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“Not sure if the beeb did the same back when it was just 3 day festival but they probably did.”
I doubt it. The BBC last broadcast Cheltenham in 1994. Back in those days, Irish NH racing was at a low ebb and the question going into the festival was not “How many winners will the Irish have?” but “Will the Irish have a winner?”. Maybe we will start asking the same about the British soon?
The Irish domination does not bother me but it is only natural after such a scoreline that people are going to ask what is Ireland doing right and what can British trainers do to get better.
“I would suggest Wexford that you take your stupid anglophobia somewhere else
Name the sports where the English state that it’s “their divine right” to “win everything”
You can’t
What you say is absolute bullocks”
Clive I said nothing of the sort. I have spent a lot of time making well researched points on this thread, about prize money, about the handicapping system and about the structure of the season, in an attempt to explain why UK trainers are finding it tough at Cheltenham.
No where did I slag off the English or say that they think they have a devine right to win everything. Perhaps someone else did, but I definitely didn’t
You’ve made very good points which I’ve absorbed (although I’m not quite with you on the kgv) but the first para of your last post?
Leave it at that. No problem.
I’m probably enjoying your contributions more than anyone’s here
As an aside, if there are rivalries in this sport, they are perhaps far more likely t9 be within borders than across borders? But one of the appeals of this great game is that petty rivalries are thin on the ground
The first paragraph of my last post
“Denise Foster is ahead of Ben Pauling in the UK trainers championship and she is only 42k behind Harry Fry.”
Hardly anglophobia?
“I was great getting that acca up with Appreciate It, Honeysuckle, Bob Olinger and Monkfish, but I would have traded half my winnings for just one of them to be British trained.”
Said no British punter EVER.
Who actually gives a **** where any winner was trained?
Not I.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"That walkover was a freak – the race in question is only open to horses that were eliminated from a handicap chase at Cheltenham. In past years, that has been OK to produce a competitive event. It was always designed as a consolation race with those conditions.
Cheers Alan, I didn’t realise that. I do think such conditions make you a bit of a hostage to fortune, mind!
Mike
Mike,
The same race last year had twenty runners, and some of those eliminated from Cheltenham, ended up eliminated from the Kempton consolation as well. Twenty down to one would have been difficult to predict!
I care where the winner was trained in the sense that, with my limited energy when I wake up early (or am awake during the night), I’ll look at Irish race meets before I’ll look at British race meets. The fields seem larger, there’s more interesting tactics, frontrunners, horses behind the leaders, horses coming from way back, horses trailing off and pulling up. When it comes to Cheltenham I feel the Irish trained (and raced) horses have had much more exposure against different horses, and may have better proved themselves (especially at the start of their careers) against the 10 year old that runs a once-off knowledgeable and give-it-everything race, and against the five year old that everything clicked for on the day but won’t live up to their potential (for whatever reason,) and against the handicapped horse that’s been looking for the right race. I don’t get the same vibe from watching British races, where your average meet won’t have the same level of competition from a horse, trainer and owner going out to upset the odds against better judgment (and often actually upsetting the odds.)
When Gladiateur says I bring up Irish horse racing in the Irish psyche, that seems to me to be fueling this. Maybe it’s just because there’s fewer meets (for a smaller population of people, but relatively more for the smaller population with more horse-interested people) but to me it seems like an exciting Irish horse has risen up through the ranks, an exciting English horse is almost destined to be exciting.
And saying I prefer watching Irish meets is partially through it being where I’m from, but if I was just looking at my returns I get the feeling (although I haven’t looked at the precise numbers) that I actually win more betting on British racing. It might be all the same to a horse whether they race and are trained in Britain or in Ireland, but from a viewer’s perspective, someone with an occasional interest, Ireland is far more challenging to get a good grasp on in each race, making it a better intellectual experience in finding an edge, and as a sport, at least for me. And more, that can only be good for the horses who really do rise up to the top. They can get the exact same training in Ireland or the UK, but once out on the course and under a jockey (outside of the likes of Cheltenham) for the moment Irish horse racing is a real place to prove yourself.
