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This jumps season is going to be long and extremely boring, bring on the real stuff 2011!
Its a mans game the Jumps,it takes men of steel to put a novice 2m chaser to a fence and it takes balls of steel to back one,unless its
Finians Rainbow
who will take to jumps like a duck to water! Perhaps you could hibernate for the next 6 months then and let the big boys get on with it!
LAW 4
Always Say Less Than Necessary
_______________________________________________________
When you are trying to impress people with words, the more you say, the more common you appear, and the less in control(TAPK). Even if you’re saying something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, open-ended and sphinxlike. Powerful people impress and intimidate by saying less(MRW). The more you say, the more likely you are to say something foolish.(TAPK)A follow up clash in the 3.20 and 3.30 was narrowly avoided, however this was rectified by running the last at Perth (5.20) at exactly the same time as the first at Wolves (5.30).
Nevermind though, only 30 minutes till the next at Wolves for punters to wait to have a bet on horse racing.Money well spent or the financial equivalent of sticking your finger into a hole in the dam?
How much money is it, Corm?
You may recall that I asked in Phil Smith’s Q&A what the handicapping budget is and which department holds it: he claimed that he, as head of handicapping, did not know.
I was trying to get to the bottom of what goes into this black hole of "integrity", of which security (probably) and handicapping (possibly) are a part.
Whatever they spend on security and policing of the sport it is very well spent and vitally important.
They are doing a very good job and I back them fully on this issue.
Must say I find it quite remarkable that anyone could regard the cost of the integrity services acceptable.
The budget has risen, in real terms, and as a percentage of the total available from the Levy. If the current trends continue for a few more years, we’ll find that the security staff will have worked themselves out of a job, as there’ll be no funding left to support any actual racing.
I would offer two main critcisms of the current structure:
1 – it takes far too long to get from bent race to enquiry and then to punishment. In part this seems to be because a police mentality rules, in which evidence has to be collected, sifted, assessed, presented and so on in a neverending process, even in cases that are the racing equivalent of finding the culprit standing over a corpse with a smoking gun in hand. The Casela Park case is the latest example.
2 – little or nothing has been done to prevent or discourage corruption, as opposed to dealing with it after the event. Some of the issues that could have been addressed have cropped up on TRF over the years – jockeys that are regularly slowly away on drifters, horses that run so badly the form is unrateable, but which get dropped big amounts by the handicappers, blindfolds still on when the stalls open, overseas horses running in low grade handicaps here from marks that are guesswork, the painfully slow handicap reassessment system that allows horses two or three goes off a low mark.
AP
Well said Alan.
I can’t recall a single suggestion Scotney’s team have put forward to improve things. You’d have thought that the handicap system, which basically rewards cheating, has scope for change to improve integrity but you never hear any suggestions from the integrity department.
No discussion of other issues like claimers/sellers being systematically exploited by undesirables or whether the Shergar Cup’s drawing of jockeys by lots offers a template that could be expanded.
The Casella Park case just highlights how there’s seemingly no restraint on costs. They have a slam dunk yet still feel the need to go overboard employing me learned friends. Not great for justice and absolutely terrible for financial prudence.
Agree with Alan and Glenn – the BHA’s integrity approach appears to be heavily reactive, with little evidence that they are looking at some of the systemic inadequacies.
Why revised handicap marks cannot be applied more quickly remains a mystery. Surely the BHA’s IT systems would be robust enough to handle the change (which could doubtless be applied both quickly and cheaply).
For an alternative view of the workings of the BHA, have a read of this :
Quite bizarre, do persevere to the end of the Am I Blue debate to find some truly unhinged ranting.
AP
‘Bloodhorse illiterate’
Is that a fancy of way of saying ‘How many horses have you ridden?’
Why revised handicap marks cannot be applied more quickly remains a mystery. Surely the BHA’s IT systems would be robust enough to handle the change (which could doubtless be applied both quickly and cheaply).
This was addressed (after a fashion) by Phil Smith in his Q&A responses to questions submitted by Prufrock and I
The telling part of the replies were:
As it happens, many trainers like the opportunity to run their horses after a win in the time lag under a penalty. Some but not all win again. The NTF are happy with the current system
The NTF like it and would be highly unlikely to support a change
well they would say that wouldn’t they
[b:2x804trv]Press release from BHA – (the original story in the Racing Post can be found here http://bit.ly/9ykWBv[/b:2x804trv]
PAUL ROY RESPONDS TO BOOKMAKERS’ COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN
Paul Roy, Chairman of the British Horseracing Authority, responding to comments attributed to Bookmakers’ Committee Chairman Will Roseff, said:
“Will Roseff and his Committee have to come forward with a real number as to what they say is fair for all of betting to contribute to the Levy. The Bookmakers’ Committee recommendation to increase thresholds, which was rejected by the Levy Board in September, could cost a further £10m plus in Levy. Deduct this from what we believe the current Scheme will generate if it were to continue as the Bookmakers’ Committee say they want, and that means a Bookmakers’ Committee offer of less than £50m, so I’m amazed he claims not to recognise his own figures.
“It seems that the Bookmakers’ Committee is doing all it can to avoid saying what it thinks is fair. Everyone in Racing and many in the betting industry know that such a low figure is entirely unsustainable for the sport and can only do great damage to British Racing.
“Since the derisory offer of the Bookmakers’ Committee was rejected by the Levy Board, Will Roseff has confirmed that they do not plan to revise it, despite it being a very long way from anything Racing could even begin to consider as fair. Let no one be in any doubt that any referral to the Secretary of State for determination will be down solely to the Bookmakers’ Committee.
“We agree with Lord Howard’s comments that urgent Government a_ction is required to close the loophole so that offshore bookmakers should be licensed and be required to pay Levy, as we have been saying for some time. The areas where the Levy is failing are well known to this Coalition Government, and we are confident of their resolve to repair the damage the sport has suffered for years.”
It seems that the Bookmakers’ Committee is doing all it can to avoid saying what it thinks is fair.
Pot. Kettle.
Everyone in Racing…know that such a low figure is entirely unsustainable for the sport
Is this the same "Racing" that claims, with an apparently straight face, that £150m would be "fair", or a different one?
Since the derisory offer of the Bookmakers’ Committee
was rejected by the Levy Board, Will Roseff [Paul Roy] has confirmed that they do not plan to revise it, despite it being a very long way from anything Racing
could even begin to consider as fair. Let no one be in any doubt that any referral to the Secretary of State for determination will be down solely to the Bookmakers’ Committee
.
(alternative version in
)
If this all falls apart, will anyone in authority concede that, rather than countering bookmakers’ derisory offers with unrealistic ones of their own, a better tactic might have been to come up with something at least close to acceptable?
And will Roy and Coward stay if, by their own terms, they fail to gain a settlement for racing that is "reasonable"?
And will Roy and Coward stay if, by their own terms, they fail to gain a settlement for racing that is "reasonable"?
Only if the Golden Parachute pays less than steering the plane into the cliffs.
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