Steve Donovan

Have not heard one person who agreed with this decision, even those who ended up backing the winner.

I see that there is a horse called Scorched Earth running tomorrow. I remember watching Meriel Tuffnell riding a horse of the same name to record the first ever riding success by a lady rider in the UK, It was a 50/1 shot and shocked the racing fraternity. Meriel died at just aged 53. If you are interested, here is her obituary. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1410396/Meriel-Tufnell.html

Fortunately our syndicate are all still good friends! We shall see, I would like to breed from her, but as we all know its normally short way to lose money!

She has a decent page actually, we were considering selling her as there is a syndicate involved and establishing a fair price is not so easy. However, we may actually give her another year and try and "fluke" some better black type. https://nzb.co.nz/sales/pedigree.cfm?sale_id=205&lot=367

Funny you should say that.....

Unbelievable that our mare, which we had almost given up on a few months ago should win three straight races. Never owned a horse that won three on the spin before. Great training effort form Richard Collett and his team and young Kavish the 4Kg claimer has been a revelation!

Well done to you and the team Shane 140,000 for the HRE colt !

HK is fantastic racing, particularly Sha Tin as opposed to the midweek Happy Valley. Hutchies Honkers site is a very good resource and worth paying on a meeting by meeting basis. Joao Moreria, Zac Purton and Karis Teetan are the top hoops, but there are other excellent Aussie Jocks as well. Joao is astonishing and to my eye rarely rides a bad race, he has the uncanny knack of being in the right place, he rides at all weights from 52kg upwards. There is so much in the pools, I was there on HK Derby day and there was 20m NZD per race in each pool, but the lack of co mingling for trifectas means that there are tiny NZ pools and better to bet off shore.

if you are going to steal a joke from the Edinburgh Fringe, you may as well steal them all. https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/aug/15/the-10-best-jokes-from-the-edinburgh-fringe

From The Guardian Comments re the Highlanders - Lions Game Leo Molloy 2h ago This comment was removed by a moderator because it didn't abide by our community standards. Replies may also be deleted.

Thanks I will just use an overseas provider

Sigh......

Presuming that you are one of the girls then Gubes?

These guys essentially abused a position of trust, so may have been treated more harshly than you may think. But, I understand that those defrauded were recompensed and were happy with that. The "celebrated" NZ trainer whom we all probably know, lets call him/her Voldermort, is famous for such schemes, but appears to have gotten away with it for years and continues to be held up as some kind of role model!

The punishment for these guys shows the contempt that the industry has for the ordinary owner. This is outright fraud and theft , and why the police are not involved, I do not know..The short bans and low fines are an absolute joke.

https://www.punters.com.au/news/Lil-Caesar%3A-A-tale-of-treachery-and-intrigue_144268/ So it looks as if not only were the owners rorted at the start, paying 100k for a horse passed in at about 15k. They then get ripped off by another 60k, when the horse was sold to HK! Are we naive enough to believe that this isn't happening here?

the problem is that they are competing against overseas competition, and haven't realised yet. If there was a choice of betting overseas or at home i.e. the offering was the same I would bet here. I cannot believe the large bets placed at odds inferior to what can be accessed overseas, maybe the size of bet. Its not just racing odds, my weekend football bet, every single game, every single option was .20 worse on the tab, when multi'd up this is huge

Good old bet 365, paid out first past the post. How long does the tab think that it will retain punters in the face of - Inquiry payouts -Hugely better place odds -Pathetic trifecta pools on overseas racing -Bonuses and better special offers Rather than squeezing the NZ punter for everything, if they matched the above, what they lost in percentage margin, they would make in additional turnover.

Having backed both Red Striker and Wills road, I was happy to one decision in my favour! From what I saw, the Stewards got it about right, in that they need to be convinced that the objector would have finished in front of the objectee, Astrid had gone past Wills Rd, albeit pushing through, whereas Red Striker was denied the run that would have in all likelihood seen her run past he winner.

You go too far!!

Brendan and Jo spend an enormous amount on supporting the industry. They deserve better luck than they are getting at the moment. I am sure that given the amount they send on breeding and purchasing that they will soon start to reap the benefits. Barry can only work with the materials that the is given.

No need for a truce as we are just 2 guys hopefully just having a reasoned conversation! On the Coleman front we can keep a watching brief! 2 high profile rides tomorrow , he should win on Justice League and Ryan Mark must go close. Storm Bro went a cracker and with a better draw could easily have won, but a nice place divvy helped to ease the pain! Ritchie is a super guy and probably the best communicator in the game. I also have a couple with Richard Collet, who is also excellent. Good luck to all us owners as good rides or bad, it is us that pay the bills!

Well done to the king, three midweek hack races and suddenly all is forgiven. I think not. No-one is disputing that he can ride a horse. The 3 wins yesterday were ok, I thought that he rose Suffire out well, lustrous was always going to win and he was was fortunate that you are amazing was so much better than the opposition that it could still win after the ride given. My old man always reckoned that really good jockeys win on horses that shouldn't win those races, Would Opie, Leith, Matt Cameron, Danielle have won on those horses? Yep. I'm trying not to be churlish ( not very hard admittedly) , but riding 3 winners doesnt make him a good jockey. I m pleased for his followers ( subjects) though. The King has no clothes........there I've said it.

I think that one of the main issues with the NZ Tab is that it is living in a dream world, where somehow it still believes that it has a monopoly on the NZ betting. This leads it to continue to try and adopt monopoly practices, without thinking through the consequences. Co-Mingling The TAB has not been able to agree CM with their Australian partners. So instead of coming to a commercial decision, it tries to force a second rate, ill thought out solution. It guarantees a pool value for some of the exotics, it does that rather than mirror the dividends from some or all of the Australian pools, presumably for fear of losing.( Wake up you are meant to have some skin in the game) This could possible worked say 20 years ago. Do they not understand that I can open an overseas account in 3 minutes from the comfort of my chair. It will only take one experience of a punter having scooped an outrageous trifecta only to receive a few hundred dollars from NZ TAB , for him to either stop punting or look for alternatives. Bookies I do raise a smile when Trackside refer to their fixed odds as being from the bookies, as if they were somehow independent from the tote. Would an independent bookmaker in competition with the real world really do the following? · Not publish its fixed place odds the same time as its win odds? · When it does publish its fixed place odds that they are so much worse than what can be obtained online, that I cannot believe anyone takes them. · Make it as difficult as possible to get you winnings out of the account. · Think that the tab AP is any use whatsoever. · Not allow you to do multis with differing values. E.g. 4 horses; any2,3, and all 4 need to be done at same stake. · Allow you use their site to watch races, when you haven’t had a bet with them. · Once on the view page, make it really difficult to put on multiple trifectas. ( after you put on a trifecta it defaults back to a FF win bet, ) · Change their odds at relatively low investment levels. I know that that there is much more, but I needed to get this off my chest. Aaaaggh!!

Here is the actual email Hi Steve, thank you for your email. I will make sure it is passed on as requested. With regard to your suggestion about paying average overseas dividends that is not possible as our pool is divided among the successful bettors. So if there is Trifecta pool of $15000.00 and 100 people select correctly the dividend is $150.00. If the overseas average is $175.00 the pay out would be $17,500.00 so there would not be enough in the pool. If the overseas average was $140.00 and only $14000.00 of a $15000.00 pool punters would rightly go crook about us not paying out the pool. Can I ask as a straw poll. Would you rather be guaranteed a proper reasonable dividend or take a chance that the minuscule NZ pool will pay as much or more for your trifecta dividend?