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Should also add that there is more to life than making money and it says a lot about your opinion on life and honesty in general if you "appreciate" what Barney Curley does
Couldnt agree more David
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Should also add that there is more to life than making money and it says a lot about your opinion on life and honesty in general if you "appreciate" what Barney Curley does
Couldnt agree more David
Not at all.
BC’s ‘crime’ is in being more transparent than many of his counterparts.
Others appreciating that honesty can hardly be classed as dishonest themselves,…… a little less naive – maybe?british racing would’nt be the same without owners and trainers who plot horses up, instead we would have the same drivel as that american rubbish they churn out on atr.
Er…
$5 tops to get in. A tenner for the Triple Crown events. Beer for a dollar. Ten races a card. Cheap food. Huge banks of simulcasting screens. Friendly locals. Professional punters employed by tracks to help customers. Strict stewards. Good prize money encouraging the smaller owner. A wider social strata of ownership due to said prize money. Cheaper training fees. Trainers who enjoy the craic with punters. Seats. Carrels with personal TVs. Races run with a relatively level playing field on tracks that ride fair. Relatively consistent form over time. And in Del Mar…beach parties with bikini clad blondes after the nightcap.
Total pile of s**t, US racing. Innit. Much rather be at Ripon.
If you could add track variety, turf, and fences, I’d be sold Max. As it is……………
Mikky, I see your point. I had good experiences over there, particularly Charlestown, Delaware and Sam Houston – which, btw, had a huge C&W concert after racing and attracted 10,000 racegoers, mostly under 25 and proving we don’t live on an Island. (Oh. We do.
)I’m told Philadelphia has improved since Smartie Jones and the casino investment btw. Judging by TDK’s shockingly bleak post earlier, I’m starting to wonder whether we’ll have to go the same route, a miraculous switch to a pari-mutuel system notwithstanding.
My ambition is to go to Beulah and appear on the pre-race preview with the Twins. Then I can fade away a happy man…
Grasshopper –
Gotcha! Mikky, I see your point. I had good experiences over there, particularly Charlestown, Delaware and Sam Houston – which, btw, had a huge C&W concert after racing and attracted 10,000 racegoers, mostly under 25 and proving we don’t live on an Island. (Oh. We do.
)I’m told Philadelphia has improved since Smartie Jones and the casino investment btw. Judging by TDK’s shockingly bleak post earlier, I’m starting to wonder whether we’ll have to go the same route, a miraculous switch to a pari-mutuel system notwithstanding.
My ambition is to go to Beulah and appear on the pre-race preview with the Twins. Then I can fade away a happy man…
Grasshopper –
Gotcha! Cheer for the positive response Max. I read back my thread and thought, ‘oh that didn’t sound too nice’ – but I wrote it before I had my coffee.
Philadelphia has definitely improved since. The reason I was over there was I had a relative over there, and everytime we speak I remind him of the day he took me to the races lol – but his comeback is "it’s a great course now, things are so much better, they even have toilet paper in the loo’s" – yes they had no toilet paper in the loo’s lol.
Does Philadelphia run on a ‘race in a season’ only basis, rather than race all year round, because the impression I got, or what I was told was the day I went was on one of the last meets of the season there, which was why there were so many poor races – the good ones had been put away.
So yes, I apologise if my post sounded a bit off Max, and I am willing to forget my Philadelphia and not judge US Racing purely on that experience lol.
Take care,
Mike
Mikky, on the contrary, I had heard the same about Philly Park when I visited the Maryland tracks, which were in a run down state and could have done with the kind of investment Philly has recieved.
I went to Pimlico and Laurel and had five great days racing, but both had seen better days due to the Maryland Legislature’s antipathy to casino gambling. It may have changed, I don’t know.
It was noticeable that with the exception of Sam Houston, the best tracks I visited had a casino attached – Delaware in particular. A beautiful, massive place and free to get in. In the US, the gaming and the slots subsidise the racing to a point we can only imagine.
And here? Oh no, the bookies say, FOBT’s are nothing to do with horse racing, are they, so why should horse racing benefit over our shareholders? It’s beyond my comprehension.
As Zorro says, we missed an opportunity in 1963 when we could have gone down Pari-Mutuel Boulevard, but chose another road instead for reasons I’ve never fully understood. Anyway, I ramble.
Cheers
Max
PS: To stay on topic, Barney Curley is the Anti-Christ. Thank you.
I’m told Philadelphia has improved since Smartie Jones and the casino investment btw. Judging by TDK’s shockingly bleak post earlier, I’m starting to wonder whether we’ll have to go the same route, a miraculous switch to a pari-mutuel system notwithstanding.
It certainly wouldn’t be a bad idea. I read a decent post on another forum recently (may have even been the BF forum) that said that HOrse Racing’s basic problem is that it used to have the massive attraction that you were simply allowed to bet on it. Nowadays one can bet on anything that moves and since Gross Profit Tax was introduced, suddenly racing has to compete with betting products that don’t have huge costs associated with staging them that rely on betting operators giving money back the sport. In a nutshell, unless the government introduce some huge “pro horseracing betting” legislation (which seems unlikely), racing is going to have to start self funding to a much larger degree than it does now. As a starting point, rolling FOBTs into the halls of Sandown and Kempton isn’t such a daft idea imo.
