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The Fillies Mile? Throw the Royal Lodge in too and you still wouldn’t have a fair trade for the Champion. No, there’s something else in the pipeline.
The BHA and their consultants are playing a dangerous game though. I’m no expert, but if you asked a random sample of owners of group class middle distance horses where they would prefer to end their season, and there was a simple choice between the Arc and the Champion, I’m pretty sure I know the answer.
In the BHA’s determined quest for a narrative, they run the risk of turning the entire flat season into a penny dreadful, rather than a literary epic. They should let things lie – but hey, we’re all doing that same old tango again aren’t we.
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I’ve just been wading through the glut of irrelevant nonsense on the RFC website and came across the following (unattributed) quote:
"What it requires is a better presentation of racing’s strengths – its drama, spectacle and
heritage
as well as its equine and human stars."
Well, they’ve cocked that one up then haven’t they?
I found the premise of the ‘Good Ideas Bank’ rather comical too, although it doesn’t appear that anyone has made a deposit as yet.
If anyone wants to perouse the site and doesn’t fancy registering, please feel free to use my login details:
Email:
mark.spitz@olympicgoldmedallist.com
Password:
123abc
They even make people register for the RFC site? I suppose it was the huge demand and popularity that caused that. The site couldn’t even find a spammer if they tried.
The good ideas bank. "A Burger King on every racecourse to meet with my dietary requirements. Thanks." Just posted by myself. Best one so far.
They could make the Cesarewitch a Group 1 Handicap and call it the Newmarket Handicap. Now there’s something to rival the Melbourne Cup in a few years time.
More unintended hilarity on the front of today’s Post with the BHA briefing that their so-called "principal players" were "outraged" by French intransigence. Apparently, "fevered discussions" have been taking place "as BHA chairman Paul Roy, RFC leaders and other senior figures in the sport debated whether to blatantly ignore" French objections.
It’s quite comic, really: the BHA/RFC going out on a limb for something which racing fans at best couldn’t give a toss about and at worst actively detest.
And when I say "small and idealistic changes," I think everyone has to accept some things change and evolve. Running races over peculiarly stupid distances with odd yardage, restricting geldings from running in classic races; they are some of the things I’ve thought about. Not moving the only 10f G1 to be run on a straight course in Britain.
Sure, there’s many aspects of racing (and betting) that need a tweak, nudge, tinker or wholesale change but it annoys me – and clearly many others – that the Flat Pattern patently isn’t one of them; it’s captivating, it’s steeped in history and as far as I’m aware the large majority of ‘professionals’ within the game are quite happy with it, so it works.
The price of everything, the value of nothing
– a familiar but wholly pertinent Wildeism
The Champion Stakes – just repeat that succinct bluntly descriptive frank-in-its-finality romantic name again and again – is a particularly iconic member of the Pattern and must remain on the Heath in perpetuity, run on the last weekend of BST casting long shadows from a sub-equatorial sun. A golden fallen leaf wafts in the slipstream of the last horse home: the Flat is done and dusted for another year, thanks. There’s a chill in the air
For one who’s been following racing since only 2005 Jose, you display an understanding and knowledge of the game wise beyond five years, if I may say so
A pleasure to read your posts
Btw the Leger distance of 1m 6f 132yds or if you prefer 1mile 6furlongs 110yds 1chain is certainly a "peculiarly stupid" trip but quaint nevertheless doncha think
Would you round it down to the dead 1m 6f?
Edited and paraphrased from today’s hard copy Racing Post:
"Newmarket, which has held the Champion Stakes since
1877
will bid farewell to the race next month.
Its equivalent fixture will be repositioned seven days earlier in the calendar – six days after the Arc.
The Dewhurst Stakes will be joined by the transferred Group One Fillies Mile, the two juvenile showpieces becoming the highlights of a card that will be billed as
Future Champions Day.
…The (revamped) Ascot Card, to be staged on
October 15th
, is also due to include QEII Stakes, the Diadem, the 2m Jockey Club Cup and Group 2 1m 4f Pride Stakes"
Echo guskennedy’s post wholeheartedly. Well done Jose for the Fillies Mile info.
Btw the Leger distance of 1m 6f 132yds or if you prefer 1mile 6-and-a-1/2furlongs 1chain is certainly a "peculiarly stupid" trip but quaint nevertheless doncha think
Would you round it down to the dead 1m 6f?
An interesting one. The Cheltenham Gold Cup is 3m 2f 110y, which is at a half furlong distance – maybe the St Leger could do something similar. My real target with this issue are distances like Wolverhampton with their 5f 216y. Incredibly pointless to say the least…
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Has anyone delved in to the ‘our vision’ area of Racing For Change’s website?
