Keep Your Hands Off Our Silver, Hall Of Fame Tells Auckland Trotting Club
The debt-laden Auckland Trotting Club is almost down to selling the family silver but has struck opposition in its latest bid to demolish Australasia’s only harness racing museum to make way for parking. The ATC reduced its debt from $122million to $73million last month by finally completing its sale of a large chunk of land […]
Well, Well, Well – Look Who Owns Runners in the Race From Which Copy That Was Cut
Merv Butterworth is the master of posing the polite understated question that screams RORT! This below is an extract from a report by Dr Barry Lichter published this morning on the ever-excellent Lincoln Farms website www.lincolnfarms.co.nz, which I highly recommend as a must read for trot fans. (Copy That’s owner) Merv Butterworth said he hopes […]
Nigel McGrath Backs Away – But This Story Has Plenty of Miles Still to Run
The harness racing industry is in uproar over a dispensation granted to former high-profile trainer Nigel McGrath who was banned for eight years for cheating in 2020. But in a surprise move on Tuesday night, McGrath, speaking publicly for the first time in five years, said he had withdrawn his application to break in yearlings on a restricted […]
The Big Plunge Misses – The Dead Horse Wins – The Kiwis Are Going So Bad at the Moment That They Can’t Even Fix a Trot Race
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men, / Gang aft agley (often go astray) – Robert Burns Kiwi drivers Blair Orange and Gavin Smith has it all worked out in the 9th at Addington today. Orange’s was on A Bettor You, the odds on favourite from the Mark Purdon stable at $1.80. It was […]
Do As I Say, Not as I Do – The Gary Woodham Challenge
Number one issue – we need a Code of Conduct, and we need it urgently. Now we are a sport Greg, and there are three pillars to sport: fair play, integrity, and doing your best. I’m worried about integrity, really worried about integrity. I want to make it very clear to everybody that I am […]
The Pedos, the Pervs, the Rapists, the Dopers, and the Disqualified – And the Boys That Run the Kiwi Trots Who Protect Them
Just look at this pair. Would you trust either of them to babysit your kids, look after your wallet while you go for a swim, or chaperone your wife to the Opera? If yes, you need need urgent professional help I was swamped with requests to follow up on a story that appeared on the […]
How’s That For Tricky Hey? – HRNZ Didn’t Read the Rule Wrong – They Just Pong
As the brilliant Brad Reid reveals on Harnesslink this morning, the schemers on the HRNZ board late last year quietly slipped a changed into the rule 1303(i) that I wrote about last night to change the meaning from that which I detailed in my story to this which Reid has detailed in his. There can […]
HRNZ Has No Power to Grant Permission for Disqualified Cheats to Break or Gait Horses – They Are Breaking Their Own Rules
The recent article written by former staff member Brad Reid outlining some of the deep, underlying problems with NZ harness racing has struck a real cord with participants in the sport, so much so that I am led to believe that within days it has become one of the most read stories ever on the […]
Brad Reid Stands With Harness Racing – And I Stand With Him
Kiwi harness racing writer Brad Reid is a relative newcomer to the sport, who first became involved less a decade ago. In that time though he has fallen it with the trots like many of us, and has become a passionate enthusiast and advocate for our great game. Sadly though, like a lot of us, […]