Ginge, you mean the uk authorites are patheticaly weak right? Not the other way around…One gives in to social media goons, the other rides the wave of it correctly…
Better horses/better trainers/far better jockeys/better youth system better p2p’s and more importantly a better handicapping system
Theres far to many mid 160s to low 170s in britain, it offsets the handicap from 140-160, langer dan is a good example of that on friday, The whole uk handicapping system is broken,they have been over rating horses for the last 5+ years and its catching up to them now.
But britains excuse for that is to blame the irish handicapper and to throw false accusations at trainers, rather than admit we overrate our horses top to bottom.
I’ll ignore some of your provocations, ham.
It’s not exactly the English overrating the English horses but I can see why you’ve come to that conclusion. tbh I think we have some agreement:Over many years the Irish and English handicaps have not been on the same scale. It’s like one’s rating horses in centigrade and the other fahrenheit… In reality the seemingly lower Irish rating is equivalent to a seemingly higher English one… which led to the English handicapper upping the Irish handicapper’s ratings of Irish horses in our handicaps. Of course – despite the excellent record of Irish handicappers in Britain – hasn’t stopped the Irish connections complaining about the English handicapper being biased (ratings supposedly “too high”). Where as imo the English handicapper hasn’t upped the Irish enough – as results have gone some way to prove.
Judging by my reading of the form book in previous years the Irish authorities / handicapper seems to turn a blind eye to tenderly handled handicappers Cheltenham “trials” too (haven’t looked this season).
Also worth baring in mind when comparing top horses in Britain and Ireland. Yes, if I was looking at an English and an Irish horse with the same official rating, in reality the Irish horse probably has the better form… Because they’re imo working on different scales.
Value Is EverythingThe Irish tend to complain their horses are given poor (too high) handicap marks before running in British handicaps…
Presenting Percy, Tiger Roll etc etc.
…And then say their horses are not rated high enough when discussing how good their horses are.
They should make their bloody minds up.
Value Is EverythingAs somebody at the grass roots of Irish racing, I’m actually quite concerned about the trumpeting around what Ireland is ‘doing right’. There is so much wrong here just below the elite. Blackmore appears to me to be the last of the female riders rather than leading the new wave. I also can’t see where we have all the young jockey talent, compared to what I see in the UK, and point to points and breeding are increasingly the domain of the few. The land of horsemen described elsewhere vanished 20 years ago. Stallion fees have rocketed, local studs have closed, and the risk is too high for many small breeders. None of this matters to HRI, as long as we win at Cheltenham and Epsom, but I’m not entirely convinced that things are quite as rosy as they seem. I think Ireland should expect to compete on level terms with the UK, given the numbers and investment, but one year’s domination may be just that. The equine talent that you are seeing now is several years in the making, after all. Perhaps it has peaked? I’d at least give it another year and see where things stand before rushing to change things in the UK, but better minds than mine are probably thinking about that.
A very interesting alternative insight and take on it all. ^
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"““I was great getting that acca up with Appreciate It, Honeysuckle, Bob Olinger and Monkfish, but I would have traded half my winnings for just one of them to be British trained.”
Said no British punter EVER.
Who actually gives a **** where any winner was trained?
Not I.”
Disagree. I don’t bet too often, but love the sport. The fact the UK horses were absolutely obliterated makes me feel like I’ve sort of been cheated all season thinking I was watching Grade 1 races (only have access to terrestrial TV). In the main, I wasn’t – I was watching also-rans. I’m not bothered who wins the Prestbury Cup in the slightest, but such an abject display must be bad, very bad, for UK racing. In every way.
BUY THE SUN
Maddy Playle’s suggestions to level the playing field (the BHA have not yet realised the urgency of the matter):
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