Horse Racing’s basic problem is that it used to have the massive attraction that you were simply allowed to bet on it.
While this may have a certain simple logic to it, it all depends on whether you consider horse racing a sport or a betting medium.
Racecourse attendances from the period 1920 to 1960 were colossal in both countries. Sport historians have often suggested that the advent of TV was more of a trigger for decline and the growth of car ownership, (horses being the symbolic mode of transport for hundreds of years. Gentleman would compare horses much as we show off our Beamers and Audis today).
And herein lies the rub. No-one has ever come to a definitive conclusion about what Horse Racing actually is.
Football is a sport you can bet on. Golf is a sport you can bet on. Does horse racing follow the same logic?
If horse racing is a sport, then it deserves it’s own system of self-sustaining finance rather than sub-contracting it out to an increasingly uninterested third party.
This brings me to a second observation.
Bookmakers increasingly consider horse racing to be but one on a broad shelf full of "product". This ignores the fact that without horse racing, you could mention Ladbrokes, William Hills, Corals and Betfreds in the same breath as nasal geordie high street arcadist, Barry Noble, with his free cuppas and his banks of slot machines.
Because without the government legislation that allowed legal betting on horse racing, thats who they would have been have been competing with – if they existed at all. Bookmakers owe horse racing a massive debt for their very existence.
Finally, I would love to test the theory that bookmakers could survive on FOBT’s and cartoon racing alone, TDK. How would we do that?
It is my hypothesis that bookmakers need the sport of horse racing as a vehicle to attract punters into the "betting operator’s" (nice negotiating semantic
) premises. And therefore they should pay the price.Max
The Curley runner today had beaten one horse home in 3 previous starts.
Those not in the know were left to ponder whether it simply had no ability or had been run over too short a trip.
In the event the horse sluiced up as a heavily backed favourite.
Apologists will say Curley did not different to Prescott but to non insiders racing was simply brought into disrepute.
The easy way forward is to boycott betting in all races where he has a runner.Why boycott betting in all races where he has a runner?
In fact I couldn’t disagree more and I would advise on doing the complete opposite because in the main (not always) the betting patterns will tell you how his horses will perform – this giving you a massive advantage that you don’t normally get.
Undoubtedly his horse was running over the wrong trip on it’s first 3 runs, but that was to get a handicap mark inorder to land a massive punt. With 5 minutes to the off time, everyone could see what was happening and should have plunged on the horse – not boycott it.
Mike
Because with 5 minutes to go, all the value is well taken by Curley and "those in the know"!
He and tony martin are the shrewdest men in racing!!
Whats so shrewd about not running your horses on their merits. Any trainer can do that. Where Curley is concerned he can do what he likes as he owns his own horses so doesn’t have to listen to other owners ringing him up wondering why their horse is performing like a drain.
Praise where its due, Gigginstown, those guys don’t deserve it.When I read in the Post earlier this week that Barney Curley had a runner in the Charity "People’s Race" at Aintree on Saturday and his quote that he wouldn’t be having a bet as his horse Zabeel Palace had "a lot to find with the favourite" I was immediately suspicious. Unfortunately the 4/1 quoted by Ladbrokes in the paper had been taken by the cleaner and subsequent quotes of 2/1 and 6/4 have also vanished to the point where he stands tonight at evens. His jockey? a fit-looking 29 year-old Newmarket accountant Clare Twemlow, who has been riding out daily for Neil King and will know exactly when to press the button! His main rival is a Paul Nicholls chaser who’s name escapes me but I reckon if Barney’s horse runs to a rating of 70 odd, he’ll win.
what do you bet that Mr Curley has persuaded Mike Dillon to lay him a 40,000-10,000 "for Charidee" to go along with the 50 grand his charity DAFA gets if he wins the race…..12.40 Aintree – John Smith’s People’s Race
4 Clare Twemlow (Zabeel Palace) Evs
1 Jane Belcher (Forest Green) 4/1
10 Jaclyn Jamieson (Summer Soul) 6/1
5 Stewart Bellas (Cripsey Brook) 7/1
2 Jamie Plummer (Royal Wedding) 8/1
6 Gary Lynch (Cardinal Spirit) 10/1
3 Lynda Evans (Trinity Rose) 10/1
8 Amanda Craven (Inspirina) 12/1
9 Jonny Ferguson (Tycheros) 16/1
7 Sheila Dickson (Justwhateverulike) 20/1Is Forest Green not running in the 5.00 ?
Backing two runners is the relentless pursuit of value. Backing each way is a shortcut to the poor house. Only 7% make a long term profit.
Job done!
She looked quite tidy, actually.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
What price the Barney double in the 8.20 Kempton? Could this have been working with Zabeel Palace? I’m on!
2.8 out to 16.0 in the space of 15 minutes.
Needless to say, he was beaten.
Hello BHA?
)
Gotcha! 
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