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is the game we all love bent,dont say we know it always has been lets be positive and start from here .the rules<br>EVERY HORSE SHOULD BE TRIED OVER ITS BEST DISTANCE AND GOING.<br>EVERY TRAINER JOCKEYSHOULD TO THERE BEST ABILITY TRY THE HORSE TO GET ITS BEST PLACE<br>IF YOU BREAK THE ABOVE RULES 3 STRIKES AND YOUR OUT.
cant see anything wrong with it.
two viewres so far and no reply surely everyone must have an opinion or haven,t you got the boll***s
How do you know what a horses best distance is…….Dont say breeding…..look at Red Rum won under Lester over 5 Furlongs and won over 4 and a half miles under Stack……you will never prove what a horses best distance is if a trainer states he believed it to be something else. They should all be ridden to the line though, even if its winning by 20 lengths….and the one we should have to stop cheating is the horses weight as half the time the animals are not fully fit…..this would tell us the whole truth and be difficult for the connections to hide when D-day is about to arrive.
thx winchy for having a go,your dead right about a horses weight why do you think they wont do it.yes if a horse can win by 20 length it should do so,if it dont ITS CHEATING. but dont tell me a trainer doesnt know the horses best distance after a couple of runs.come on Ian,Escorial,Rory whats your views..
b******s ian 95%,i dis agree like ive said did anyone back IRISH DISTINCTION TODAY not yet but i can tell you why utd beat everton the other night.but dont get into that..
its all part of the game,we all knew what was going on{panorama}DONT BRUSH IT UNDER THE CARPET.IF RACING AINT HONEST WERE WASTING OUR TIME
23 viewers and only 3 reply,s that says it all .are we all romantics YOU MUST HAVE AN OPINION
If someone gives you a tip for a horse that is TRYING that day, and it wins are YOU bent for backing it??<br>Or do you consider that to be fair game?<br>You can’t have it both ways!<br>If you believe that racing is 100% straight, then you must also believe in the tooth fairy!<br>Ray<br>
JW,
you accuse anyone who hasn’t expressed an opinion to be romantics – surely the notion that everything should be run for the punter is the most romantic notion of all. I’ve been a punter of some scale since I was 10 and the fundamental truth is that small time punters are parasitic to racing in that we feed of the product produced by others (the host); the fact that punters "pay" for racing’s welfare is often misunderstood as that money is not donated but simply misinvested.
Those employed in the business of racing have a right to expect to make a living from it. An owner and trainer have the job of maximising the chances of their charges winning races, which means having their horses at peak form and fitness at the right time.  Not bullying the horses or blowing their minds by overworking them is an art form and the expectation that they will be at the same mental and physical peak for an entire season is ridiculous and presumptious on the part of the punter.
Let’s be straight, having a horse which is in the form to win and has the right conditions, and then stopping that horse from winning is criminal, but simply ensuring that a horse is most able to capitalise on its best opportunities by mapping out a proper campaign is the trainer’s prerogative.
It is paramount that we stamp out cheating in racing, but we must be sure of what cheating means, and the scenarios you present do not constitute cheating.  In my experience there are very few cases when races are genuinely bent, and Panorama could only produce one example from the last ten years to feature in their programme.  If a race is believed to be bent, then betting patterns will back this up and the bookies will squeal about it – that hasn’t happen more than a handful of times in recent memory, although the advent of exchanges make it a lot easier to make a killing laying a "jolly" who is unfancied by connections.  I use the term unfancied advisedly.
On another point, if every horse was guaranteed to be fit, trying and correctly handicapped, do you really think you’d have more chance as a punter?  The bookies (or the exchange layers) will always operate a margin for profit and the naive punter will always lose.
Hope that helps you sir.
<br>The reason we don’t weigh horses in this country is purely practical. In order for the information to be supplied in time for punters to have it in the morning paper, the weighing would have to take place at the stables the day before the race. That would mean every trainer having a set of scales. Then you’d need an official to go round checking that all the scales were calibrated correctly.
And if a trainer is bent, then he simply gives out the wrong weight and nobody is going to know any different.
Yes, you could have scales at every racecourse, but then only a few punters would have access to the info, just as happens now with the weights of greyhounds.
As to the ‘run over best distance’ argument, what makes you think that owners and trainers know what that is. When you buy a new horse, you might spend eight or ten races trying to find out the answer and still not be sure. And if I buy a stoutly bred 2-y-old that will eventually win over two miles, are you saying I can’t run it as a 2-y-old beacuse there aren’t any races over 2m.
On that basis, the Derby would be contested almost entirely by unraced horses! And so would the Grand National, as there are no other races over that distance.
I wish those who are convinced that racing is bent would answer just one question –
If it’s bent , why do you bet on it?
If I invited you to a poker game and told you in advance that all the other players were card sharps and the cards were marked, would you still join in?
