Brodie

To be fair, when they are restricting punters to amounts that are getting lower than what they were, then what do you expect punters to do?? Thought Entain initially had improved things for the TAB but they have actually got sirse in recent months despite what they will tell you! Seriously they have no appetite for risk and are riding out their time till they can stop chucking the money into racing! These odds surges etc. are a joke really when the maximum bet is $20!!!!!! why would you bother! Still they promote $1k @ $1.65 to win as being a big bet alert and worthy of mentioning lol. Let the punters on TAB and increase your turnover!

McMullen’s when they trained used to have very weak finishing horses a decade or two ago. They used to pull hard and then stop but then again they were poorly bred even though they would win races at Parklands! MELTON was the prefix and they were trained I believe by John McMullen and Peter was driving them often, so he must've improved a lot from driving better stockz,

Nowornever, I can assure you that it tskes very very little money going on to make the so called Bookies to slash fixed odds drastically. They are now not letting you on for anything like they were and even the small amount they let you on for they slash the odds several times. The thing is if one punter gets a small amount in and then slash the odds that is the end of money going on that horse from others, as any value is gone. They are just so risk averse except from taking bets from one or two ounters who have more money than sense! Last night on Trackside they announced a big bet alert! $1k @ $1.65 LOL. Gee they must be very scared with that?

We have a lot of female Juniors going around at the moment, often more female than males in Junior races! Reality is that most of them will be lost to the industry when they are out of their Junior driver days! They will not pick up enough drives and there is no money in training unless you have a significant number of horses being paid for!

Gamma, problem is that it HRNZ have been given more money than they can handle and I personally believe from what is going on, that there is no one making decisions that have financial intelligence! They are blowing the future of harness racing when they were thrown a life buoy but are treating it like they were thrown an anchor! It is not going to end well for our once great harness industry!

Problem at the moment for wagering on the Friday meetings is that the fields and odds just are not attractive enough to bother! absolute nothing worth backing on the fixed place odds for Addington, Cambridge or Auckland! Pointless and not worth the effort with these fields but then that affects the TAB more than it effects Brodie! Be interesting what the turnover is for these three meetings as I have never seen it so unattractive to wager for field sizes and odds!!!

Absolutely brilliant! Who wrote it and singing?

Gamma, there is not one person in NZ that would be doing shat Seymour is dong in Ozzie! There is no one that is enthusiastic enough to be putting in tens of millions to keep harness going in NZ, Instead of blowing the Entain money on bonuses and increased stakes straight off anyone with any business acumen wouldve invested the capital and received tens of millions per year for ever plus had the massive capital contribution as well if and when required!! They really are devoid of financial competence.

They are too obsessed with the damn yield! Do the successful big retail business worry about yield as much as turnover? They want turnover snd that is what drives successful business, you get people coming to your business and you make profit! Without enough people coming to your business then you wont make profit! Many of the successful businesses have loss leaders but that is why they get people to their business as they make money on all the other bits! Just as the TAB should be acting! Continue to drive punters away and u have no business, end of story

Gamma, HRNZ are just not bring financially prudent with the cash splash from Entain! not trying to be personal but the ones that are offloading the extra money just would not be acting this way with their own personal budget! Making hay while the sun shines is not the way to go! Farmers that have a good season do not go out and blow the cash on things that do not produce in the future! They put it away for the bad seasons! Anyway if they want to carry on the way they are currently and the harness participants are happy for this then I suggest that many will be looking for another job or career in the future! Most meetings are losing money and yet they think that they can pay out the big stskes and bonuses? Delusional!

TAB, my comments are posted due to continued concern for the harness racing industry! Big time they are going to be in trouble financially unless they can appoint people that have concern for the industry, as currently it appears they just are not there! Being Santa Claus and shelling out the funds from the White Knight with gay abandon is not going to improve things, quite the opposite! The cash from Entain should have been fiscally savvy and yet there is absolutely no sign of this, and no media beef up is going to solve this unfortunately! If the Committee is bot going to overturn so e of these poor business decisions the what is the point of the committee??????? I highly doubt the business acumen of those currently making these decisions and kt clearly shows. Who there has got a history of running a successful business and I do not class Banking as a successful business!

TAB, it is good that you are prepared to defend the HRNZ decision msking! However you are defending them with blind faith, as anyone with any semblance of business sense knows that the way things are going, harness racing is a dead duck in the next 10 years! The wasteful spending without any thought to the medium future is just crazy, however we all know that those currently making these decisions will be gone well before that! Seriously why is the Winston committee taking so long to meet, as surely they will be overturning many of the announcements that HRNZ have made or harness is DOOMED!

Yes the Trackside presenters can not be seen to speak their minds over TV, but you would hope that they would be expressing their opinions to their boss? Just does not seem to be an accountability for the decisions being made and this is auite common nowadays. The Covid BS is a typical example of this, with massive amounts of people suffering health wise and financially from the poor decisions made and followed by so many unfortunately. Far too many people nowadays just accept what they are told and accept poor decisions being made without speaking up snd expressing their concerns.

