Mr Spyro

He's still relying on selling off the other courses to fund it, esp Avondale . Heard through the grapevine that some intend to stand and fight . Hopefully with quite a few lawyers having served recently on these club's committee's , they might help clubs fight the Whiskey'd One's plans, pro - bono.

One of the good blokes and a true old school gentleman. Very sad news.

Very astute and a damn hard worker.

Yep my uncle was very good mates with a leading SI trainer / driver and they always got together when he came up. One time they couldn't meet up until after the first day when my uncle bet on this particular horse of his . Trainer told him on meeting up day after " No, you didn't !! you should have waited until the second day and punted " It was all " hands down " the second day and it bolted in at large odds.

It is so ill conceived there must be an ulterior motive. Going around and around taking 10 minutes to do what used to take a couple . I'm not off a violent nature , but would like to see the dipshits who designed this hung off the nearest lamp post and castrated without anesthetic .

Well I know it was happening at least early 90's and as you say probably continues. I had a friend whose dad was on the committee overseeing inquiries so betting was prohibited , at his local meetings his family were putting on the bets for him.

Can't find a problem in backing your own horse, it was done for ions , I remember Grenville Hughes talking about punting up large on his mounts when he started as a jockey. Alright illegal now , and this was stupid backing other horses, but surely it must be easy to get around. Why depend on someone in the industry when you have wives, girlfriends, brothers etc. Wives / partner's can bet, if they had a punt, collected the money and paid you cash at home, how the hell could they ever prove it was your bet and not hers ? Having someone in the industry doing it seems like a much easier trial to follow.

Not every trainer over the years at Te Akau have done as well as Jamie , with exactly the same resources presented to them ( by that don't mean Stephen Autridge or Mark Walker who are excellent trainers ). It isn't automatic that they'll be really successful even with top cattle to work with.

Often get in a sweat when they tip a horse I 've backed , if they write it off my confidence increases ten fold. I know it isn't the easiest job but had to laugh over a certain tipster at Avondale one meeting. Bloke wandered up with wad of tickets and asked me what this certain tipster had selected in that race. When I told him he was all curses and threw all his tickets in bin before race even began before storming off . Race starts and horse jumps out 10 lengths behind the field, no chance. In case like that really the " tipster's curse "

Just a guess, would it be Mongolian Khan in Caufield Cup ? Gingernuts may have well done it last year but never got the chance.

If they had tried and completely failed. it makes sense If he meant any horse that just hadn't won on the first attempt , Gold And Black and Hyperno you wouldn't have bet on, to name a couple.

Maybe I was thinking of 1980 not 1979 as I see Sunseeker did win one race in that year. On the other hand maybe it is just old age setting in....

Please correct me if I have this wrong but wasn't there something strange that happened previous to the Cup with Lord Module and Sunseeker again driven by his son and law . Might be memory playing tricks but it was the night Sunseeker needed a win to qualify for the Cup . Fog was as thick as pea soup and couldn't see a foot in front of you. Lord Module entered the murk in front and even commentator had to wait until horses emerged. Suddenly Sunseeker emerges from the fog first and gets the win he needs.

God, I know how you feel. A few years ago my mother and wife both asked about a horse attached to own horse's stable. Told them it was basically useless, had never run a place and never would. They both said they'd limit their bets to half intended. Bloody horse went like a rocket and paid $ 40. Worse than the bollocking I got, was when they saw me on Trackside patting the horse and telling him what a good fella he was. My wife apparently yelled at the TV " You damn hypocrite ! " Three years on she is still reminding me.

Some of the stuff then was a bit brazen for sure . One that really made me shake my head was when our trainer was mates with another trainer who had 2 horses in a race. He told our trainer they fancied the one that wasn't favourite. So this was just before passing lane came into being, it gets to the turn and one they fancied is stuck in trail behind stablemate. Stablemate suddenly veers towards the middle of the track and other one shoots through and wins. Quickly the driver is called into the enquiry room. Told them on a bone dry night the reins had slipped out of his hands and quickly was accepted. Maybe if the stewards hadn't been so laissez - faire in accepting any old excuse over the years, things might not have got to this stage