It has been decided that horse racing needs to be ‘New British Classic’, which apparently entails the following:
– Fresh & original
– Rejuvenated
– Being the latest thing
– Modern & fashionable
– Novel
– Seize the moment
– Mischievous (sounds about right)
– Playfully intelligent (WTF)
– Of enduring interest, quality or style
– Of the first or highest quality
– Simple and well designed (survey says…)
– Serving as a standard (for everyone else to avoid, presumably)And the products Racing For Change want to liken themselves to in their pursuit ‘New British Classic’ status?
Mini, Paul Smith and…wait for it…Doctor Who.
You’ve got to love it.
We all know why the Champion Stakes is being moved to Ascot, I’m sure. Douglas Erskine-Crum, of levy board pension fame and a member of RFC, prefers his free lunch there. And he likes to catch up with his "new British classic" style friends he left behind….
AJ.You really do have to laugh. I always thought John Berry would make a good Dr Who.
The Cheltenham Gold Cup is 3m 2f 110y, which is at a half furlong distance – maybe the St Leger could do something similar. My real target with this issue are distances like Wolverhampton with their 5f 216y. Incredibly pointless to say the least…
If I recall correctly these ‘exact’ distances – such as 5f 216yds – were the result of yardage-wheel measurements on the Flat a few years ago. Prior to that distances were rounded up or down to the nearest 110yds, so the above example would have been 6f. The Portland run over the esoteric trip of 5f 140yds was once – again if memory serves – recorded as being a 5 1/2f race
And rounding, I believe, remains the case in NH, hence the Gold Cup trip you mention
Of course at tracks where dolling in/out is practised the published trips are ‘for information only’
If Wolverhampton want, I’ll go there and push the stalls back 4 yards myself.
7f 32y, 1m 141y, 1m 4f 50y. Sounds like the worst designed racecourse on earth.
The Derby distance – 1m 4f 10y. If the stalls were moved no one would notice.
It’s not as bad as a race being worth £1978.65
What the 65p does, or something similiar, I don’t know. You wouldn’t even be able to buy anything at my new Burger King "restaurants" that will be coming if RFC listen.
I’ll keep on-topic with it. Take the Champion Stakes last year.
£213,739.05, £81,022.80, £40,549.05, £20,218.05, £10,127.85, £5,082.75
Make that £210,000, £80,000, £40,000, £20,000, £10,000 and £5,000. No one is hurt by that.
Wacky Races eh
No idea where all that silver shrapnel comes from. Perhaps levy contributions and what ever other sources of financial bolstering can be called on are formulated as a strict percentage of stakes placed
Incidentally my ‘Imperialising’ of the Leger distance was not strictly in its simplest form
1m 6f 132y is 1 mile 6 furlongs 6 chains. Whether that was a decision by committee back in the 1770s or coincidence who knows?
Useless fact of the day:
Railway distances are still measured in miles and chains. Furlongs aren’t used
King’s Cross to York is 188 miles 40 chains or 188m 4f in racing parlance
A chain is 22 yards, or one cricket pitch, for those who only speak metric
The Gruesome Twosome in the Creepy Coupe
Paul Roy and Nic Coward
Peter Perfect in the Turbo Terrific
Paul Struthers
Penelope Pitstop in the Compact Pussycat
Ruth Quinn
Professor Pat Pending in the Convert-a-Car
Phil Smith
Dick Dastardly and Muttley in the Mean Machine
Harry Findlay and Glen Gill
The Slag Brothers in the Bouldermobile
Graham Bradley and Dean McKeown
Sergeant Blast and Private Meekley in the Army Surplus Special
Betfair and Betdaq
The Ant Hill Mob in the Bulletproof Bomb
Coral, Ladbrokes, Hills…
Lazy Luke and Blubber Bear in the Arkansas Chuggabug
Joe and Jill Punter
Rufus Ruffcut and Sawtooth in the Buzzwagon
John McCririck and Barry Dennis
Red Max in the Crimson Haybailer
?
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Dick Dastardly and Muttley in the Mean Machine
Harry Findlay and Glen Gill
Just ‘dick’ will suffice.
Otherwise a top effort
- Total Posts 17716
Jose
As you probably already knew, Wolverhampton race distances (like Chester, Lingfield, and a good few others), are a function of its sharpness, and to avoid races starting at or near a bend.
The Leger start, I would suggest, probably marks the extremities of the original racecourse, being just beyond the path were horses were walked over the road into the racecourse, (until recently).
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