Sam Natis Comments on Sky Sports Radio

[Messenger]

What is the idea of the 100k races? Attending quite a few meetings in the Western district this year - Stawell, Horsham, Hamilton, Charlton; I have noticed that 80% of the horses are Western district horses anyway and they would be winning 80% of the races. I imagine for MilCrampa the figure could be higher and the last thing you would be wanting to do is discourage entries from further afield.

[Gilgamesh]

Hi Gutwagon, your thoughts in here have inspired me to sign up and have my two cents! Firstly do you own a car, have a shirt on your back, knives and forks in your kitchen, shoes on your feet, I'm going to assume you do. The maths would have it that at least 75% of these producs aren't from Australia. Why, because the Australian product is largely of an inferior quality or grosely over priced. Aren't you lucky though that you are not forced into buying those poor quality products or paying more for decent standard stuff.

If the Australian breeder wants Australian owners to buy Australian horses the it's pretty simple, breed better horses!

In WA at the moment we are having quite a few West bred only races. I'm a reasonanble punter, put a lot of effort into my form targeting how a race will be run and would have a reasonable turnover on most friday nights. When it comes to the Westbred races I leave them the hell alone, the are by and large awful! If i'm not punting I'll assume others aren';t punting as well, How is that good for the breeder remembering we get our money from the punting dollar, if there's no prize money there's no owners and if there's no owners there's no breeders. If Jo blogs is a random bloke who likes a punt but doesn't actualy follow Harness comes along on a friday night and the best form in a race is 0, 4, 7 beaten 22m last start what is he going to think.

I'm around the 30 yr mark, a lot of my mates love a bet. I could count on one hand the number that even know who won the inters let alone the last race at GP. People just do not follow the sport anymore. The last thing we want to do is discourage new people from getting into the sport, again this is to the detrament of the breeder. I have a group of mates who have looked into owning in all codes, there is no way I could talk them into going to the sales and forking out money for a young horse they have no link to that may never make the track, if it flopped I would feel awful and we'd lose them forever. In the end I actually joined with them and we purchased a ready to run dog because it was economically viable. She had her share of ability and all the litter ended up doing pretty well. Unfortunately she broke down though but because the boys become a bit attached to her and we had a little kitty from prize money we kept her and bred from her, racing on one of her next bitches and selling the others to new owners. See where im going. We have so much competion from the dogs I think this is where we are really losing it but thats another issue. If I was able to find a decent ready to run mare I could probably get them involved now and who knows we may breed from her but if the price is to high or the prospects are to risky then people will just look at other options.

Anyhow I would like to say more but i'm using a keyboard I dont understand in a hostel on the way to Sweden to see some high standard trotting fgor my birthday. I knoiw my thoughts are far different from yours but I would hope we both want the same thing, our favoured past time to flurish not flounder, in my mind the more restrictions we place on the industry the worse it will be.

Nz breeders are producing more horses than their local industry needs. Aust breeders are not producing enough horses.
So we either continue to bring in thousands of NZ horses to the great benefit of NZ breeders or we encourage Aust breeders to breed more horses.
I would like to keep the money in Australia and see a lot more done to help Australian breeders.
Sure some owners want a quick return so they buy going horses from NZ at often over inflated prises . So the Aust studmasters and breeders miss out.
There still seem to be plenty of NZ horses coming each year so the fee is not having much effect. The amount of horses being bred in Aust is dropping every year and the amount of stallions standing at stud keeps dropping . So you do the maths.

[Lethal]

Curiously the powers that the NSWHRC had over HRNSW caused the dramatic decline in participants in NSW , other than those that chose to race at their club of choice. The dramatic rural participation has resulted in an industry in deep recession due to the closure of regional meetings,(I disclose here that we won a Sires Stakes Race at Muswellbrook; you can't do that today) As of we don't see the point in breeding in to an industry that will not survive outside of an arc centrally in Vic, which will include the Riverina and maybe SA. The rest of us are ST.....

[Triple V]

Remember the Golden Years? Those balmy Summer nights when the NSWSS Finals went by in slashing 2:12.5 miles & yourself & Vern Norgard battled it out head to head for the NSW Trainers Premiership Wooden Spoon? My heart skips a beat at the mere thought of it all. Those were the days eh?

[Boydy]

Jaimie would love to see you actually add something to this discussion instead of demeaning other people that are expressing their opinions.

As a breeder and supporter of import fee how many more horses are Triple V going to breed this year, as opposed to last year? As I am sure that you must see a great oppurtunity gifted to yourself by HRA by imposing this new fee to encourage Australian breeders to fill the void created by discouraging people to import horse from New Zealand. Would also love to know if we should impose the fee on the service fees of foreign owned stallions to encourage people to breed to Australian owned stallions to keep the money in Australia.