Alan<br>
Many regard Sir Mark Prescott as a brilliant trainer of handicappers he will often run horses on the a/w as they seem to get a lower handicap mark and then when the horse races on the turf for the first time at a different distance it will win everyone knows this goes on not with just Sir Mark. <br>There is no way of stopping this there is no need for a trainer or an owner to inform all and sundry what the plans are.<br> If betting was banned racing would stop by next week but where people bet there will always be some trying to have an edge no different for those in the know to have placed bets at 33/1 on Howard Wilkinson being the Sunderland manager. The Coates family who own bet 365 and are major shareholders in Stoke city seemed to know and declined to issue prices.(the manager of Stoke left to be the assistant at Sunderland).<br>What about some dodgy snooker bets in the past. Form and stats are for there for all to see and the average punter has never been in a better position than at the moment racing or any sport never be or is 100% straight but its just a part of life. What about the ex jockey club member who had made millions from his business in this country but paid hardly any tax as it was an off sure business and he avoided most of the taxes no one bothers about that they would rather moan about some trainer or owner winning a few grand on a horse they have invested time and money in.
sincere apologies ian,didnt mean it to be insulting,the reply was very poor and did indeed offer no debate sorry.<br>As you have probably guessed i,m playing devils advocate i love horse racing but feel very frustrated when these weird results turn up.as a novice in terms of knowing the game,my only way in is via the form book but when it regularly turns in suprising winners it makes me wonder.as for a trainer not knowing th correct distance or going,of course it takes time to find out the animals best conditions but i was really refering to seasoned campaigners not 2yo,s or lightly raced older nags.as for the comment that trainers and owners need to make a living correct but should they do it by making secret arrangements with  whoever at the expense of the punter.isnt running a horse over the wrong conditions to gain an advantage without the punter knowing is unfair to the people whokeep the industry alive .the racing industry seems very much a closed shop with disreguard to joe public and when debates like of late come to he forefront they close ranks.i agree panorama was very poor and to me very dissapointing, but it is very hard to prove i think they thought they had something but things didnt open up the way they thought it would still what they did get was still revealing some of the archive footage on this forum though was more incriminating.<br>please dont take offence calling my forum friends romantics was just a very poor attempt to get your racing experts to reply.<br>why do i still bet,because like all the rest of you i love ,but i dont know enough,but i,m learning.
ONCE AGAIN APOLOGIES TO EVERYBODY I PROBABLY HAD TOO MUCH ASSISTANCE FROM MADAM STELLA
Madam Stella, LOL – I was going to ask, but I thought it was rude.
The laws of probability if applied to racing markets would produce random shock results as well JW, it’s the way things work.  Here’s a little exercise for you; Virtual Racing is computer generated but with a higher probability of certain "horses" winning according to the odds (I’m not advocating betting on it mind!).  The bookie has a guaranteed margin, so all events are random (no inside coups) ie "straight". Go into a betting shop and look at the results – there will probably be one, two or three virtual favourites plus a smattering of outsiders, some at huge prices.
Compare this with the results at today’s meeting at York – I’ll wager there are less shocks at York, which should represent a barometer of randomness – a 20/1 shot should win one in twenty-one races (on a 100% book), and if there are three or four twenty to one shots in a competitive race, and all races on a card are competitive, then you will probably get a 20/1 winner every day if the racing is run straight. Unfortunately, every time a 20/1 shot wins, people will always cry foul.
(Edited by rory at 10:31 am on Oct. 11, 2002)
I think it’s just the way of playing the game – not EXACTLY bent, I agree with the previous post about Sir Mark (think it was Ian without checking) if you can get your horse h’capd more favourably you will.
It happens everywhere.
Only 3 weeks ago small snooker competition in our area.<br>In teams and initially league format, top 2 play the final.
Teams A & B very strong C not too bad but would need everything to go their way to win, the rest are also rans.
Last match of the league format, A playing C. (exciting isn’t it? LOL)
A leads the league can’t be caught, B are 2nd and would be clear 2nd but were deducted some points for playing an illegible player. C are 3rd and can only overtake B by beating A by 3 clear frames.
Incredibly they do it and finish 2nd!!
A and C play in final. A win easily losing only 1 frame.
No betting so no one gives a damn – it’s just playing the game as well as you can.
Surely some races are easier to BEND than others?
I avoid races which I think are bendable and stick to the ones that are more likely to be run true.
For example not betting in big Handicaps.
Andrew Parker Bowles, Jockey Club member:
"What we must do now is… stress that English racing is straighter than anywhere else in the world."
I prefer to believe that English racing is not bent, at least not so bent that you could never have a bet, but statements such as the above really irritate me. Where is his evidence for such an arrogant suggestion?
It reminds me of the claims made about the British justice system once upon a time.<br>
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