Don Murray Astrologer

DON MURRAY Champion astrologer & tipster.
A week after turning 27 in 1981 I left my homeland, New Zealand, again and headed to England.
I was confused. I couldn’t work out why I wasn’t gravitating towards a steady job, a wife, two kids and a mortgage like the majority.
I’d had 14 jobs in the previous decade and was sacked from 9 , including 4 years as a racing journo with the NZ HERALD and two years of clerical in horse racing administration. I’d also worked in racing stables in Melbourne and in the allegedly roughest pub in the world in Port Hedland, north-western Australia, during two years in Australia.
Add four spells as an unemployment beneficiary, and a year as an investigative reporter for the SUNDAY NEWS in Auckland before 7 months as a truckdriver preceded my voyage to England.
During a spell grooming polo ponies in south England I made friends with an Australian who shared my love of horse racing and introduced me to my first Astrologeress after I returned from a stint in a tourist hotel in the Scottish highlands.
I’d had always been interested in star sign astrology and later on the Chinese version with its animals but this Astrologeress showed me the real birth chart and I was hooked. She told me about a lot of major events in the past and why I was not meant to follow the normal routine of marriage and mortgage and faith in the employer.
Terms like " Uranus in the Cancer ascendant " and the " Moon-Neptune conjunction " can explain a lot of abnormal behaviour and Mars opposing Jupiter from the fifth is the awesomeist for explaining one’s love of horse racing, sport, partying, womanising etc
I was always top of the class in rural Ruawai primary and went keenly to be a boarder at Mt Albert Grammar School in Auckland for the 3rd form. After quite a mysterious marriage, the parents separated at the end of the 4th form and I was extremely pleased when mother moved down to Auckland and allowed me to quit the military regime of boarding school.
The new " home " had it’s problems, too, and I was kicked out at age 16. Soon afterwards I scored a job with the horse racing administrators in Wellington and eagerly left Auckland to begin an exciting new adventure......
My waning interest in horse racing was rekindled with the discovery of Astrology in London. I was a pig in shit studying this newfound passion, and analysing people and my own past, to where I could see methods of predicting the future.
When I returned home I continued my studies of Astrology and started gathering birth information on horse trainers and jockeys and plotting winning days. In my days as a racing journo/administrator and occasional employment in the stables I had been party to some incredible corruptions involving race-fixing and pull-up jobs, and I hadn’t bothered much afterwards with betting when there was no inside knowledge from trainer and jockey mates.
In 1985 I launched the PLANET KINGDOM tipping sheet, which listed happy ( and likely winning) dates for various trainers and jockeys.( In the June 1988 edition of the Australian section a date, was allocated for " Trainer N McBurney, " who lined up one runner in Sydney that day, Dixieland Jazz, which saluted with bookmakers offering as much as 100 to one.)
In 1995 an 0900 number was launched for tipping racehorses and later on an email service for the betting clients which still operates.
I’ve written columns on the astrology around sportspersons and various others in newspapers like FRIDAY FLASH and TRUTH and did an annual STATE OF THE ASTROLOGICAL NATION address on Newstalk ZB every January for 18 years from 1994.
I do birth charts in a professional capacity and enjoy introducing people to the wonders of astrology.
I have lived in Otahuhu, Auckland since 1990 and am happily single.
I am interested in cultures and in a volunteer scheme which helps black African families adjusting to the complexities of NZ life.