- This topic has 70 replies, 23 voices, and was last updated 16 years, 11 months ago by
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- Total Posts 43
How is a punter meant to discern the form for these when hardly any of it is covered in print (unless you’re a serious anorak), and none of it is televised? What is the use of having these bloody races under Rules?
Pure betting shop fodder. If people want horses to run in Point To Points, then leave them to that discipline, but don’t expect us form students to bother with that bilge, thanks.
Zee Zoo
Nobody asks you to bet in them. If you don’t like the races then just leave them. They are as much a part of National Hunt racing, as maiden hurdles, novices hurdles, intermediate hurdles, handicap hurdles, novice handicap hurdles, claiming hurdles, selling hurdles, novices’ chases, maiden chases, beginners’ chases, intermediate chases, handicap chases, novices handicap chases, selling chases, claiming, conditions chases, conditions hurdles, bumpers and I no doubt half a dozen other types of races I’ve probably forgotten.
I know, why don’t we ban two year old races. Let’s face it, there’s very little form to go on and what does your average no anorak punter know about breeding and factors that influence these races. Or classic races. I’m never likely to have a bet in them and, hey, most of the runners ahve only run a handful of times so much of it is guess work.
Like many types of races for those prepared to do the background work the information is there to be found. MacKenzie and Harris costs £40 and has a season’s worth of form and horse biographies, in a darned sight more depth than many form sources.
Hunter Chases have been part of the fabric of horse racing for two hundred years and you would get rid of them on an ill-informed whim.
If your intention was to p*** someone off this evening then may I say, congratulations, you have succeeded.
And after that gentle opener it’s over to you ‘graysonscolumn’, the best ‘bowling attack’ for this thread.
Rob
Uh-oh.
I can hear the thunder of graysonscolumns hooves in the distance……..with Happy Jack not far behind.
How is a punter meant to discern the form for these when hardly any of it is covered in print (unless you’re a serious anorak), and none of it is televised? What is the use of having these bloody races under Rules?
Pure betting shop fodder. If people want horses to run in Point To Points, then leave them to that discipline, but don’t expect us form students to bother with that bilge, thanks.
Let me get this right.
Was York not good enough for you today then?
- Total Posts 17716
Baulking Green will be turning in his grave.
Have you never heard of him or Spartan Missile?
Some fantastic horses have given racegoers oodles of pleasure in Hunter Chases and beyond. There are also some brilliant amatuer riders out there past and present.
No need to be an anorak to enjoy these races, which is a bloody awful description.
We get hundreds of crap racing over the NH season a lot worse than some Hunter Chases IMO
I find them a poor spectacle and have even less time for them from a punting perspective, but with about another 7000 races in the UK and Ireland to go at a year, I can’t see what harm they do.
It’s a laughable suggestion that they are just betting shop fodder too isn’t it given the general corinthian spirit of the participants.
- Total Posts 43
There’s a world of difference between those races you’ve listed and Hunters’ Chases. The basis of form for Hunters’ Chases takes place in front of a handful of enthusiasts. The form for those you’ve listed is there for all to see, apart from that of unraced horses, but their whole careers are ahead of ’em and we can ALL follow them.
Don’t know why you think I was wanting to incite anyone. All I’m saying is they’ve no place in Rules racing – they should stick to the Pointing fields for their own zealots to salivate over.
Let me get this right.
Was York not good enough for you today then?
Rather a walk-over in a Hunter Chase, than an entire card at York.
There’s a world of difference between those races you’ve listed and Hunters’ Chases. The basis of form for Hunters’ Chases takes place in front of a
handful of enthusiasts
.
Given that most weekends from January to May there are probably more people watching point-to-points live than watching racing under Rules then I beg to differ on that one.
Presumably if you are a football fan you wouldn’t have non-league teams in the FA Cup? A warning here that if the answer to that is ‘Yes’ then I’ll bring in a different set of anoraks to snap at your heels.
Surely your initial remark about Hunter Chases being ‘betting shop fodder’ is the polar opposite of the truth. Betting shop proprietors thrive on lots of low-grade racing with plenty of exposed form, rather than races where punters find it difficult to ‘discern the form for these when hardly any of it is covered in print (unless you’re a serious anorak)’.
