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I'll just reiterate this one more time...and that is that for thelast 20yrs...we've been run by Globalists through the corporate channels..the last 10 yrs has been rampant management by Crisis..and Allen is working To those ends.,...posing as a leader with all his buffoonery and bluster on a series of promises that he still chooses to enact. NZ Racing has been given a death sentence all the while we are expected to 'stomach' what we're told is best for us..including the smashing of the T.A.B. interfces for betting..and the withdrawl of free to air TRACKSIDE. RITA will be the final hurrah as they impliment there closure agenda

Would you vote yes or no to employing John Allen if you owned a Company given his past results as a CEO of it and you were restructuring the Company. I am astounded that John Allen remains involved in the Industry given his negative results and wastage of Industry funds. Any other Company in the world would have had shareholders demand his sacking. RITA has under performed in just 3 weeks by allowing John Allen to be part of a working party to revitalise the Industry. It's a comedy show.

He's a tough old bugger so let's hope he pulls through. Done well to get to 31.... Sad to hear Mighty Boss has died due to colic.

John Allen displays the classic symptoms of the effects from a swindle. John Allen didn't organize the fraud but through his lack of understanding allowed the big con to take place. So now he is in denial. It happens so often. Those who have been conned don't want to admit they were careless. They start fishing for straws and try to bring up even the tiniest piece of good news. Its a pity those around him aren't much better and just keep accepting his b.s. Thats probably the reason he is still there.

John Allen sold to the Industry a supposed investment costing tens of millions plus tens of millions more to run that has failed to deliver in every area he said it would. The biggest expenditure ever in the history of the TAB or NZRB. One thing that has changed over past 30 years is the quality of CEO's who have run the TAB or NZRB it continued to deteriorate as proven with the last one. Personally I don't hate John Allen as a person but as a CEO of a huge National Organisation I don't and have never rated him. He never improved knowledge wise in his term as CEO which is a huge worry and if anything he actually seemed to become more confused. I am sure he would be good running a fruit shop but a gambling organisation that has an Industry reliant on strong leadership with sound knowledge and experience of the Industry he has and never did have anything to offer. As for sit back and watch next 12 months as time will judge him, $%#^ me how much time do you need to access his ability. Time is not something the Racing Industry has on its side, time has run out. They got lucky on the Cricket result which means nothing %$^ John Allen did nothing to create the result. Bottom line is the guy should have been shown the door July 1s> We can agree to disagree but there wouldn't be many people outside the NZRB that are involved in the Racing Industry that would want John Allen to run a Company if they owned one. The good news is that John Allen actually agrees with me even if you don't as he has publically stated that he is a serial failure in his working life. Admission to any personal failings is the first road to attempting to improve yourself so I give him credit there.

I think that it’s probably cheaper to keep him! Give him a prick of a job like, sack his mates. Then and only then, may the penny drop!

Impressive effort Liberty Stride. http://www.harness.org.au/racing/fields/race-fields/?mc=SP230719#SPC23071908

With so much interested care and thoughts for Subbie, the latest from Graham. So Subbie is at Victorian Equine Group and will remain there for 3 days for treatment to his kidneys after dehydration brought on from battling colic over the weekend. "He is in great hands with Sarah and Mike, they wanted him in there this morning after looking at his blood tests so when they said that I was on the road, whatever he needs and he wants he gets." "They know him inside and out and they now seem pretty happy with him considering what he has been through. He has kidney problems since his racing days, so one has been carrying the load for the other basically all his life, so he was flushed out this morning and is under treatment in a box for the next few days." "So hopefully after 3 days, all flushed out, it will be like a brand new kidney and we can get him home and he'll be right. As they said 'knowing him, knowing you, he will be right but they said remember he is still in the woods right now." "Considering we thought they were coming back to put him down on Sunday, if they had to operate he wouldn't have survived - you have to think what an old marvel he is, I wish I was as good as him." "As (vet) Sarah (Jalim) said - 'if you were in a war, you'd want him on your side'." Or as Graham told me: "If it wasn't for Subbie there would be no me, and if it wasn't for me there would be no Subbie."

