Brodie

On the face of it the field was probably slightly weaker than what she had been racing in recent weeks? However personally would not consider it a great win bet, as you say from the draw and think Zarlini is probably better over longer trip! What is extremely frustrating is the fact that the NZ TAB is prepared to accept wagering from some preferential punters who are allowed to net $80,000, thats correct $80,000!!!!! Other punters or clients of the NZ TAB are only allowed to net a few hundred dollars????? Totally ethically and morally corrupt practice by the TAB, and is driving many punters away from bothering nowadays.

Gamma, just wondering how someone with so many wins and 10 years in the sulky in Australia, is still a Junior Driver??

To be fair, he was given the best set of drives tonight The kiwis will be back

Gamma, Oz have s lot more junior drivers than what NZ does and they probably drive in more races? What I would say is that our top juniors would leave the Ozzies for dead. Herbitson might be OK but Carter would be better!

Very accurate posting Galah. Do we know how many new Junior drivers have been licensed over the last year or so? I acknowledge that it is the love of the horse and industry that makes these Juniors want to be a driver nowadays rather than any monetary return. Very hard way to make a living, early morning starts, long hours and physically very demanding. Why would you want to be employed in the industry if there is not much future in it? I have no idea how much Junior drivers are earning, but the ones with UDR’s that are low will not be getting that much as winning % would be the icing on the cake. We need a constant number of young ones coming thru the stables and driving and training to replace the ones that are giving up driving and training for the industry to continue. HRNZ have told us that things are looking very rosey and suppose if they say it is then we have to believe it LOL Thing is why is this Committee needed to be formed and also just read that the Gallops and Harness are getting together to work for the one cause! When has this ever needed to happen in NZ racing bearing in mind there will be no greyhounds this time next year!

Not sure what is going on at the moment with junior drivers? We are fortunate that we have females in the harness industry and of the 8 horses in the juniors race just now at Addington 6 were driven by females. I appreciate that We have our best juniors in Canterbury in Oz at the moment and yes they are the best! There have been some very poor drives by Juniors this weekend and it just shows how much of a difference in ability between the ones in Oz representing NZ apart from a couple and the rest! Questioning how many will be able to make a career in harness after they are out of their Junior claims?

The TAB alter the fixed odds far too late to be able to wager apart from on account!! As I said the other night if someone gets a wee bit on they slash the divs and then they get very little money on it unless it moved out and that is often far too late! not going to name them but there have been some very poor drives this week that shows lack of nous from some. Hard to fathom why some trainers keep on putting on the same driver week in and week out when they are less than average in the cart? Maybe the owners have more money than sense?

Gamma, seem Brodie is near the bottom of the table, can you have a quiet word in the TAB’s and tell them it might be time for them to remove his restrictions? Tell them he wants to improve their turnover your efforts with the comps is appreciated👍

Have we had any new trainers set up in the last few years anywhere? Can not think of anyone to any scale! The thing even the children of the older established trainers are not actively persuing a career in harness racing! Yes the odd one is but very few and far between and we are lucky at the moment to have so many females working in the industry. Will this continue in the future when the stake money reduces significantly?

Reality is that js not going to happen. Even when the ATC sells everything there is not enough money to buy land or build anything unless Entain are going to shell out, as no one else is going to put up money! Unfortunately there is just not enough interest in racing in Auckland now and they can not afford to keep running races for the current stake money and with the limited wagering on the boring racing! Entain are in it to make money and Auckland racing is not in their plans to bail it out! Something has to give and it is long overdue that they need to realise this.

Tantra Yoga?

Correct Mikey on all points, and difficult to see how the TAB can not see this? Surely if 98% of punters are losing punters then through open the gates and let the punters offload! The more the turnover the more the TAB is likely to win and will be far better for the harness industry! To restrict some punters and be so risk averse is just not the way they should be acting, A restricted punter gets on what I believe is not a large amount and the Bookies slash the fixed odds win and place! This then will often stop other punters from bothering to wager on that horse as the odds do not reflect true value and therefore a large amount of turnover is gone!!!!!

Na, I am not on their Xmas card list nowadays! Hardly think they are going to be taking any advice from Brodie or playing fair after all of this time?

Well I am waiting Ranga? They are getting tighter and pathetically low!

So if only 2% of their customers generate a profit, the TaB thinks that is too high? So we will only allow those that lose to wager with us? So we get rid of the successful punters and that is ethically ok? No one that bets with us is to win, we make it difficult for winning punters and encourage the 98% losing ones!

Would be good for spokesperson for the NZ TAB to actually front and justify what they are doing to harness racing! It is just so hard to justify their policies if they are wanting to keep harness racing going as they are driving punters away rather than encouraging! It all good though apparently cos the HRNZ CEO says so! Delusional thinking.

Yeah, they look after who they want to and others get victimised! At the end of the day the TAB is doing major damage to the future of racing in NZ and they know it, but the ones making the calls wont be around.

$20 is a pathetically small amount surely not worth the effort? $20 may have been ok 20 years ago but what does it buy nowadays? Certainly very little so does the Tab really believe they are doing fantastic things? Have a look a the tote pools for the whole of NZ, shockingly small now!

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?