- This topic has 28 replies, 23 voices, and was last updated 17 years, 7 months ago by
.
- Posts
Hello all!
As the lowly post count gives away, I’m a new member, but a long-time lurker.
I’ve followed racing – particularly jumps – for yonks. I know I still have much to learn about the sport but I’m hoping I won’t come across as too naïve.
I’ll soon be old enough to start betting. I can’t wait. Watching the longshot you fancy romp in without being able to bet hurts! I suppose you don’t notice the long losing runs when your money is staying safely in your pocket though.
Anyway, I was wondering how and when you all got ‘hooked’ on racing.
For me it was watching the 1999 Grand National on TV and cheering on Call It A Day.
Hi Young Fella
That’s an easy one to answer – Desert Orchid. I was at Kempton for three of his four King George victories and I’ll never forget rushing home from school to watch a recording of the Gold Cup the year he won. I didn’t know the result and my mum (who’d recorded the race for me) wouldn’t tell me whether he’d won or not. It’s the first time a horse race brought tears to my eyes.
Tuffers
Watching the longshot you fancy romp in without being able to bet hurts!
Your eighteenth birthday will only offer a temporary reprieve. Give it a couple of weeks and you’ll be back to square one, at least as far as bookies are concerned, if you back a couple of winners.
Good evening Young Fella
Yonks are eons at my age. The Grand National is the race that began my love of jumping and first scrapbook with cuttings of Nicolaus Silver. I lived in Worcestershire, where he was trained, so plenty of pictures from local newspapers to stick in it. I’ve always been lucky betting in the race but keep stakes to a low – more fun if you keep it sensible.
Flying Wild
For me it would be Desert Orchid and the Nationals from 1988 when i was a mere 9yo.
The racing bug has always been with me, even throughout school when all the other people were being ‘cool’ and ‘trendy’ for me it was Aintree,Cheltenham,Goodwood and hoping they would all come during the school holidays.
Racing is a sport which for me never goes away once you see a few races and understand what it is all about and one good thing about it is that it is probably THE only international sport in the world.
I agree with you totally, Neil.
It has been difficult to nurture my interest with parents who find Horse Racing:
1) Morally wrong.
2) Boring.But they soon learnt I wasn’t about to give it up.
The LEAs in this country really should arrange the school term dates better. I’m fed up with running home to catch race 3 onwards of The Festival!
Hi young fella,
Funnily enough – and this always goes down well in these parts – it was Big Mac who got me into horse racing in summer 1983. I watched him do his thing in the ring at Chester races on Channel 4 and was absolutely fascinated. Never seen anything like it.
An old sprinter called Morgans Choice won a race as did a horse of Robert Sangster’s called Seismic Wave. The next day, I brought a copy of the Sun and started marking down the winners. Had my first bet (a 2/7 shot; a jumper called Dinner Date at Devon and Exeter), the following week.
It’s life itself, young fella. All life contained therein. Best of luck.
Easy one for me. It was watching Arkle against Mill House around about 1963 or 1964 on a little black and white TV at my grandparents’ house.
A few years later I was taken to Ascot to watch Nijinsky win the King George and Queen Elizabeth Stakes which got me hooked on live racing.
The Grand National for me in the early 70’s, specifically Specify’s National which is when I first remember becoming very interested and intrigued by racing. Red Rum Vs Crisp was the first time I experienced the pitch of excitement that racing could invoke and by the time Grundy won the Derby I was done for.
Boxing Day 1997. I was 15 when See More Business won his first King George and backed him at 10/1. After that I started watching the racing every Saturday, indulging in Lucky 15’s. Then fortunately quite old-looking for my age, I spent the summer after I’d done my GCSE’s doing overtime orking supermarket checkouts in the morning and watching racing in the local bookies all afternoon. Generally spent more and more time watching racing, to the point that in my second and third years at University, I was spending every afternoon watching the racing. It was a great education mind! Who knows, if Challenger du Luc wasn’t such a big dog, perhaps this board would have been 4000+ posts lighter!
if Challenger du Luc wasn’t such a big dog, perhaps this board would have been 4000+ posts lighter!