[Lethal]

Well I'm gutted, however the best that we can do is offer a quote from greater literary talent than any of us.
Envy is a resentment which "occurs when someone lacks another's quality, achievement or possessions and wishes that the other lacked it"

[gutwagon]

Hi Gilgamesh, I'm glad That I inspired you, always good to have more people getting involved. Even if you don't agree with me !
I get your point about buying imports, but just look what that has done to our local manufactoring industry. It's almost gone !
The reason that your WA bred races are so weak is that your local breeding industry is almost dead. This is the very reason that I want to support the VIC industry, I don't want it to end up like yours.
There is a place for NZ imports but there needs to be a balance.
You want us to breed better horses. Well look at WA, you need better stallions but if you cant get good numbers of mares then you wont get the stallions.
As for Australian products being of poor quality I just don't agree. They are more expensive yes but you get what you pay for.

[Triple V]

Well I'm gutted, however the best that we can do is offer a quote from greater literary talent than any of us.
Envy is a resentment which "occurs when someone lacks another's quality, achievement or possessions and wishes that the other lacked it"

[VVV] Lee, you're a broken record mate.
All you have ever done for as long as I can remember is bag the Industry and lay the reasons for your own lack of success at the feet of certain Race Clubs, various members of National & State based Industry Officialdom, certain other participants etc. Over the years you've lined up on anyone & everyone...that, as opposed to looking a lot closer to home. You've turned obfuscation into an Art Form. If it was raining Gold Bars you would complain about the weather.

[Triple V]

jaimie would love to see you actually add something to this discussion instead of demeaning other people that are expressing their opinions.

[vvv] that wasn't an opinion from Lee. I thought that was a whinge.

As a breeder and supporter of import fee how many more horses are triple v going to breed this year, as opposed to last year?

[vvv] 5 this time around as opposed to 2 last year. Over the winter we moved an older mare on & we lost one. Have replaced one of them already & in the process of securing another one. If the right one comes along maybe another one after that as well.

As i am sure that you must see a great oppurtunity gifted to yourself by hra by imposing this new fee to encourage australian breeders to fill the void created by discouraging people to import horse from new zealand.

[vvv] gifted is not a term i'd use. Long over-due, warmly welcomed, essential, vital are more in keeping with my view of hra's import fee changes. The australian industry has bled out its arse to the benefit of the nz industry for more years than i care to remember. This move has decisively set about redressing that crippling imbalance & so from the rooftops i cheer & applaude hra's andrew kelly, geoff want & co.

Would also love to know if we should impose the fee on the service fees of foreign owned stallions to encourage people to breed to australian owned stallions to keep the money in australia.

[vvv] that's fuzzy logic adam. Why on one hand would we seek impose import fees on the nz bred product in order to better the lot of australian breeders...only to turn around & indirectly slug them by way of your suggested increased costs being passed on to aus breeders by studs/stallion syndicates increasing their service fees?
Without going into the nitty gritty of the various commercial & financial arrangements that i know of, you'd be very surprised as to who actually owns what here in aus, how much (esp. Sth hemisphere rights % wise) of the sires they stand they own and exactly how much of the service $$$ remains here in australia & in the southern hemisphere in general.
For example, both alabar & their aus partners/investors & pepper tree & their aus partners/investors have some major financial involvements, committments & straight out ownerships in both the sthn hemisphere rights of many of the sires they stand and in some cases the entirity of the horses they stand. That $$$ stays right here.
In terms of the entirity of the $$$ remaining here in australia, i have long been in favour of the australian standardbred breeding industry following the tb industry's lead and looking much, much closer to home for our sire prospects...however until such time as the industry gets its head out of its arse and puts on $$$$big$$$$ 3yo races over the mile that would afford our local bred colts the opportunity to showcase their abilities in a setting that is as comparable as can possibly be to their north american counterparts, the imported product will always have the edge, if for no other reason that the stats/marketability angle alone. I think this goes hand in hand with what you're suggesting. A few more classic garrys, christian cullens & courage under fires would be pretty damned good, imo. With each year that passes i think we're getting closer & closer to this. Take harvey's colt, bling it on for example. If he goes on this season as a 3yo & perhaps beyond, why wouldn't local breeders line up for him? I digress a bit but i'm sure you get where i am coming from there. It's all related.

vvv

[Lethal]

VVV
Methinks you may be a little confused, however I suggest you consult Wiki re: the meaning of "irony"