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Good thread this!
Personally I think this site is run with a fair degree of common sense.
No one wants abuse, but heated debate and snarling opinion is fine by me and I suspect many others.
There are so many forums that have people ruining the "freedom of speech" element because of their petty jealousies and cliquey relationships with forum members – I’d hate to see that happen here.
I pretty much agree with Arsehopper on this, the thread seems to have touched a nerve, which is a good thing as it gets passion and opinion into the open.
Thought the ride on Raven’s Pass was mediocre today, would only have been 3rd at best though. (I accept the horse is best held up..but that far and that wide!)
Zip
It’s maybe a little surprising Durcan’s part in the barge-fest in the last race at HQ today hasn’t attracted comment as yet on here.
Do have a look at the race via the usual sources if you haven’t already. I was doing a show at the time and the inbox went absolutely bananas with a 50-50 "result must stand, he was clear" / "if this result stands, I’ll quit racing" sort of split…
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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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GC
Agree it was a mess of a race, but I think the problem lay with the horse, rather than the jockey.
Having corrected Ajaan’s move to the left by pulling him wide, one smack of the whip hardly deserved the horse’s response of veering wildly right again, and he did switch his whip again and ride him out hands and heels from that point.Reet,
In so far as Ajaan was going so well before the first collision that he was more than likely still going to march all over whatever he was up against tonight, I’m not too surprised that he was allowed to keep the race.
However, having moved the whip through to the right hand when he did, and having achieved the intended aim of getting the horse back on a true line in so doing, is it perhaps the case that Durcan was a little too quick in drawing it back to his left hand, whereupon the second, more marked interference occurred?
I don’t think anything would have caught Ajaan had Durcan kept the stick in his right hand for a few seconds longer, just to make sure the horse’s deviation had been properly nipped in the bud; so I think I’d still regard it a slightly over-hasty decision, albeit by no means the worst we’ll see this season, and not one which ultimately cost him or his mount the race.
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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.
The first collision resulted in the eventual third (Silver Suitor) being put out of the race, and I think that the current rules which fail to recognise this or penalise the ‘horse at fault’ accordingly are wrong.
The second collision was actually much less to do with Ajaan, as Camps Bay swerved badly left, colliding with Ajaan who was actually running pretty straight albeit with a slight rightwards drift at that point.
It did look like a heavyweight bout, and on first view, Durcan could probably have done more once he realised Ajaan was rolling, but the head-on shows that he pretty much had by the time they were clouted by Camps Bay.
I think he was fortunate if he got away without a ban. It looked irresponsible to me on the basis the horse veered sharply once and he then prompted the same action a second time.
The first collision resulted in the eventual third (Silver Suitor) being put out of the race, and I think that the current rules which fail to recognise this or penalise the ‘horse at fault’ accordingly are wrong.
Fair comment, and on reflection it was probably Silver Suitor’s shuffling back a few lengths after that collision which precipitated the second incident, as Camps Bay no longer had anything directly to his immediate left to compel him to keep straight enough thereafter.
It wasn’t you who took the 1000 about Silver Suitor in the stewards’ enquiry on Betfair, though, was it?
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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.
Quite indeed. That 2 forumites jump to the defence of AP!
No, that’s one forumite (and maybe two) arguing the case for any person directly involved in some aspect of racing or racing media not to be actively dissuaded from posting. I’d suggest that isn’t quite the same thing.
I don’t think anyone (if I may be as daring as to speak for all) is interested in ‘transparency’ from commentators, race-readers, Spotlight writers – how can they be transparent when they comment on, report and analyse races – they are certainly not an integral part of racing. What have they got to be transparent about?!
In the last few weeks alone, certain of TRF’s posters, all of whom belong to one or more of the professions I listed, have given us insight into such things as Racing Post tissues, the Great Leighs experience from several different perspectives, owning a Cheltenham Festival winner, not owning a Cheltenham Festival winner, racehorse transportation logistics, and so on.
I am delighted to have derived something from all of these posts, most or all of which have contained information to which the workaday racing fan is not always privvy, if at all; and it is in the same spirit that I had little hesitation to explain the race-reading process for point-to-points on a TRF thread earlier this year.
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Hello Jeremy,
Apologies for the delay in replying…
– who is trying to dissuade anyone from posting? If someone won’t post because they were pulled up on something, then what is one to do?
– Yes, I too appreciate those insights you listed, and in that regard, Ap’s are very much to the fore. However, I value those as much as insights from someone in a non-industry position (for arguments sake, Venusian, Empty/Charlie D, Carvillshill, Clive, etc)
AP – I take it you are not going to acknowledge you were wrong with your comment on my post?
Just noticed an interesting Freudian typo in Jeremy’s quoted post above- less of the toilet humour Grayson! And pay attention at the back!
I think there’s always only one "v" in "privy", isn’t there, CH, irrespective of whether one is referring to sharing knowledge or to an outside loo?
My error with the spelling, then, but that’s all – unless I’ve cacked up somewhere else as well (always a distinct possibility as senility increases apace)?
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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.
I’ll bog off now, shall I? This correspondence is going down the pan.
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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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