Hi Old Frank . Did you know that the trainer of Black Caviar went for a positive swab 3 weeks before her last win for a drug that has a side effect of sudden death . He was fined $4000 . It seems to me that a person willing to risk that with his horse would do anything . The galloping industry portray him as a great trainer and horseman . Now thats "bloody tosh"
Hi aussiebreno I was just talking to my Dad on the phone and read your post out to him , He chuckled and said funny thing he mentioned those 2 horses and I said why , He said well Smoken UP has just lost an interdom for a possitive and the Great horse Christian Cullen was scratched from a Miracle Mile because a security guard reported to stewards he saw someone needle the horse with something .Originally Posted by aussiebreno
Funny heh
Cassie
Great post Murray,
The sport/game /industry has had many Business GURU's play with various business models over the years and they have been so far been a distinct failure, everyone is entitled to their own opinion about each particular business and the best strategy for that business going forward, and time will tell with each business plan adopted because there are definintley no certainties just like that when you go to the trots, no certainties. I have often held the opinion that if you want kill a business then continue to restrict it. If you retsrict the business into small capsules you will, quite obviously find some capsules more profitable than others, and if you continue to follow the same mantra, after you ditch the weakest capsule then next semester/year/ another is identified as the 'weakest link" and so on and so until you have a business that is extremely narrow and completely reliant on other market forces and cannot sustain itself through difficult times.
there is no quick easy answer to any of this, but if you want a real solution then it's going to take all of us being together, excluding people/participants is not the answer.
Cassie,
Your inference Lettucerocku must be on drugs because it won by a big margin whilst others only won by a short margin. Smoken Up only won the Inter by a short margin....
Danno,
You are right many strategies haven't been particularly successful, but is that the fault of the business gurus or is it just that harness racing is a damned hard sport to run.
I like your weakest link bit. Applies to just about everything imo. It's about strengthening the weakest link, not just getting rid of it.
Murray thanks for your thoughts. But quite frankly you are very wrong. This process of restructure harness racing is going through at the moment is not about growing an already cash strapped industry. It is about reducing its size and increasing its quality. Harness racing in nsw is once again going to be the strongest in the country. It is about attracting quality from the other states. The last thing that harness racing needs is more substandard nsw bred horses racing for $2000 at bankstown. We can sit back and pick off the best interstate and NZ horses.
If you think harness racing needs hundreds of weekend warrior trainer drivers all fighting like seagulls to a chip to the dregs of the prize money left behind by the big few you are kidding it is the recipe for coruption.
The future of harness racing in nsw is to attract the best from interstate in horses, trainers, and drivers and cull the rest. It is big, expensive, unprofitable and difficult to regulate.
The arrival of Luke 12 months ago only highlighted just how weak the nsw trainers were. Others have seen this and will soon follow.
OK then. I know I said don’t expect me to reply, but I did not say I would not reply, so here goes just for you Cassie.
At no stage did I say any names that you mentioned could not compete. What I said was that Luke was out training and out driving everyone at the moment and that if they wanted to be competitive then they would have to lift there game. Please go back and read my post again and you will see this is what I said. Don’t go misrepresenting what I have said to suit yourself. I never take what anyone achieves lightly. I respect anyone who is willing to have a go in life and with the names you have mentioned, I hope one day that I can achieve some of the results that they have. But the game has changed again and people need to change with it otherwise they go stale. So having some flesh blood in Luke is going to be great for your industry.
Now I have no doubt that out of the names that you listed that a number of them will rise to the challenge that Luke has issued. But this will take a while for them to do. They will need to find better horses and start to change their training programs. It all takes time. The same thing happened in Qld when Vic Frost first moved up here. No one could beat his horses, but after a while stables started to close the gap on him until they caught up with him. What Vic did was to raise the bar and everyone had to lift there game to compete. Then McCarthys started to dominate the sport here, then it was the Dixons. What Luke is doing is raising the bar, now some people will respond to that challenge while others will sit on their hands and whinge that it is not fair. For those people I have no time for them. They can continue to sit in the corner and rock themselves to sleep while calling out Lukes name. What are they going to do when the next big name stable arrives in town. Cry poor again and say these people have no right to be there as you are doing to Luke, or is it a case that you can come but you have to lower your standard to match ours. Harness Racing is a business and no matter what business you are in, there will always be a couple of players who dominate.
As for your comment about the punter who was booing Luke. Well I guess you would have to have been there to see it, otherwise it seems a bit strange that a winning punter would be booing the horse he backed. How lucky for you he was standing right behind you. Almost seems to convenient to me. But as I said guess you had to be there.
Good luck to Luke. I hope he continues on in such a strong manner as the industry needs some positive stories to tell. It is a shame that some people are willing to try and bring him down to their low levels of achievements. But I guess that is why it is called the tall poppy syndrome.
Murray, I'm not wrapping Peter Moody, as you will clearly see my response was to Aussibreno who I mistook for being sarcastic.
Please keep my comments in the context that they were intended/responded too regarding AB's comments.
All good champion, apologies for not picking up on the sarcasim initially! At first I thought, this bloke can't be serious!!! Hahaha...
What is it that you are proposing? No lower levels such as Bankstown $2k races? For a Vic like myself, I am assuming that is like saying NO $3k race meetings at Kilmore (I know they are generally more than this). Where is the community interest going to come from? Where are the future drivers going to come from?
Once again being a Vic can only think AFL for comparison (sorry). This would be like the AFL saying we will keep VFL (one level below AFL level which includes a couple of major country towns) but we do not need country football anymore.
Greg Sugars was a Champion harness racing person
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote