Brodie

I see that the horseman that was the victim on the West Coast, is back driving on Thursday night at Addington! Always 2 sides to every story as they say!

Ranga, always be in my prime, thats why I am badly restricted! Aniseed balls were good.👍

To be fair $1k is not a huge amount of money in this day and age! it is all relative I suppose as to your financial position, but the restrictions on punters by the TAB in NZ are ludicrously low! The AML limit that the TAB are adopting is also in breach of the current AML Act from last year!!!!! The point remains that many punters are being unfairly victimised!!! If you are good at something then why should you be penalised?? Haven’t got a problem with them having some restrictions perhaps, but the levels they adopt are ridiculously low! I am sure that if I started to show that I was losing they would quickly drop my restrictions!

Gamma, does the TAB actually care about punters that are problem gamblers despite the advertising? All that Brodie thinks is reasonable is they respect the AML act limit that is in law rather than the $1k limit! Also punters should all be treated equally or at least have reasonable punting limits! Are losing punters really on restricted limits as well? Highly doubt it?

Yes it is a gimmick, and it will bring a bit of publicity for harness racing and it does need it! It is free to anyone with no purchase costs or training costs, so it isnt actually going to be bringing in any legitimate new owners who are going to be paying training bills!! I agree with Newmarket, the purchase cost is huge for a yearling harness horse and could be several years before it actually races! to attract interest and get people punting on the syndicate horses, they couldve had a lot more interest and fun with purchasing several race horses for immediate racing! Anyway, not my money and at least Entain are chucking money around to hopefully engender interest in the industry! Suggestion to get the turnover up and going would be for the TAB to come out and say that they are breaking the AML law, and actually apply the correct limit in terms of the ACT! Punters are not being allowed to wager when and what they want due to the TAB continuing to want total control of the punters! Maybe Entain will actually read the AML ACT and actually operate by the correct limit in terms of the ACT???

Still young, havent aged in the last 20 years! Yes I remember Torsim and Tornesse. How Torle could win races defies logic they way it raced.

Worst gaited horses ever were trained by Dick Caskey, without doubt. Torli was probably the worst, half pie galloping in its hopples throughout, Torpi, think may have been a trotter and just terrible gaited. Pleased they werent bred from or if they did, they didnt race much at all

Bird Shit!

Sorry Tony Lee, Commentator lol

There have been some terrible decisions being made by some, and yes we need to be attracting new people into the sport or it will fall into oblivion! Correct that we really need the right people in important positions to make things more attractive to entice people to offload! There are currently unemployed ex commentators in NZ that I personally believe are better than what we currently have in Auckland, Even sacking Tony Lee the galloping trainer, was a crazy decision. Craig Thompson’s tipping ability has been debated many times, and to be called the best analyst for harness racing in NZ is just a load of rubbish! If he was that good, the TAB wouldnt be letting him tip horses out to punters for them to beat the TAB! It is also a conflict of interest having a tip line, being a punter betting with the NZ TAB and also being employed by Trackside!!! The TAB obviously thinks he is doing a good job for them by continuing to pay him! We need to make harness racing exciting and sexy to attract young ones, but it certainly wont be easy as we have lost a couple of decades! Agreed that if they want “The Whale” to tip in Auckland still, have a younger person concentrating on the South Island racing! Wouldnt think there would be too many punters in the Canterbury area that actually takes notice of tipsters picks anyway?

If you are using WIFI in Oz, it will not allow you to connect with NZ TAB! If you are using your own NZ internet allowance from your cell phone provider then yes you can punt on your NZ account.

They do not want punters on harness racing unless you are a continual losing punter and then they will let you on for plenty. In Oz and as you know you can not bet on account if you are using WIFI. There are ways to bet on NZ account in Oz but still have restrictions. The NZ TAB need to drop all restrictions and open the flood gates to all punters! But they won’t because they want to protect their precious yields and their large salaries.

Not sure what the salary is, but it would be sizeable! not too sure what the CEO’s actually do? Does anyone actually know what in effect they do? You barely hear from them and havent really seen too much of benefit for the industry coming out? Holden was only part time at best and Barsi was from Auckland and his track record up there was mediocre at best from what I have read!

