Brodie

Harness Express from Garrick Knight!

Yes he is working with Fred Fletcher. Andrew Drake has resigned from working for Ray Green and is heading south to work I believe at Cran Dalgety’s. According to something I read this week there are quite a few from the Auckland area seriously considering moving to Canterbury as they are over the ineptitude of the ATC! Auckland and North Island harness racing is going down the gurgler!

Yes the system has had its day, and needs an overhaul. When horses that have won in excess of ten races start off the front and horses that have won one race are off 15 metres, there is something seriously wrong with the system in play! Yes we need to retain our horses but surely this needs to be looked at pronto as The Galah states?

The average house value in New Zealand now costs 28x what it was 40 years ago! If stakes had increased at the same rate as an average house price increase over the last 40 years, the stake would now be in excess of $130k 😂

Good stakes back in 1983, 40 years ago! $4,700, so have doubled in the last 40 years!

Sorry was meant to say get paid and not bet laid lol

Yes it was poor decision making by Joanne, and everyone can see that! She also did not do it to lose the race! Reality is that it was an AMATEUR RACE driven by AMATEUR drivers who do not bet laid for their driving! What do you expect to happen in AMATEUR RACES, you are going to get some very amateur driving in everyone of them! If there was no wagering on the races and they were run as non tote races, then she wouldnt be charged and suspended!! The biggest suspensions are being given to our AMATEUR drivers who are doing the driving just for the fun of it! Not their fault that people wager on their drives and therefore they should not be treated the same as the professionals paid drivers!

The crazy thing is that the starter allows this! All 3 horses that were unruly are experienced race horses not maidens! If a horse is unruly off the front it should be starting in front of 10 metre horses but out wide ! The stands are still a total mystery envelope to what we get. Some stand and others are on the move, no winder Oz have next to know stands for pacers!

Sorry totally gone through to the keeper! No idea who Biff is at all, although Labour deserves it big time! Is it Reg Reagan?

Apparently Chief. Aaron White announced it last night at Cambridge!

Just watched a replay of race 8 at Addington on the 9th June 2 weeks ago. It was a standing start trot race won by Unico Vacanza. Can someone please explain to me how the 3 unruly horses, Unico Vacanza, The Fox and Spy Da Moment who were carded to start off the front actually started behind the 10 metre horses??????? How is this allowed to happen?? They started wide on the track so they wouldnt interfere with the 10 metre runners! What on earth was the starter doing allowing this to occur??

System is badly not working unfortunately! Great to have Juniors getting opportunities and some trainers are just playing by the current rules! Mark Jones for example is utilising the current rule using Gemma Thornley to advantage and good on him! The grading system is pretty outdated now when horses that have won in excess of 12 wins are competing with horses that are straight out of winning a non winners race!! There has to be a better way of doing things, like 1 to 2 wins and under a certain amount of $ won! Pointless and unfair when they have races carded for 35 to 50 etc! Sane horses competing against each other week in and week out for same horses finishing down the track! Bring back the CLAIMERS at Addington!

You would have to be a total Dickhead to believe that Mogul’s pacing action was caused by faulty gear!! Then the incompetence after the race when the horse was clearly in distress! Officialdom for harness racing in NZ has clearly sunken so low now that no one can seriously have confidence that we are in good hands in the future! Would like to know what was wrong with the spreaders that made Mogul pace like it was sore! We all know that error of judgements happen in all types of business and everyday life, but for a panel now to come out and say that the horse was not sore and caused by gear issues is just an absolute cover up for some unknown reason? Will be interesting if anyone comes on and tries to defend the blatantly BS decision!!

With respect it is BS! We need as many horsemen as we can keep in the industry! Michael House stable has done a great job for harness over the years and hope to retain it! However, if I was the owner of Mogul or another horse that was pacing so badly for the whole of that race, geez I would be so pissed if my driver had continued to race the horse until into the straight. The horse was obviously in trouble early on and to not pull it up far earlier is a total error on the part of the driver. I would be pretty sure in hindsight Wilson House knows he made a mistake. The bigger mistake and total BS is the panel giving us this crap about a gear issue etc. if it was a gear issue then why was there an issue with the spreaders? Should the horse not have been pulled up anyway? Integrity has been thrown out the window once again!

Personally can not see it ever racing again!!! What were these “GEAR ISSUES”????????? Just a load of BS seriously!! What did the original vet think the issues was with the horse?? Just an absolute load of crock, so much for INTEGRITY! The horse was stuffed forever and deserves a retirement somewhere!!!

Well done Gamma. Appreciate your efforts. Last place for Brodie! To be fair I didnt do an ounce of homework lol

What a farce! The horse should’ve been pulled up early on. The horse suffered unnecessarily anyone with commonsense can see that! Harness racing is in serious trouble when the panel couldn’t see anything wrong with what happened on the track! Incompetents!

Gamma, thanks for your efforts. I will be on team A.

This Summer Jane who commented for A so-called Animal Rights group, clearly doesnt realise that this 7 Days is actually 7 RACING DAYS so longer than she thinks!!! Of course it wasnt a great look but I doubt Jonny Cox even connected with the trailing horse!! Yes Harness Racing is its own worst enemy and somehow RIB want to continue to paint harness racing in a bad light!

Dont think Harness Racing is known as the sport of Kings? Thoroughbred racing more so.

Correct but you are well behind the eightball if you are spending $30k for a service and extras then training costs, hiding to nothing unless you have a top bred one.

What I have learnt over the past few years is just how gullible people are!! Someone says something and it must be true! we have had over 5 years of absolute BS from Ardern and now Chippie and yet people believe what they say! No problem with Woodlands coming out and saying they had a great sale if they were happy with the result! We need Woodlands, Alabar etc. providing stallions and fosks so that racing can continue. At the end of the day it is their livelihood and hopefully purchasers will bag a bargain when they aren’t paying $2k for a weanling when the service fee is several times more than that alone. any other business and they would be broke pretty quickly however they can survive by charging huge service fees to the breeders who want to pay these fees! What I do know is that these breeders are dwindling and are future breeders in a position to want to pay these costs when the returns are so poor??

At my stage of life be far too much to handle!

Myers and Davy Jones markup is massive so they wont be selling stock at a loss and to be fair there is a big difference between a standardbred that is going to cost somewhere in excess of 50k minimum with breeding and racing for a season or two, and a bra at Myers! Anyway what Woodlands and Alabar do with their business doesnt affect me personally, a d hopefully they continue to do what they do, but personally believe that behind closed doors they will be evaluating why they are breeding horses that are not going to at least cover costs!

Amateur races are exactly what they are, races for Amateurs! Time and time again there are issues and if you bet into them, you should be prepared to take the bad with the bad! classie Linc shouldve won that race by many lengths, but I thought that it wouldnt win if she went back from the gate, as I know how The driver often drives. She shouldve gone out and led as it has shown that it can lead! Yes it was an incompetent drive but I now believe that there is no intent or point in these amateurs trying not to win! They earn no money from the drives obviously a d do kt for the fun of it and therefore should not be fined! A suspension and huge telling off should be enough and get these AMATEUR RACES run solely as a NON-TOTE race!