Purdons Tonight?

[Chief Stipe]

7 hours ago, Brodie said:

What many of us do not understand Gamma is just how one stable is so much better than all the others.

Decades and generations of knowledge.  You only need to be 1% better than the others to win.

If you are 1% better at all parts of a system then you end up light years ahead.  Yearling selection, education, feeding, health treatment, training, driving.  A top driver who is also a top trainer will always have an advantage over a top trainer who hires a top driver.  

[Gammalite]

9 hours ago, Brodie said:

Yes professional, plenty of owners with the money but just the performances of their horses is light years ahead of all other trainers apart from Telfers and Dunns.

Why hasnt Ken Barron won so much more when Blair Orange went there?

He is an intelligent guy and must know how to train from spending years at AllStars?

Some great questions. But don't undersell some of the opponents.

Chief answered above for you. It's just a 'heritage' thing as well. Even RoyP had Millionaire owners , like Max Harvey for example who bought Comedy Lad from the South Island to win the Auckland Cup with. so they did.  

And some Trainers are or have made up the' light years.' Look at BD Joe sailing past the 2 Allstars runners in the last race the other day (and was held up in the NZ FFA when could have won that with luck in running) 

Allstars won the trotting FFA last year with OscarB. But look at MUSCLE MOUNTAIN this year . way too good. So Hope stable have sailed past Allstars in the 'trotting ' ranks, to join Sundee and Bolt as Gun 'trotting gait'  trainers and drivers. (Mark still winning with younger trotters Sunday though)

Ray Green has taken COPY THAT past the Allstars as well , and Dalgety's did well with Krug for a while (2 Derbies) and now Republican Party .   Blair Orange should take up training, would probably go ok ??

The answer is WEIGHT OF NUMBERS. Just give ALL those Stables twice as many runners. Telfer is prospering because of this. Darling Me had stablemates help lately, and has blossomed. Telfer's often with more than one runner in a race. Grant Dixon here has 80 in work, so gets wins and won Vic Derby with LEAP TO FAME beating the incredible Emma Stewart barn (The Allstars Aussie equivalent) who have FIVE in the Interdominion Final this week. 

[Blackie]

It's just the way things have gone as Gammalite above points out, not much you can do about it, just evolved. Success breeds success. You don't belittle anyone having a crack and winning a race because your'e aware of the amount of $ and effort that goes in . Mark from a long lineage of professionals who live & breath Harness Racing , he's bound to have learnt a few things or two, and I'm guessing the great trainer that he is, is still learning to keep ahead of the pack. You just know that when they line up one it's had every opportunity to be at it's best.

Not saying that it is great for the game, it's the way it is. Hard on the little guy with the big dream, and if Harness Racing is doing anything wrong, it's not catering for all those with a horse that is ever going to win a couple of races. Everyone has them. That's where the $ should be aimed at to keep it all going, breed a mare, get a foal, get to the races, win some money, have fun doing it without losing a fortune.

[Chief Stipe]

32 minutes ago, Gammalite said:

Some great questions. But don't undersell some of the opponents.

Chief answered above for you. It's just a 'heritage' thing as well. Even RoyP had Millionaire owners , like Max Harvey for example who bought Comedy Lad from the South Island to win the Auckland Cup with. so they did.  

And some Trainers are or have made up the' light years.' Look at BD Joe sailing past the 2 Allstars runners in the last race the other day (and was held up in the NZ FFA when could have won that with luck in running) 

Allstars won the trotting FFA last year with OscarB. But look at MUSCLE MOUNTAIN this year . way too good. So Hope stable have sailed past Allstars in the 'trotting ' ranks, to join Sundee and Bolt as Gun 'trotting gait'  trainers and drivers. (Mark still winning with younger trotters Sunday though)

Ray Green has taken COPY THAT past the Allstars as well , and Dalgety's did well with Krug for a while (2 Derbies) and now Republican Party .   Blair Orange should take up training, would probably go ok ??

The answer is WEIGHT OF NUMBERS. Just give ALL those Stables twice as many runners. Telfer is prospering because of this. Darling Me had stablemates help lately, and has blossomed. Telfer's often with more than one runner in a race. Grant Dixon here has 80 in work, so gets wins and won Vic Derby with LEAP TO FAME beating the incredible Emma Stewart barn (The Allstars Aussie equivalent) who have FIVE in the Interdominion Final this week. 

You raise a good point regarding stable numbers.  If a stable has numbers and has a number of elite horses then they are at a training advantage.  The stable doesn't need to go to trials or workouts to gauge where they are at as they have competition within the stable.  Horses love trying to beat their mates and you can use that desire to raise the competitiveness of the all the stable horses.

I remember one of the best couple of years the stable where my dad's horses were trained was when they had 4 or 5 top 3yr olds and a couple of open class horses.  A small stable of less than 12 in work and I'm sure the class of horse in those couple of years lifted all the stable horses.  It was fun too!

[Chief Stipe]

4 minutes ago, Blackie said:

Not saying that it is great for the game, it's the way it is. Hard on the little guy with the big dream, and if Harness Racing is doing anything wrong, it's not catering for all those with a horse that is ever going to win a couple of races. Everyone has them. That's where the $ should be aimed at to keep it all going, breed a mare, get a foal, get to the races, win some money, have fun doing it without losing a fortune.

Both horse racing codes should do this.  Increase the rewards at the bottom and you will find more will stay in the game for longer.  Fields will improve, competition will improve, owners get some money back for the next dream.  Everyone wins.

Instead we've increased disproportionately top end stakes which are won by a few top stables who will still line up if Group Stakes were 75% of current levels.

[paleface adios]

2 hours ago, Chief Stipe said:

Both horse racing codes should do this.  Increase the rewards at the bottom and you will find more will stay in the game for longer.  Fields will improve, competition will improve, owners get some money back for the next dream.  Everyone wins.

Instead we've increased disproportionately top end stakes which are won by a few top stables who will still line up if Group Stakes were 75% of current levels.

is Cullen leave the stable to work for telfer?

[Gammalite]

4 hours ago, Chief Stipe said:

You raise a good point regarding stable numbers.  If a stable has numbers and has a number of elite horses then they are at a training advantage.  The stable doesn't need to go to trials or workouts to gauge where they are at as they have competition within the stable.  Horses love trying to beat their mates and you can use that desire to raise the competitiveness of the all the stable horses.

You can win plenty of races if you want to have large Stable numbers.

This year (season 2022) Ben Yole has broken the Australian record for number of wins with 367. But has had 4,500 starters. and only won 2 metro class races . 

Emma Stewart has 272 wins so is second in the nation this year. Plenty of feature wins from 671 starters with over 100 metro wins . Thats better than what Allstars do and quite a staggering achievement. 

But shows if you race 'numbers' (as opposed to quality ) you can still get something for your owners. 

BEN YOLE	TAS	4,452	367	wins    382 - 419	$2,808,361	2 metro		365	$2,710,761	8.24%
EMMA STEWART	VIC	671	272  wins	93 -    70	$4,998,122	111	$4,092,718	161	$905,404	40.54%