Rob
Would I be correct in thinking that there has been some Hunter Chasers that have gone on to be stars under regular rules racing? I can’t think of any names at present.
KIsn’t this topic possibly the most blatant attempt to needle and wind up people, probably one in particular? Don’t feed the troll, guys.
Professional integrity prevents me from responding to the more marked provocations in Mr / Mrs (real name withheld) Zoo’s posts in kind – I trust nobody is too disappointed at that. To the specific points raised, then;
How is a punter meant to discern the form for these when hardly any of it is covered in print (unless you’re a serious anorak),
As has been mentioned in several threads previously, hunter chases are by a very long margin my most lucrative betting medium; a reward for the investment in research that requires a little more effort than more mainstream Rules racing, but not an insurmountable amount more.
A thread earlier in the season highlighted all the significant repositories for point-to-point form analysis and results. Even at his or her simplest and laziest, a punter can still follow the pointing / hunting season as it unfurls in the
Weekender
without any hugely significant outlay. A subscription to http://www.pointtopoint.co.uk is hardly exorbitant, either.
and none of it is televised?
Every last bit of it is televised, via the specialist racing channels. An increasing number of UK and Irish point-to-points are televised via the aforementioned website and also http://www.p2p.ie.
Terrestrial coverage is ordinary outside of the big Festival events; however, I hear few calls for the non-televised events at Cheltenham, Aintree, Royal Ascot to be binned, even though, say, The Queen Alexandra Stakes (love it as I do) is arguably as much or even more incongruous in the wider scheme of things.
What is the use of having these bloody races under Rules?
It gives non-players such as yourself 115 chances for an intake of breath if you don’t fancy them. And that’s as many as there were programmed this year, out of – as David mentioned – many, many thousands of races during the course of the season.
Pure betting shop fodder.
That’s the very last thing they are. That would imply betting shops are among the key drivers for them to appear on the racing programme at all, which – given many examples of the kind attract less liquidity than a workaday handicap – seems hard to credit.
If people want horses to run in Point To Points, then leave them to that discipline,
Not all point-to-pointers run in hunter chases and vice versa. Imagine a Venn Diagram of participants in one, the other, or both disciplines. Many 2m-2m4f hunter chasers are short runners over the 3m+ trips of all bar a few dozen point-to-points, and are not best served by a campaign in them.
but don’t expect us form students to bother with that bilge, thanks.
I wouldn’t expect all "form students" on the forum to thank you to speak on their behalf on this issue. Furthermore, surely it would bear greater testimony to your personal punting skills if you were able to make hunter chases pay for you despite them being – on all evidence to date – far from your favourite genre of race?
I wouldn’t bother this term now, as the hunter chase season is barely three weeks from completion and the number of outstanding races few. However, I hereby challenge you to set yourself a task of mugging up on the amateur form from this coming November (Black Forest Lodge and Cottenham point-to-points on the last Saturday of that month) onwards, and to see how far that research, using the tools available to you and everybody else if they deign to look for them, can take you on the road to profit by Horse & Hound weekend, late May 2010.
Dare you.
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.
Oops, missed a couple.
The basis of form for Hunters’ Chases takes place in front of a handful of enthusiasts.
There were a few thousand at Peper Harow point-to-point last Saturday. All the big spring Bank Holiday meetings will have played host to at least twice as many again. Even the early, bleak, mithering meetings in November, December and January attract crowds than would certainly pass muster compared to most weekday Rules equivalents at the same time of year – again, there must have been a four-figure total in attendance when I took in the opening meeting of the season at Black Forest Lodge last November in conditions barely above freezing.
Wrong argument to pick here, I’m afraid.
The form for those you’ve listed is there for all to see, apart from that of unraced horses, but their whole careers are ahead of ’em and we can ALL follow them.
Please refer to previous answers. Moreover, there’s nothing in this world preventing you from following an unraced pointer in your locality from Maiden through to Open class, and from then on, who knows, hunter chases or other Rules events.
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.
Would I be correct in thinking that there has been some Hunter Chasers that have gone on to be stars under regular rules racing? I can’t think of any names at present.
KLet’s start you off with Gone To Lunch – a participant in the 2007 Foxhunters for Jeremy Scott long before he became the gifted hurdler and chaser he now is.
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.
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