Hunter the punter

As well as wanting to help the industry to improve its marketing and promotion Fitzgerald has also started to promote and bring in new owners.
In fact he had a quick count up the other day and has 53 new owners who have come into horse ownership in the last six weeks, of this number roughly 75% of these are owners that have never owned a harness racing horse before.
Good on this chap, more of him is required 

Will these comments reach the HRNZ 's new threshold for not bagging them and the code 
"
“New Zealand racing is in a dire situation and can’t sustain this,” says Green. “So many horses are being sold it’s leaving a huge hole in our population. We can’t continue like this or we’ll end up with four horse fields and then it’s game over.
“I can understand why people sell their horses - because our handicapping system doesn’t allow them to win enough money and the imbeciles here won’t look at handicapping options.”

Yes your sport has been in a steep decline for five years now 
Funnily enough Inca started five years ago next month, when the narc fed the lies and disinformation to the RIU, then the fools who knew nothing thought they’d uncovered the greatest rort in history, and they fed the lies and bullshit to the Police, the OCG to be exact, who were as stupid and ignorant as the ex cops in the RIU, and Jenkins, so they proceeded to destroy your code and spend 10 million dollars on nothing
The rest is history, no convictions, no race fixing, no money trail, no betting irregularities, no blood doping … but lots of intimidation, bullying, threats, misery, careers destroyed, orchestrated charges for peripheral unimportant things … and it’s still going on as I type 
I see Sheryl Wigg has two in tonight 
Anyway, I can’t work out why the Chairman didn’t mention exactly why the code is in a tail spin, and who caused it all

Well spotted, this is full of shit and looks like GW was put to the sword at Racing NZ board meeting. An extra 3.1 mio when NZTAB distributions to codes went from 139 mio to 173.6. Sounds like TB's and Dogs were the big winners

Great training and driving performance

Punters do indeed walk away Steel. I started out as a trotting punter. The first meeting I ever attended was at Addington. I even used to bet on the Alex Park trots on a Friday night. I have attended about six Interdominion final nights at Alex Park and Addington. I will always remember one finals night at Alex Park when I was in the "special people's" room with free booze and food, and I was the only person who stopped eating to go and watch a race. That was an eye-opener for me.
These days I probably have 3 or 4 trotting punts a year. The cheating doesn't help, but the big turn-off is all the unbackable red hot favs, which some people seem to like, but it does nothing for me. There have always been red hots. I remember Noodlum, About Now, Courage Under Fire etc, but there was usually one of them a night at best. These days there are 5 or 6 unbackable red hots on all the big nights.
It certainly is a twilight industry as Flash mentioned. Ironically the one thing the trots have going for them is the afternoon, country meetings with big, even fields and big crowds. But that is all being sacrificed for boring as piss go rounds at Addington, because they perceive that as the cheapest way to put out a gambling product. 
Back in the days of Struan Cain and Ian Mill the trots were probably the best run of all three codes. Poor leadership since then has seen them turn out to be a bit of a basket case. Probably the National Party of the racing industry.

Agreed eljay........3x races for the series and what.....5 , 8 and 8 nominations.
Certainly a lack of respect and support for the Juniors.
Yes ,concessions and/or incentives should be on offer. !

Perhaps HRNZ should offer stakes subsidy or a generous discount in handicapping points - say 10 points off for also rans in parallel to increased stakes for 1st to 4th.

Surely not Cambridge get another go. For the woeful stakes they offer for the rest of the season they shouldn’t deserve another jewels. 

I unreservedly apologies Iraklis. Clearly I was 100% wrong.
There are no cheats in harness racing, and the game is as pure as the driven snow!
I bow to your superior knowledge, and hope I can one day ascend to your level of wisdom.

Everyone  has a bad day occasionally even horses that's  racing 

The call should have come from Hayden - easy to see who the boss really is. Loyalty means nothing to the Allstars.

Sounds like I got it all wrong.

But Jeep you miss the point. The RIU has double standards and are incompetent Neil Grim an ex cop who left before being asked to leave fitted up and innocent man and is a known racist all by his own mouth. He is a gambler and bets through his partners TAB account. how can this man be impartial Ask any ex police who worked with him. He loves a beer and a bet. 
How can he be impartial in any investigation They need to be removed. Who polices the police who keeps the RIU in check  
 

Check the news today. Contamination from stables at Awapuni. Maybe you should do a bit of homework before you start throwing accusations around. Should never have been public knowledge until all testing had been done. Investigation to follow contamination

It was always a case of him leaving to pursue his own career outside of current set up. Blair and Greg  Payne did the same in recent times. Will no doubt get more drives from Dunn stable and slowly build up numbers. 
Good luck to him

Dunno bout you guys but I really miss Mark McNamara, I loved his race calls specially those little quips he put in at the end of the race bloody magic 😀
 
Cheers Iraklis

Geoff, Aria and daughter leeshelle very much involved in showjumping these days. Far more profitable wheeling and dealing in showjumpers than harness horses.

Go DD!!! he's just bin awarded driver of the year in the US 🤗 is he good or is he good ay ay....
Dexter Dunn, a nine-time winner of the driving title in his native land of New Zealand before the age of 30, has now been in the United States and Canada for two years, and he has been voted Driver of the Year both years. 2020 was an especially rich year for him, in two senses of the word: he was the leading money-winning driver last year with almost $11.2 million bankrolled by his charges, many of whom were voted champions of their respective divisions.
In September, October, and November alone in the shortened season, he drove the winners of 26 races worth more than $100,000, including the pacing filly champions in both the 2- and 3-year-old ranks, Fire Start Hanover and Party Girl Hill; the two champions among the older pacing set, stallion Bettor's Wish and mare Kissin In The Sand; champion trotting mare Manchego; and champion sophomore trotting male Amigo Volo. He again won four Breeders Crown races.
 
Cheers Iraklis

No worry to me as long as they call the horse I've backed first.

They could run a raffle - first price Forbury Park, second prize Alexandra Park.      

Nat wins 5 and has 3 placings Cullen 4 wins and a few minor placings. A good night for the best in the game

I can remember Ray and Paul Jelicich (Western Red) would always go out for a drink on Aug 1st horses birthday, a great day if you didn't have much to do on the 2nd. 😁

What has this to do with Harness forum?

Oh dear a poster who cannot accept that on Premier nights some stables are just outstanding. They set them up to win for their high paying owners with a "the best will win"  scenario.
Well done Mr Cullen 5 wins 6 placings