A Review Of 2010

[Anonymous]

2010 was a year to remember for me. Binocualr winning the Champion Hurdle was a dream come true for me, Canford Cliffs turning out to be every bit as briliant as I thought he would be gave me alot of pleasure, Workforce winning the Derby was pleasing but Don’t Push It winning the Grand National was like watching the movie "Champions".

To be honest I was shaking like a leaf from the 5th last, totally unable to think straight, gave up trying to lay him back and was more exhausted that Tony McCoy by the time he crossed the line. The buzz was unreal and I doubt if I’ll ever get such a kick out of watching a race again.

When Frankel hit the scene that was the icing on the cake. I love to see Champions emerge and no matter wht he does at 3yrs he was brilliant to watch ven although he beat nothing.

The downers were Kauto Star falling in the Gold Cup when looking held. To my mind he’s without doubt the best chaser at any distance on any course in the country and to see him flop like that when you know he’s capable of beating anything was heartbreaking.

Zenyatta being beaten was like someone had just robbed me of something. As much as Mike Smith was man enough to take the blame I personally think he should have been shot at dawn……..he robbed the world of what would have been one of the greatest moments in racing history. You could say that’s racing but not me…….effin twat!!!

Taking my own personal joys out of the season I think it was pretty ordinary for the older horses apart from Goldikova, even boring at times.

However the potential it produced for the start of 2011 has been the best for quite sometime IMO. Hurdlers like Peddlars Cross, the return of Hurricanne Fly, Supreme winner Menorah all look like serious contenders to Binocular’s Crown. Over and above that the novice hurdlers seen out last season look like they are in a differnt league to those that stepped up into the seniors last.

On the flat Frankel for the South and Wootten Basset for the North look like a couple of colts who will ensure a brilliant race for the 2000 Guineas. Always difficult to say how things will develop after the Guineas but with luck it could be a year to remember.

[carvillshill]

Great review CR.
Agree largely that 2010 wasn’t a vintage year but there were highlights, notably being at Aintree to see Tony McCoy finally win the National, Big Zeb pulverising the English in the Champion Chase and a highly interesting series of "next big thing" two-year-olds at the back end of the Flat season.
I too have been a less frequent visitor here for both the technological reasons previously cited and the disappointing tenor of a lot of debate here lately- I prefer erudite discussion of forthcoming races without a lot of willy-waving and seem to have found a richer seam of this on the Purple lately. For all that I still love this site and if Corm can get the site working better I’ll be around more in 2011.
On the punting front 2010 was kind, no little thanks to keeping a positive crew around online to chat to- some on here seem to regard oneupmanship as more important than information sharing, their loss.
Happy New Year to all on TRF.

[Drone]

I too have no interest in ‘social networking’ as my anonymous dips into them seem to reveal little more than a morass of inconsequential – and for me terminally boring – one-liners. Therefore I don’t believe message boards and ‘proper’ blogs, which offer the poster the opportunity to compose at least one paragraph of something vaguely interesting, need fear the likes of Twitter, which along with Max’s variation on a theme , is very well named in this dinosaur’s opinion

Of course there will be some migration from here to there but I’d like to think there will be those like me, Max, RH etc who value the multi-sentence debate the message board allows. Should it end up akin to the five old soaks sitting in a line in the saloon bar of a Monday afternoon ruminating on the good old days as they sink further into a cynical oblivion, then so be it. Hey that’s life

It always pays to endeavour for distinction than be suckered into taking the comfortable option and going with the flow. As such I believe TRF’s obsession with Twitbook is mistaken and misguided. Concentrate on maintaining what this board did best: the provision of a minimalist platform for the exchange of opinions unencumbered by add-ons, links, pop-ups and sundry clutter

Functionality is everything.

Cormack and Co: mark well the words of DJ, TDK and Carvillshill

Incidentally for those bemoaning lost posts. Why not do what I always do and write them on Microsoft Word or in my case Lotus Word Pro first, enabling them to be saved for posterity. Then copy and paste them to the site

My ‘TRF-posts’ file is currently 473 pages long

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