Alexandra Park racing generally is boring and has been for a long time. Same horses racing each and every week due to lack of numbers of horses and different trainers, so domination. The fixed odds with the smaller fields doesnt make it worth while to collect milk money for each $! Galah is right, they just seem to sit at the back mostly and run home giving those out the back no chance. With having the biggest population in NZ, you would think that they would get a good crowd on course, however next to no one goes!

Mark Jones is certainly on the money in most of what he states! It is just staggering to believe that harness media is excited about what is happening with harness racing at the moment. Yes they have this large pool of money that they have been receiving from Entain, but they are absolutely wasting it on dumb decisions without doubt. Yes I appreciate that those expressing all this great news about 60k finals and bonuses are being paid , but seriously need to have a word higher up! Unfortunately things are not going to end well for our once great harness racing industry unless these wasteful decisions are reversed. Read the HRNZ list of the stallions that qualify for their progeny to race for the $60k, and there are so many questions that should've been asked? They also stated that horses that have been exported can come back and race for the $60k if they have 5 starts back here in NZ???? Are they serious? Just shows the lack of stuff up top from HRNZ at the moment!

Gamma, no problem whatsoever with the TAB putting maximum amounts being wagered by punters! My point and always has been is that the TAB discriminate against certain punters by restricting them and not others! They restrict Brodie and others to pathetically low amounts and yet they allow others to offload $13k and $40k without any problem!! The fact that this punter is not be a good punter should not give him/her any more rights from the TAB than the restricted punters! They are ethically and morally wrong and the punter that had the $40k on and won will not have restrictions placed on them despite winning $80k! Have restrictions and minimum amounts you are allowed to win but every punter should have the same opportunity!

Gamma, you say that 90% of punters lose? If that is the case it would then appear that 10% win, so the TAB is making plenty as the odds are always in their favour! And yet, those 10% of winners are not allowed to win by the TAB as they are being restricted to pathetic amounts being able to be won?? So how on earth is this actually allowed to be legal?? Ethically and morally wrong and yet they get away with it!

Well that letter as posted, did come from a previous HRNZ CEO as It appears!! The Committee being formed and not before time, will surely be seeing those and things are going to get very interesting you would imagine?

TAB, “same ole same ole” you are correct! Before Entain came along, the NZ TAB was in trouble and needed financial assistance and people to assist to keep it going! Yes there has been a lot of money chucked into increasing stakes and bonuses for a promised 5 years. Of course this is beneficial for many, however nothing is being done to be beneficial after this 5 years period! Yes there is plenty of advertising to get new punters and owners etc. into the game but they also are turning away existing loyal customers. I am pleased that you think that they are doing a great job at the moment as well, and what they are currently doing is going to allow the once great harness industry to flourish! Brodie and most people I know are more than worried about the future despite what the media is saying! Time will tell obviously who is right and as I say more than happy to be wrong this time. Not sure how you think that there money is being spent wisely as ut just isnt’t. I do believe that the way HRNZ are spending the cash is mismanagement as no business can operate like this and expect to be around in the future. Good punting.

TAB, great to have initiatives that are positive for harness racing without doubt! Can you unequivocally state that you believe that shelling out $720,000 times 5 so $3,600,000 thats right $3.6 million in stakes for owners of horses bred to cheap stallions is going to be the best way to spend it, vor the benefit of harness? Anyway good that you comment as that is what we need, people expressing their view! The reality is that this series is only due to the Entain cash splash or it would not be happening. Have no confidence in many of the decisions being made and happy to be wrong for the future success of harness racing! At the end of the day time will tell who is correct as we look back in 2 or 3 years time on BOAY! The committee that is coming will hopefully sort things out and effect change?

HRNZ may well have promised this series for 5 years! No way on earth will they be paying out as much as $60k per race after Entain’s cash splash is finished! So breeding to a $5k stallion this season so they can race in this series in the next few years means the horse being bred will be outside the 5 years!!

Now I am very worried! Crazy!! So where is the money coming from Ranga?

There will be plenty of stallions currently standing for under. The thing is this initiative this year for these races for $60k will be a one off, as the industry realistically just can not afford to run these races of punting proceeds, so highly doubt they will continue! Entains money is not never ending!

Gamma, you are totally correct about death bell tolls for harness without doubt unless the ones make decisions actually start running it as a business! The fact is that those making the decisions are getting paid handsomely at the moment and so it is not them that are going to suffer financially! Seriously if it was coming out if their own pocket there would be no way on earth they would be blowing the one chance harness had of surviving. Just very disappointing that we have people in roles that are just not up to the task.

Gamma, great that you can race in Queensland 2 or 3 times a week for at least $4k. They should never have closed the Parklands course to build those hideous coloured boxes! Thing is, when the funding from Entain finishes they may well be needing to race for stakes half of what they are currently racing for here. If this is the case I highly suspect that the industry will crash big time as I reckon with the cost of having a horse trained will not justify racing one. Owners are getting older snd the young ones will not be entering into new ownerships! Problem currently is that HRNZ I personally believe are mismanaging things and this will probably come out once the committee does the due diligence on what is happening with the Entain cash splash wastage! More than happy to not be on the money on this one?