Brodie

You missed out Punters! Without a new generation of punters coming through then there will be less turnover and less profit, therefore less money to be distributed into stakes. Therefore without enough stake money you then get less owners, less horses and trainers. I believe the TAB did major damage to the industry with the way it treated many punters.

You would imagine that if the normal big spending owners do continue to support the AllStars stable in Auckland, then they will obviously win plenty of races. Yes there will be more horses racing in auckland due to them being based up there, but will this actually transform into more horses medium term? There are buggerall horses and owners up there at the moment, but if there is domination from another stable, possibly may have consequences? Anyway hopefully HRNZ and TAB/Entain do know what they are doing for the best interests of harness racing. ATC really do need to get massive funds into their coffers, as nothing surer is that Entain will not indefinitely prop up North Island harness racing as much as they currently are!

Na i am not bothering wagering on anything at the moment as in Oz. Can not see any odds either until tomorrow as they closed down the opportunity for Kiwis to bet when they are overseas! Doesnt make much sense but they make the rules.

Hope you are already on?

Without the house horses going up there, there would only be 41 horses starting without any scratchings! How is it going to be turned around, as there is no way on earth that it can be other than a big loss for the industry financially? Too many meetings are run at Palmy for the number of horses available and it is only time before it gets closed down you would imagine, unless others join in?

I am sure that Purdons will have some progressive 2 year olds ready to race next season for the bonus money. The problem is that there are not enough owners in the North and doubt the bonuses are enough to change it! Yes it is great that we have this positivity from the harness media and trainers and hopefully things do improve sufficiently to make harness much stronger up there! If all we get is 2 year olds fields full of Purdon, Ray Green snd Stonewall horses, then it is going to be a somewhat failure. Punters will not offload on that type of racing in my humble opinion.

Race 8 on Friday night is a 2 year old non winners race for $15K. Entain are pumping in money by way of bonuses for racing 2 year olds for the next 3 years! Whether it is going to work and make much difference in the North is debatable, but it is Entains money to do what they want up to I suppose the $900m! Personally would not be holding my breath as it appears that there is little interest nowadays in racing 2 year olds! This seems to be majorly proven by the fact that race 8 has only 5 starters, and every horse comes from the Ray Green stable, so all the stake money is his without running the race. Where are all the other 2 year olds that are in work?

Definitely not consistently even light going from what I see in the replays! Be interesting to hear from someone who drove out there on Friday night

Mile racing, why would you?

Not in NZ at the moment and sat down and watched the replays of the races from Addington. Wondering what people who were oncourse think of the new lights? Are they brighter and better than the old ones? Watching on my ipad, the lights do not seem to be as bright and also varying in light with darker patches throughout! Is it an improvement to what we had, will be interesting to know?

The Franklin stabling will only be a temporary measure, you would think. Going to be a while till they would need to move out of Franklin when that is eventually sold. Not totally sure who is the owners of the Rolleston training establishment but you would think that in time sufficient money would become available from the sale proceeds to buy in the North? That is providing the North is still in operation?

Can not get a $ on at the moment with the NZ TAB as overseas and they put a stop to betting on NZ accounts from here. Iraklis intelligent conversation and Valentines buffet is a No From Me!!

Too many termites!

Got major termite and borer problems, they like sawdust!

They appeared to be down on numbers compared to what they had when Mark and Nat were training together and winning everything. I believe that where they are training is going to be developed into sections so that eould be the major reason, I would say? A bit surprising as it is or was under the flight path!!

Quite easily not get excited, too much excitement from the racing at Auckland would not be good for anyone's heart. Reality is that the fields just do not warrant the amount of money that they are racing for. The thing is that that stake money they are racing for ensures that they are going to continue to lose money at most meetings if not all of them! The racing is very boring, basically the same horses each week and multiple horses from the same stable monopolising the racing! At the end of the day it is not going to improve anytime soon and unfortunately the hierarchy at Entain will be under huge pressure to make racing profitable, and it is going to be a very difficult task.

Another profitable meeting this Friday night by the look of it??? What Entain is doing is not going to be anywhere enough to keep harness racing anywhere near being able to break even. 8 races with the minimum stake at 15k up to $20k and they are going to be competing for the punting dollar with Addington?? No way should they be racing up against Addington as they just can not compete with the product that they dish up!! 8 races, 1 five horse field. 1 six horse field 5 seven horse fields 1 eight horse field so just over 50 horses that will race on prime night Friday? No business can operate like this and return a profit and HRNZ,Entain/TAB are delusional if they think they will be able to turn things around with what they are offering! It is going to take far more than chucking money into stakes and $4k breeding bonus. Yes negative and some will think things will improve and come right in time, but I would be wagering that they wouldnt be risking putting any of their own money in to bail them out! Anyone know what happened to the exciting news that ATC had re Franklin track a few months ago?

Going to help the North Island with a few more horses initially, so that is good! Will probably clean up you would think? Going to be very interesting to see how many existing owners in the South actually do stick with the Purdons as some will not want to fly to the North Island to watch them. I am sure there will be some horses that leave existing trainers and go to Purdons chasing the bigger stakes that are falsely bring provided in Auckland though.

Do quite nicely without needing to punt, Tonka, I can assure you. Certainly would not be at Valentines, and seems odd you know about a 5% discount on Pension Day? Small fields especially at Auckland, certainly have no one I know salivating?

Personally would not think that too many people are going to be breeding more horses due to bonuses! Yes it is obviously beneficial if a breeder can get a wee bit extra in $, but can not see it doing a lot to increase numbers unfortunately. Reality is that the other costs compared to what you can receive in stake returns just doesnt make it financially viable, so we are lucky that there remains sufficient numbers of people prepared to continue to breed. Hope that it continues to be the case.

Thought the same Gamma. How an Ozzie horse could be given the NZ horse of the year award, not a great look for NZ. Just Believe amazingly good horse but doesnt do much to promote us here. Would highly doubt the Ozzies giving NZ anything?

Think you have lost the plot Tonka? Firstly why would I be at a buffet in Hornby and secondly why would I dribble over a six horse field at Auckland? Certainly went thru to the keeper that one! Maybe you best sticking to your playing with toys?

Entain have shut down their Ladbrokes Racing Club that provided horses and greyhounds free of charge apparently to people that applied for ownership! It was apparently costing them too much to run with rising costs! If they can not afford to race horses and dogs with the expenses being too much compared to stake money received, then how do they expect to be attracting new owners in NZ? Entain appear to have had a couple of poor years worldwide and you would have to think that they are certainly very vulnerable to be bought out by a more successful gambling agency in the future? It would appear to be make hay while the sun shines?

I am nothing like Iraklis! If I was the white coaters would have picked me up before now!

That is very unfair, Tonka! Brodie was just defending himself against Paleface’ s statement?