After 50 odd years of being involved in harness racing in one form or another, you would think I’d experienced pretty much everything that could happen in the game.

Harness Racing New Zealand have announced that they will no longer be paying for the replacement of driver’s helmets.

Its’ yearling Sales time once again, obviously this year, with a slightly different feel to it with a lack of overseas buyers attending in the flesh.

The Trainers & Drivers Association is pleased to advise that we have been asked to pass on commendation and thanks to our members from both the RIU and the JCA, for their overall acceptance of the new whip rules.

In consultation with the RIU, the Canterbury Branch of the Association wishes to advise that, henceforth horses entered in qualifying heats with less than four nominations will automatically be transferred to a maiden heat of the same conditions, i.e. mobile or stand.

As most of the sane World watches and enjoys the ignominious departure of Donald Trump, it signals a very different approach to problems facing the Country he did his best to ruin.

Last year began with an incident that stunned the harness racing community in this Country, when we held our breath and waited for news on Ricky May. That episode, which thankfully had a happy outcome, was the ‘preview’ to a year that most people in the World would rate as one of the worst in history.

Way back in 1992, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth in her Christmas message, made popular a Latin phrase, describing her year as an “Annus Horribilus” (loosely translated as a horrible year), after a number of controversies swept through her family.

The Northern Branch of the Trainers & Drivers Assn. recently held its’ Annual General Meeting, under Chair, Jay Abernethy.

It’s fair to say that, despite the system being generally accepted as being a good way of handling integrity issues in the harness racing industry, the RIU/JCA have, for various reasons over the past couple of years, taken on the image of ‘bogey men’.