2025 TRF Awards Results

I’m going to Plumpton on Sunday, so I can hand them their trophy if needed.

Well done to all the winners, even though I don’t agree with them all (cough, Calandagan, cough)

I don’t agree with Ian Gosden being owner of the year. For what reason? Same applies to his 152-rated horse.

Thanks for running the competition Nathaniel and a Happy New Year to everyone!

Congrats to all the winners
Commiserations to the runners-ups
Hard luck to the also-rans

As for one who got no votes, I’ll just crawl back under my stone where I came from ……….. 🕷

Well, we could just give it to JP McManus or The Lads every year but that would be dull.
Andrew Gemmell won it for being blind, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha won it for being tragically deceased, it’s a human emotion thing so why not.

Well done all winners. All fully deserved. Thanks for running again Nathan

I put Ian Gosden up for this. The main reason, the bravery in going for the Champion Hurdle. All hurdles have to be jumped and in two big races last year Golden Ace jumped the best.

The escapee speaks…

Gnats has to be applauded for his fine work on this but ‘ just sayin ‘ I have never seen the compo snuffed out in an instant – it is usually left up for a few days for comments in the various sections – but possibly Gnats is well ahead of the game and sensed the declining mood.
These yearlies have been going on for almost a quarter of a century and possibly there’s a limit to high interest. I can remember, well with the big one anyway, there were always ten challengers and votes would reach into the 70’s and 80’s but now we are scraping 30. That does not mean the forum is less well attended – I don’t possess comparable figures – it may be just that interest has waned.
Congrats to VTC – his sixth award I think. Not that I follow tipsters but I must applaud the Ginger one and Dynamite for posting up profit and loss. Both are to be applauded.

The news channels grab us by the eyelids by focussing on disasters so I continue in the same vein to highlight the disaster of my own New Year celebrations. After the last guest had gone at 315 am – I needed to chill out, so opened a bottle and watched the final recorded half of Papillon – a filum I had seen yonks ago. Now I invested my valuable time expecting to be entertained and what actually happened – somebody picked my pocket right under my nose in my ‘ the disgusted one’s ‘ armchair. They cut and got away with, 34 minutes and five years of the main character’s life – stripped it out of the action. No whiff of warning – just robbed blind at a celebratory time of year in the earlies – wham bam thank you licence holder!
The crouching menace can go take a running jump and drown in it’s escape attempt as far as I care.
The horseracing product has not so blatantly been chipped away by the three legged race – win lose and draw. Ball times features on the news every day – you get stuffed full of its personality dramas whether you like it or not. I like it ! Hence the horseracing decline.
Just a few words. Oh I hit the sack at 515am

5 days of exhausting celebrations to go !

The 🏆 is still coveted despite the guilty ones having mince pie eyes.
Gnats as for your very righteous self admission it presented and interesting denouement to what was a runaway winner.

The secret gambler series I.

The salt cellar in our house is a jolly looking rotund father Xmas about two inches tall with a red cloak and a full white beard and two very important holes in the top of his head – which incidentally work as well in June as in the bitter cold of January.
The hour is 2028 and dinner is called. I am miles away in Wolverhampton and rustle up my slim unobtrusive paperwork and clear the three pages very neatly away, as the horses presumably mill around the start – I place my mobile on the table screen down and prepare my napkin as the soup starter is brought in. I revert to two blackboards in my head. I put figures on one board still fresh in my mind from my written calculations, it’s seconds away from the off now and I attempt a better be quick and accurate final division sum on blackboard 2.
” Could you fetch the salt please ”
Hmmm that done it and it’s a disappointing no bet caused by social obligation and nicety and towing the line and with a now blank mind I obligingly get up and fetch father Xmas. No real worries with that it is all part of the game and has happened many times before. After 40 minutes when the dinner is finished, the unknowing culprit – the little father Xmas, still smiling is put away.