biff

Fellas, let me enlighten you from this side of the ditch.....the NSW TAB is a joke as are many of the corporate bookies. If you wager large, and you are successful.....meaning you are in the black more than the red, look out......in the case of the corporates, wammo they close you down quick smart.....firstly by restricting your bets and then cancelling your account. No questions please....just f-off. The NSW TAB, is a different animal......the access to their mobi site is very inviting until!!!! the divs shown on i-pad, i-phone and macbook accessibility as they jump fluc so badly it is misleading by far.....and no accountability at all......all care, no responsibility and you try to contact them asking for an explanation and the diatribe from a GenY reading from a script is a joke....some of these approx divs are out by 20-30% points......so the grass is not always greener.....Betfair is not an option when betting in big numbers, especially for a place......just saying it as it is from here in Sin City. Next step, trying the Petone boys I spose, now thats going to be interesting.

Dummy Myers would know the Hickey's as would 'torch' being a Gestro. Hawera in the 60's and 70's had more than few! Good Luck.

Breaking news.......soft palate, surgery needed! and at his age......? broken winded meant one thing to me with an older horse.......zzz?

He looked a different animal to the one I saw in Melbourne when he cleaned up with Rodd on. In the mounting yard and in the stabling area at the farm, he looked tired, a dull eye, and 'over it'. Maybe they should leave him with Baker jnr out at the Farm Rumpers......now Baker can improve anything!!!!!!

I remember Phil when he was a cadet reporter in Welly way back in the early 70's.......he started off reporting from the NZBC radio car from all the suburban rugby grounds, half time, full time scores etc. You guys obviously have better memories than I, however at 61 it's a tragedy. Another good one gone.

Congrats to zzz and the team from the 'other side' of the ditch. At least Sky 2 left the feed on long enough for us to see the trainer and hear the interview. Good stuff, hope there's heaps more to come. Heady ride, Rhodesian and a mainlander, now that's a nice marriage.

What about the poor animal that sold for 200 bucks!.......Knacker? ......the vendor should be made to walk the animal to the float. It's degrading and any self respecting breeder should know better! Throw it back if you may, but for 200, why not take it home or even give it away...but not through the ring for that money.....Pleeeese?

God, if ever there was cause for a no confidence motion this is it, surely ? Strength in numbers. Now what say a prospective first time owner considering investing in the sport reads all this ? Will they then withdraw for so many reasons? Maybe not, but then again? As you correctly point out zzz, this fellow puts self interest and ego ahead of all else. Not a good look for NZ, but no one's likely to read this anywhere but here eh?...... Not mainstream press where questions would be asked. Get the racing minister involved, as this is poor pr for racing and for morale amongst good racing folk.

Helen Clark perhaps?

SORRY! But it's a 'STRING OF HORSES .....not a herd........taught that as a 15yo apprentice with a kick up the arse by one of the best, it hurt and it stuck with me......

I make no bones about it, I love my All Blacks, ever since the days I used to take my smelly oversized rugby ball to bed as a 6yo. The ball polished to an amazing state of preservation by Mum’s old cooking fat, or lard would leave stains on my sheets so bad Mum would have to scrub her fingers raw with her trusty peg board and sunlight soap to restore those sheets to that starched, blinding white hospital grade level that Mums used to do in the 50’s. That was if you came from working class New Zealand stock where we all used to run to the neighbours to watch the only TV in the street shared by that neighbour either from delusions of grandeur or just plain good heartedness. Respect replaced love from the time I put my arms around the back of Murray Mexted to lock the scrum in the first representative game we ever played at Wakefield Park when Western Bays played Wellington, for me it also proved the last, for Murray it was the curtain raiser on what became a stellar career in rugby. No matter, but those days in innocent New Zealand were wonderful, as we all gathered around the La Gloria wireless at God forsaken hours of the morning to listen to Winston McCarthy send his patriotic and descriptive broadcasts back to us bleary eyed rugby army that most Kiwi’s were and still are. From the frozen frost burnt pitches of the North of England and Scotland came those commentaries that would leave us with shivers up the spine as the All Blacks trundled on relentlessly winning nearly all their games leaving us greeting each other the next morning at the local dairy as we bought the Sunday papers and milk with a ‘how good were the boys last night? That bloody referee, if he wasn’t so biased we would have put 100 over them’’ and other one eyed bleats of common support. Those Northern tours were what brought the country together, when the All Blacks were great we could conquer the world, that far flung green patch in God Zone we all called home, except those intellectuals or expats that had left New Zealand to live in London in an effort to broaden their intellectual standing and outlook, and one could hardly do that in little old New Zealand back in the 50’s. History repeats, with only some exceptions as the events of the past few years rugby wise, see’s the All Blacks reach heights other teams can only dream about. Of course now with Sky TV and Foxtel etc beaming games live into homes all over the planet we can all feel the euphoria now in a more tangible way, we can see it. The effort to set the clock and stay up is so much easier when you know there on the 55’’er on the wall or on the stand comes the visual delights we all crave for, a black tide of ruthless plunderers, a little like the Vikings, the bloodshed is there, the war cry is there, but not the rape and pillaging, well thanks to Richie maybe the pillaging but that’s not talked about save the IRB referee’s panel should hear and change the laws of the game to discourage pillaging the way Richie purveys the craft. On Saturday at Murrayfield, the Black jersey did it’s-self proud, as it usually does. The fact that again the All Blacks put a Northern rugby team to the sword was not the defining fact, it was that rugby was sung from a song sheet that could have come from the repertoire of Mozart, or Verdi, or a score from Peter Jackson’s movie blockbusters…it was magical. They got it wrong a few times too, just to prove they are mortal, but when it came together as it often did during this 80 odd minutes this All Black team made us think for a while anyway, there’s not a lot wrong with the world. But life beyond rugby is there for all to see, it’s just for the next week in those country towns from Cape Reinga to Stewart Island the folk will greet each other with, ‘’how good were the boy’s, that ref had a shocker eh? Thompson’s boot was nowhere that fellas head, she’ll be right!’’