How about these figures from last weeks racing in Tasmania where they had 2 meeting - Hobart on Friday night and Launceston on Sunday. On the Friday night they had a 7 race card with a total of 71 horses engaged - including 40 from the Ben Yole stable On Sunday they had an 8 race card with a total of 87 horses engaged - including 52 from the Ben Yole stable A total of 158 raced in Tasmania for the week - 92 of them from one stable! Kudos to the stable for getting such huge numbers on to the track for each race, especially this one ... the entire 12 horse field!

Yole come back now !!

Would be great to ressurect that programme.

TVNZ or Trackside had a 30 min programme on Maurice Holmes retirement. I vividly remember his criticism on overuse of the whip. What a master of the art.

As I have mentioned before, it is quite strange how the TAB now seems to be running the whole industry. 30 odd years ago the TAB was purely a service organisation that basically did as it was told. Quite weird how things have turned out. Back in the day no one would have expected the CEO of the TAB to know much at all about actual racing.

You make many good points. I don't know Allen at all so I have no idea how competent he is or isn't. He speaks well enough, although probably without great substance. I certainly don't hold him personally responsible for all of the industry's problems. From my experience though I can't recall a single non racing person over the years who has ever come in and made a positive contribution to the industry; that includes anyone in management or at board level. All good in theory to bring in someone with a fresh set of eyes, but in the case of Racing it has never worked.

Perhaps they have hired him to fetch the coffee.

Lights out , what you must come to terms with the undeniable fact that racing has been in decline for at least 30 years , probably longer . plenty have tried to turn things around without success . The world has changed , young people aren't interested in racing but nothing special about racing , many sports are struggling to maintain their former levels of support . The Brits won the world cup and they are hoping this victory will revitalise the game in the UK , support for cricket has collapsed in the UK. The point is why demonise someone for performing no worse than his predecessors and POSSIBLY , just possibly much better . The jury is out on the former RBs strategy , the punting results on the world cricket cup were spectacular and if this is a pointer of things to come then in time racing will turn around and if that happens then Allen is here to stay . I suggest you sit back relax and forget what seems to be a personal dislike of the man , results in time will judge him , you must admit RITA were quite happy to retain his services , are you suggesting RITA are complete fools and for the record Allen CHAIRS the working party . Your question should be asked in 12 months time , then a judgment may be possible .

John Allen is as good as all his predecessors ..the luminaries and visionaries of..vested interests.Former soft sinecure, Stiassney ...was right ..'NZ Racing is fucked'!

Yes, pretty hard to disagree with anything he said. All very sad.

Spot on Hedley

Rita needs to roll someone in it's own backyard - comments for Horse # 1 in race 7 at Awapuni tomorrow Fresh up but has had a trial to prepare! FFS the trial was back in March !!

Nice win by Gumpert...Ted threw it out as the roughie yesterday. 18's very nice.

Yes, hindsight is a wonderful thing, or as my mate likes to say, "From behind, it is easy to look a cow in the arse", And I hope you have learned, CT, not to get too carried away with 'potential superstar' two-year-olds, and keep your hard-earned for good value risk/reward opportunities. Methinks you are the type who gets easily carried away by one good performance, or the recommendation from a friend/insider that so-and-so is 'unbeatable'/champion bla bla bla...and you just have to tell us all about it so you can bask in the glory of your own tipping brilliance. And when things don't work out for you, you attack/denigrate other posters in whatever way suits you at the time...(eg 'hindsight is a wonderful thing, just ask weasel). Here's a FREE TIP from me, mate. Next time you want to recommend a nag to us here, just tone down the language. Replace, eg, 'the only horse you need this saturday" with something like: "My best bet / value bet of the day for Saturday is"...and tell us why you rate it.. ! Try to stay humble, even though you find it hard ...

