants and quotes about inequality is puke material. There are these people around the world that keep blaming others for various things and think that it is everyone else’s problem but their own for their situation. If you want to live in a dictatorship then I wish you luck there! I understand where you stand on the matter and that is your prerogative, however you haven’t got the chip on your shoulder and preaching Bs!! Happy, what is your comment in regards to our a prime minister’s speech at the International Socialist youth gathering? Is that what you want leading our country??

FFS, economic illiterate? Lets leave it there Holy Crap, come back on here in the next few weeks and then defend Arderns actions! 21 Dimentia patients passed away and the country has been financially bankrupted???

Prob should’ve stayed in Oz would’ve had a better time on the GC, and wouldn’t have had to listen to the BS everyday.

Hilarious Holy Crap! Far better idea is to let Oz have Ardern if they want her!

We came back from Oz not too long before the borders closed. The system in getting back in was extremely lax and hadn’t been terribly well thought out! People can think what they want about whether the current govt. has done a good job or not, it doesn’t change the fact that we have been locked up for a long time, financially disadvantaged due to heavy borrowing and will lose a lot more people due to suicides than what the Covid19 will ever kill in NZ! Those facts can not be denied!!

What are you talking about? I never effing said that the plan was brought in by Ardern, you did? You were the one clearly telling the lies Holy Crap, not me! So what you are saying now is that they did nothing whatsoever until too late!

FFS, the country was going very well before the last election and this bunch got in! None of the policies have. Even achieved by this lot! Kiwibuild? na Reduce child poverty. Na Pike River? Na Increase cost to business? Yes They are so business negative it is not funny. They have been very successful in having food banks grow and people,in more poverty but they are always good at that

So the Ardern led government set up this pandemic response plan in January 2020. So you are now saying that they have done such a great job that it took them nearly 2 months to close the borders????? So Ardern is going on about going hard and going urgently, so she is talking absolute Bull Shit, isn’t she Holy Crap? Look forward to your wisdom!

Reality is Holy, the National Party has so many more that have business success than the coalition, although that would not be hard as The current government has NONE!! Lets see the brilliance of the budget that Robertson is due to Produce. Not sure whether it would be better for Ardern to get back in at the next election as the sheep that follow her will then realise what an absolute balls up they have caused, but then there is going to be such a mess for National to clean up in 3.5 years.

To be fair Brodie does chuck a few uppercuts at times when someone starts attacking! The beauty of Bit Of A Yarn is that Chief is very fair. Yes I am like a Rottweiler at times, if I feel strongly about something and that is pretty often. No idea who the ones that attack the Brodster are, however I am aware that some just do it just because they want to get under my skin. Ranga, has a crack very often, but I allow for the fact that he has an identity crisis and he is quite clever often. No idea who this Holy Crap is and he is just a Socialist sheep,who is very easily led and you can see how people can become members of cults! Here he is on a trotting site trying to excel the virtues of Socialism when he has stated that he doesn’t even invest on harness but spends all of his Socialist money on Australian gallops? Go figure. Mehe, we’ll he has come out of the blue, not overly productive with his comments and digs, but then he is possibly trying to make up for other inadequacies. How would Harness people like it if the greyhound people potted harness racing to the fun police due to the fact that the drivers on the horses were not racing 2 metres apart? Unfortunately this time in our lives has become very difficult and is going to become even more dire for many, so we just have to try and get along to make things better! As Ms. Ardern keeps saying “Be Kind”

The chances of anyone transferring Covid19 to some other catcher is very small. Time NZ got on with life and stop worrying about what others are doing. If you are that scared of catching any virus, then stay at home and never come out. Reality is that the decision to lockdown as long as this is going to kill a damn site more people than greyhound people catching their greyhounds. When Harness comes back Are all the drivers going to be two metres apart in a race?? No they aren’t because it is not possible!!! I know plenty will have a crack at the Brodster, but FFS why are so many so scared of something that has not killed a single person With reasonable health in NZ????

Holy Crap.google: Coronavirus, Michael Woodhouse blasts Julie Anne Genter, David Clark over precautions back in January

Didn’t inherit it at all Holy Crap, came from knowledge and getting off my butt and taking action! You have all the words or think you do, but you do not live in reality, you just want to have handouts under a Socialist government. Anyway, I’m going for a drive, just because I want to!

Where did I say that we didn’t need to lock down? The govt. was very slow in doing anything, National suggested action back I. January but nothing was done! The lockdown was to flatten the curve so that the hospital was inundated with sick people. The curve was flattened and hospitals never ever taxed at all and yet operations were put on hold and cancelled for what? Selfish my arse, I am more worried about people I know and don’t know that will be financially stuffed and can’t feed their families and even worse. If you think NZ had bad mental health before then you haven’t seen anything yet, but our esteemed leader says”stay home,save lives” BS!!!!