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.
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Not content to foist a female commentator on racegoers, regardless of how good or bad she may be, RfC now want to start playing around with silks.
http://www.zeitgeistblog.co.uk/#/fashions-final-furlong/4551347813
I suppose the only positive is most of the designs are an improvement on the colours used in last years Shergar Cup.
What next – painting horses different colours?
Why don’t they do something useful like stopping the same owner having 3 or 4 runners in the same race with exactly the same colours in the morning paper. How are viewers meant to know which is which?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl9FHMlggFQ
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.
Who exactly is this meant to be appeasing?
I thought they went too far blasting irrelevant music over the otherwise heart-warming cheers and applause of the winner’s enclosure.
Now I’m fearing a time where racing will be hosted by ant and dec (or whoever the pop icons of the day are) whilst the races themselves are ran to Lady Gaga-esque music and flashing disco lights with synthetic cheering and whooping piped in through the tannoys.
The colours themselves are disgusting by the way and only fortify my belief that each and every fashion student and expert should be publicly flogged whilst wearing a urine soaked bin-liner.
Utter ******* disgrace
Great idea, I think the designs are tremendous.
Introduce them now – why shouldn’t owners have whatever designs they want?
Bud Flanagan’s specially-designed Crazy Gang colours didn’t lead to the destruction of the sport as we know it, did they?
Unsurprising responses from racing’s all-pervasive Fogey Tendency.
- Total Posts 17716
This has to be one of the best April Fools I’ve read this … oh, hang on. It’s May 16th.
The first paragraph is hilarious:
Horse racing might not seem like something we’d typically cover on Zeitgeist, but Racing For Change, an organisation set up to modernise the sport, and students from Central St Martin’s College of Art & Design are undertaking a ground-breaking project which has the potential to completely revolutionise sporting fashion. Gone are generic colours and standardized shapes, it’s time to bring racing into the 21st Century.
And later:
It seems that the task of creating designs for something so steeped in history wasn’t at all daunting to these creatives, “the {original} designs were quite boring really” Henry Griffin, 21, told us, “I would say {they} could do with freshening up.” Griffin created designs based around fruit machine symbols, “my uncle’s quite a big betting fan and when I was little I used to stand outside the betting shop waiting for him. That’s how {the idea} clicked in my head, and the spinning reels of colour reminded me instantly of the colourful blur of jockeys as they storm down the final furlong, so it sort of all ties in.”
I hope Rodders will be wearing some of these adorable vestments himself come Royal Ascot. Can’t see Ryan Moore going for it, let alone the Aga Khan or Godolphin. RfC move from bad to worse, and this is a new nadir.
Note to Rodders and his gang:
you may have overlooked the fact, but silks are there to aid recognition at speed, not to produce a "colourful blur of jockeys as they storm down the final furlong". Wake up and smell the Lapsang Souchong, guys.
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Great idea, I think the designs are tremendous.
Introduce them now – why shouldn’t owners have whatever designs they want?
Bud Flanagan’s specially-designed Crazy Gang colours didn’t lead to the destruction of the sport as we know it, did they?
Unsurprising responses from racing’s all-pervasive Fogey Tendency.
Silks are for easy recognition,
Venusian
. And so these ugly farragos of mush are supremely impracticable. Then, how do you expect the newspapers and online racecards to reflect their deviant complexity?
I stand to be corrected by
Ivanjica
,
Isinglass
et. al. who know about these things, but I am sure that the
Crazy Quilt
was an accepted colour combination way back in Victorian times, before the Crazy Gang used them. Of course you can have one set like this – but more than one would render recognition impossible.
This is nothing to do with
Fogeyism
, everything to do with slapping down modish stupidity. As an aesthete myself, let me tell you that
there is no good aesthetic without function
: and the lack of functionality in this juvenile crud removes any vestige of aesthetic value.
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I thought they went too far blasting irrelevant music over the otherwise heart-warming cheers and applause of the winner’s enclosure.
The effluent being pumped through the speakers for
Canford Cliffs
‘s triumphal return to the enclosure on Saturday made it sound as if the
hooded hordes of orcs
were about to descend from the Burghclere Hills in order to burn and eat the luckless animal.
It would be sad if it weren’t so ludicrously inappropriate. These people have about as much taste as they have imagination.
Some race-goers would much rather the jockeys were bedecked in corduroy and tweed… what, what !
Gambling Only Pays When You're Winning
Some nice designs on there.
At the end of the day, the owner has the ultimate choice of what colours he/she uses.
Paul – I think this reflects more on your desire to bash RFC than anything else.
Who exactly is this meant to be appeasing?
I thought they went too far blasting irrelevant music over the otherwise heart-warming cheers and applause of the winner’s enclosure.
I thought the same. It’s crass and downright stupid. I was expecting a fleet of Roman centurions to charge into the winners enclosure on Saturday after the Lockinge. It’s actually very irritating and treats us with contempt.
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?A leopard can’t change its spots
Both are blessed with a beautiful complex pelage akin to the more imaginative designs the students have come up with
Eye-catching in isolation against a monochromatic background, very effective camouflage against a polychromatic background
Pity the poor racecaller…
The point about horses running under the same ownership in a race is well made. In addition to a distinguishing cap I’d favour the wearing of a sash too. Bright primary colour sashes worn at 45-degrees are very eye-catching against any background
- Total Posts 17716
The point about horses running under the same ownership in a race is well made. In addition to a distinguishing cap I’d favour the wearing of a sash too. Bright primary colour sashes worn at 45-degrees are very eye-catching against any background
Drone
, I think there’s a job waiting for you at St Martins College of Art and Design. They could do with a dose of your practicality as well as your poetry!
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Some race-goers would much rather the jockeys were bedecked in corduroy and tweed… what, what !
I think you’ve been reading too much P. G. Wodehouse,
Himself
.
I have a better idea for RfC to mull over. As this is all about attracting PR and adolescent racegoers, why not go back to the old Godiva principle? The prospect of the jocks racing in the Corinthian Altogether (with the sole aid perhaps of the fabled jock-strap, for males only) surely ought to add tens of thousands to the box-office, as well as attracting every tabloid newspaper in Christendom to the races.
Tweeds?
So last week.
Silks?
So old fogey. My proposition is that the jocks should wear
nothing at all
. Come on,
Rodders
– this is the 21st Century after all!
My concept, by the way, can be bought by RfC as a fully functional PR package at:
http://www.emperorsnewclothes.comPaul – I think this reflects more on your desire to bash RFC than anything else.
I think I have been fairly even handed when commenting on RfC – some of their initiatives are very good and I have said so.
However some of their initiatives are gimmicky and they do, unfortunately, detract from the good work they do.
Most of the colour suggestions on the web site would not work from a race reading perspective.
The colours used on Shergar Cup day are a prime example of an ill-conceived idea – team colours were OK but from a race reading perspective they were useless – on the round course, in the murk, it was impossible to differentiate the colours (the blue and green ones especially) and the "differentiating" caps were of no use at all – if professionals are going to have trouble differentiating colours how will the casual or new racegoer cope?
Why can’t standard colours be attached to the racecard number? In terms of recognition, that must be the best thing to do. Personally I find it increasingly difficult to differentiate silks currently in use in big fields.
Betting offices around the country could ring to the punters’ cries of ‘come on the 2 horse!’
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