Rugby in NZ has been in serious decline in recent years ,the one thing saving it has been WOMEN ! There's an idea ! But women won't go if facilities too old ! Now there's an idea ! But the tracks with good facilities don't race too often ,cos of mainly wear and tear ! Now there's an idea ! But too boring a day and nothing to see and do but hang around and wait ! Now there's an idea ! Owners given up in droves cos often hard to get a start and not like v like ! Now there's an idea ! Divi's too low cos too many pools splitting $ Now there's an idea ! People at top don't seem to know what they doing except draw big bucks ! There's an idea ! Piss off Tassie , spend your pennies elsewhere ! There's an idea !

Back onto my pet subject. Despite Ashburton racing today, Timaru on Friday, 70 kilometres and less than an hour down the road, currently has 80 nominations that will miss a start unless fields are split. NZTR has indicated they will split the two maidens, but still 56 horses will miss a start. One maiden race alone has enough noms to run three full races. Contrast this with Otaki on Saturday, which has a grand total of 67 noms for the entire meeting. One maiden has been dumped and the other has four noms. So 67 noms for Otaki and 56 horses that will miss a start altogether at Timaru, even if fields are split to run ten races. My point is that this is incompetence, on quite a grand scale. There is betting product available in vast numbers in one part of the country and numerous people wanting to take part in the industry, but they are being treated like shit to be blunt. If an all weather track is intended to keep horses going through the winter it would be a disaster for the SI, which can't cope with the numbers of horses it has already; horses that are more than happy to race on the tracks that already exist. In all of the radical plans to revitalise the industry I have yet to see any discussion about how this problem will be resolved. I just can't get my head around how closing Waimate, and potentially Timaru for god's sake, will somehow solve this problem of heaps of horses but no opportunities in one part of the country and heaps of race meetings but no horses elsewhere.

Sadly, I am beyond being astounded. Programming isn't all that hard, but it is obviously beyond anyone currently employed in the industry. Why you would entrust anyone with millions of dollars of spending when they can't get any of the basics right is quite staggering. I have never seen any comment from Rita or the like about getting the basics right. Heaps of people looking at the "big picture", but no one capable or interested in getting into the basics; it's as if it is below them all somehow. When you are on $200,000+ a year I suppose small details seem insignificant. I really do think that unless the trainers take a much bigger role in the industry then it probably is stuffed. Sadly the more capable ones seem to be deserting the sinking ship, and who can blame them. All very sad really. Imagine how staggered we would all be if Rita came on here one day and said "we have noted the problems you are referring to, and we do have plans to correct the imbalance between horse numbers and race numbers". Pigs and flying come to mind.

The plan was [ I believe ] to run weekly or fortnightly races on the allweather to 'mop up ' races from those tracks that have been 'closed' . Whether that would actually work I can't say, but one thing is sure, nobody would be turning up to watch a borefest, no one comes now apart from Cup meeting. Oh, and National - but if jumping is dispensed with down here, that won't exist either. From what I can gather, only a handful of trainers are keen on an allweather....most don't want a bar of it. A part of that reasoning is the reality that to install an allweather, Riccarton would probably have to lose the plough training track. This is our lifesaver in the summer months, in the dry Canterbury climate training without the plough at Riccarton would be very difficult, the grass tracks are like concrete. Your points make good sense, why nothing is done about the programming astounds me.

Well now you know Mandela did not bleed you can line up again! As it was the 'only horse you need this Saturday' you wacked $600 on it. Putting $500 on Killavalley after seeing him parade (a big brute)is a pretty good guide to your form analysis ability.Original plans...do me a..favour!

Knocked his head in transit to the races and ended up with a blood nose. Disappointing but will see another day.

Having met the guy, he does come across as a lot of fluff and spin, definitely the frontman or ringleader of the circus. He’s surrounded himself with his people from another sector and as their record shows, don’t have much clue , or are good at winding down enterprises with not much heart in the game( excluding Gary Woodham). They are the people that as an industry, we should be making accountable.