Brodie

Of course it needs to be banned. It clearly is not a natural medicine for therapeutic purposes at all. If it is so therapeutic and nothing untoward with it, why doesn’t the company advertise who is using it! Why don’t they because they know it is giving their horses an unfair advantage with what is being done. Is it 20 or 30 trainers using it, 50% difference seems a big margin of error!

Basically the way it was Newmarket. Bit of alcohol, Mr Sheenan got in argument with a fellah, Mr Sheenan goes home and gets rifle and loads it. Goes back to Mot. And continues argument. Innocent fellah gets in between Mr Sheenan and the fellah he was arguing with, and he gets shot dead. Never should have had a rifle oncourse let alone loaded and someone is killed after a day at the races.

Nothing at all wrong with the previous whip rule Basil. How many drivers were actually fined or suspended prior to the new rule being railroaded in thru the back door without support from the affected party that being the drivers? What is the current Australian rule? Thats right they haven’t changed their rule have they Basil? Harness Racing will lose out big time if the whip was outlawed. It is hard enough already to attract new punters into the game without watching horses not being given every chance We will continue to disagree but then that is both of our perogatives!

It was the Mot. Trainer John Sheenan’s Dad unfortunately, think he has passed on years ago Inoocent man shot and killed trying to stop an argument. Gun should never have been on course, always going to end in tears when someone loads a gun.

Great, get rid of the whip and gets rid of more punters

Yes, shot a man who was trying to stop an argument. An absolute shocker, people with armed with guns

No fair dinkum, it was nearly at the end of the trials. Wont mention the name but many people will know who I am talking about!

Portfolio, what do you mean that Brodie is wr wr wr wrooong? Never!

Not mentioning names, but a trainer at the trials one day at Mot. supposedly shot a horse and started cutting it up in front of other horses that were in nearby stalls!

Yep you are right Chief, it was a pipe, didn’t really back his horses for some reason!

Yep Chief mentioned a couple of times earlier in the blog! He weighed slightly more with his cigarette in the side of his mouth!

Basil, The previous rule worked just fine and didn’t need altering to this 10 hits as it makes it stupid. You can whack the shit out of a horse 10 times and that is fine but 11 times a lot softer is not. A horseman wants to win a race but if he is counting and is 10 metres short of the post and has used the whip 10 times he can’t give the horse another tap with the whip, and gets beaten! As I have said many times before Basil, hard enough driving a horse without having to also count the number of times you have used the whip from the 400m Dumb rule, go back to what it was before that worked.

Murray Edmonds, bigger than when he first started. Phil Anderson, amateur and possibly the heaviest. The Thing is that most professional trainers nowadays know that they can’t afford to put heavy drivers on! I would love to see that analysis that was done by the uni! If it makes a difference on the grass due to drag it is going to have an effect on all weather tracks as well but maybe not as much.

Robert, fair enough. All I know is that I can push a wheelbarrow full of bark a damn sight easier than a wheel barrow full of concrete. Surely the weight of a heavy driver has more drag than a lightweight driver? What is that stops a galloper from winning? Weight!! The more weight a galloper carries the slower it will,run!! Cant see how a harness horse can accelerate as quick carrying a hefty driver rather than a lightweight driver? Would rather have Ricky May or Dexter in the cart rather than a heavy driver and the driver statistics every season would clearly show that there are no hefty drivers high up in the driver UDR’s or high winning drivers. I do know that I don’t back Horses with heavy drivers in the cart. Who was it that did the in-depth investigation into the difference the weight makes? Big people???

Who is Albert Dykman? Was that Slim Dykman? He wasn’t a big man!!

Barry Purdon is a great horseman and yes has always been a very good driver but he does drive his own trained horses that are all good. ooint I was making is that light drivers that are good have an advantage over a heavy driver that is good .

A Fitzgerald got done for hitting 13 tines when maximum is 10 even though he paused and wasn’t continuous. The rule change was unnecessary and worked fine as it was. No one was concerned about it including all the animal rights activists. Detrimental rule change for harness racing implemented for no beneficial reason.

The old excessive use of the whip thing again! I note that Andrew Fitzgerald got done last week at Forbury for excessive use of the whip. It was a first breach of the rule and the penalty was only $200 fine. Andrew is a Junior driver who is trying to make his way in the harness racing industry which is a major battle for young ones today. He was on an outside drive Being Sugar Cane, and would’ve been keen to win the race to please the connections of the horse as well as himself so he can pick up more drives. Yes I realise there is a rule in place and that is 10 hits within the last 400metres and everyone is meant to abide by that but doesn’t take into account the strength of the hits or whacks, it is set at 10. however, watch the video of the race over the last 400metres and see if you think that Mr Fitzgerald was excessive with the whip. Personally have no problem with what he did and he was fairly vigorous with his movement in the cart but didn’t think he was excessive at all, and I am sure the trainer and owner had no problem with Andrews effort to win the race. He wasn’t continually hitting the horse either and as we all know, the horse is a bit of a fruitcake at best, so probably needed the persuader. Yes I know some will say rules are rules and he pleaded guilty, but I dont beleive it was excessive and certainly not a bad look for harness racing.

Brodie is on the money. Barry Purdon was a good driver and has an excellent UDR, but you have to remember he was driving when the Purdon horses were so dominant many years ago, and anyone could’ve won on them. They are not so dominant nowadays are they?

Not putting Eddie Cowie down, just making the point that a smaller driver makes a difference over a larger driver!

They were very good horses that he drove! Eddie was a big man, and yes did win races by driving aggressively! I am sure that he didn’t always drive Clarrie Rhodes horses every start Newmarket.

Not one of our top drivers! Did win a lot of races when the Purdon horses dominated! He then decided that he was too big and decided to let the lighter boys on!

I would rather have a lightweight driver on than Eddie Cowie or Eric Ryan both big men! If weight doesn’t matter then what has Dexter Dunn, Blair Orange, Mark Purdon, Natalie Rasmussen, Ricky May, John Dunn, Tony Herlihy got in common? They are pretty light weight! I am sure it is a damn site easier pulling a lightweight than a heavyweight on any surface. It is far easier to push a wheelbarrow full of bark than pushing a wheelbarrow full of concrete I can tell you, so no difference to a horse pulling a bigun! The ones that will tell you no difference are probably a tad overweight and trying to justify letting them drive rather than Dexter or Ricky! Name a good driver that is heavy and drives a lot of winners Dont recall Eddie having that good driving record, although he did drive pretty aggressively most times!

Dp

Dp