They need someone that has the best interests of harness racing as their priority rather than wanting big money for being in the role! Someone with a track record of success rather than just having been in management or corporates! With respect I dont believe they have been getting the right people in the role

Been to Alexandra Park only a couple of times over the years. Had good nights on the punt up there but couldn’t rate the excitement highly. Race the wrong way around that doesn’t help . Addington any day!

Just watched the replay of the race in question! Just ludicrous that the starter let them go with so many out of position! Very poor officialdom.

This happens far too often. The stands in the South Island are still consistently not flash on many occasions! They are an absolute raffle and too often horses that are classed as unruly are actually standing back 20 metres plus, which is just ridiculous. Yes you could say it is up to the driver to have their horse up in the right spot, but that doesnt help the punter who expect it to be starting in the correct place. Mobiles are a far fairer and better method of starting a harness race without question.

Would be better for the industry than nailing drivers for trying too hard!

Had already put the money on and couldnt cash out! Didnt know what its normal warmup mileage is either, but the punter is reliant on the driver not killing the horse before the race. When we are watching on trackside we are not aware how much of a warmup the horse has had, so I am sure it is a crucial factor in how a horse can have a shocker.

Backed a horse last night and went out to watch it win! However it didnt win! Watched it in the preliminary and looked very fit and racey and I expected it to run in the money the way it had been going in its previous few starts. It had a pretty easy run and expected it to finish strongly but it didnt and went vey poor, for some reason? As I watched it in the preliminary I was thinking why on earth was it working on its own and why on earth did it go around the 1200 metre Addington track 5 times???? Thats right it went 6000 metres or nearly 4 miles in its warmup, when the race was only 1950 metres? This horse has has enough starts to be race fit and surely warming up and running 4 miles before a race is going to have it pretty stuffed before its race?? I believe the driver crucified the horse before its race and gave it little chance! I have noticed other horses go around as many times as this and I watched A Senior horseman who is now in Oz, go around at significant pace more than 5 times in a warmup and it also went nil! Surely harness horses do not need to be warmed up much if they are race fit??

Colin DeFiippi, is one of the nicer fellas in harness racing without any doubt. He has been a successful trainer and driver for many decades! I nave absolute no idea why the Stipes have it in for Colin over the past couple of years? Part of the reason is because they have been operating under a blatantly stupid whip rule that needs chucking out! One minute he is getting done for trying too hard to win by using the whip supposedly wrongly and then last night not using it right? Seriously, couldnt make this shit up!

Gamma, firstly Auckland as var as I am aware is the only harness only track to race the wrong way around! Secondly, yes there were some good horses and drivers i. auckland as the stake money was good, however the tight class race had 4 starters! I dont bother following the Auckland form at all as it doesnt interest me anymore! The Addington track is much fairer than auckland and they dont run the short races. Personally just believe that Alexandra Park track being smaller than Addington has something to do with the racing being less attractive than Addington! Will ne interesting to see the betting figures for the two meetings.

Watching the races tonight from both Auckland and Addington. Seriously, the racing excitement between the two courses is miles apart in my humble opinion! Addington may have looser class horses than Auckland but the racing is far more Interesting and a damn sight easier to sort out! Auckland they just sit until they are in the straight and you have buggerall chance if you are not in the first 5 turning in. Auckland may have more races tonight but there will be more people betting into Addington than the borefest that Auckland harness has become.

Yes it is good to see Auckland able to program a 10 race meeting even though some of the fields are small! Wouldnt say the fields are worth punting on and Addington fields are more attractive for this purpose. The racing at Addington will be far more interesting than Auckland in my humble opinion, and will be interesting to see who has the bigger turnover? Dont understand why they find the need to have both competing against each other racing on the same night, as there is only so many$ to go around on the same night?

Fair enough, but people handle things differently, depending on the circumstances, the truth will out as to what actually happened! Dont condone the violence however there will be two sides to the story!