Damn
Anyway, it was Young Snugfit (i think) in the national for me. fiddling around with form for the first time and he ran second (i think). Loved the challenge
Despite being brought up on the very edge of kempton park, mine was strictly a non racing family. To start with it was Saturdays down the pub then progressing to the real thing with so many courses close by
Desert Orchid without a doubt was a major catalyst. first cheltenham visit and Cecil/ Cauthen
Bug has bitten more in last five years or so though. This forum has been a major factor as has the excellent all round coverage on the TV
Good thread Young Fella
I am amazed I just cannot remember my first bet. I was well under age. Probably about 14.
Pendil was the horse that really set my racing heart alight. Night Nurse, Sea Pigeon et al. Glory days indeed!
Betting wise it was the Saturday ITV7 that got me betting each weekend.
My dad was horse racing mad. He used to take me racing as a kid. Guess it paid for my student years.
I have this strange very early memory of a horse called "Homefield" (or something close to that name) winning at Ayr in the 70s. Was there with my dad who backed it because I picked it. Whatever it bolted about 20 lengths clear in the first few furlongs and was never caught. really impressed me.
Boxing Day 1997. I was 15 when See More Business won his first King George and backed him at 10/1. After that I started watching the racing every Saturday, indulging in Lucky 15’s. Then fortunately quite old-looking for my age, I spent the summer after I’d done my GCSE’s doing overtime orking supermarket checkouts in the morning and watching racing in the local bookies all afternoon. Generally spent more and more time watching racing, to the point that in my second and third years at University, I was spending every afternoon watching the racing. It was a great education mind! Who knows, if Challenger du Luc wasn’t such a big dog, perhaps this board would have been 4000+ posts lighter!
Do you remember John Hunt’s commentary? "Challenger Du Luc is cruising, but what’s he going to do? Will he give it away?!" all at 125 decibels ~ classic stuff.
Welcome aboard Young Fella ~ it’s good to have fresh blood on the forum.
Welcome aboard Young Fella ~ it’s good to have fresh blood on the forum.
Thanks
If we’re talking first bets, I can remember pestering the parents into sticking a few quid on ol’ Gunner Welburn in the National of ’04. Pulled up. That was the end of that.
Think I started backing horses in the early 90’s.
The first real thing that I can always remember from back then was when Party Politics won the National. I was a paperlad at the local shop and one of the other lads who was a few years older was going round telling anyone who would listen that Party Politics would win the National.
He must have been at it for 2-3 weeks, all the people he delivered papers to, everyone who came in the shop, in fact just about everyone he walked past. I’d got that sick of hearing him go on about it I ended up going for something else. Anyway, when he won he was a very, very popular lad with quite a lot of people for a good few weeks after.
As is usually the case, the first decent winner I had that I can remember was in a big race, it was Jodami winning the gold cup. I remember it well (which is unusual for me as I remember very little from that stage of my life) I was in a works van with another fella and I’d picked it out as I’d read a really good write up about it in the local paper, so we both had a tenner on it and listened to the race on the radio in the van.
We must have looked a real picture to anyone going past as we were parked up at the side of the road. I think we both thought we were on the horse in the closing stages and rode the horse out to the finish as though our lives depended on it.
Happy days!
I remember my da having a quid on Red Rum in the ’77 National on my behalf which kicked me off in the racing game. I also remember pestering him into backing a couple of outsiders in pattern races in the early ’80s which made me think I could be a judge.
The first was a horse called Milk Of The Barley in the Waterford Crystal Mile in about 1982; MoTB was a very talented but ungenuine sprinter/miler who I’d first seen winning at Kempton in the Spring when he destroyed Vorvados (a favourite of mine) and I vowed to "keep him onside" as the expression went. When he lined up at Goodwood he had let punters down on several occasions and went off at 150/1 which amazed me and I tried to convince Da to have a couple of bob each way. He ran an excellent second before reverting to type and losing his subsequent starts before going to stud. This fact was lost on me, and I spent the next two years scanning the A-Z of runners in the Irish News hoping to catch his triumphant return.
The second of my specials was At Talaq in the 1984 Derby when he was officially acting as a pacemaker with a youthful claimer called Richard Hills on board (now that’s what I call loyalty ~ still riding for Sheikh Hamdan 24 years later) and was a 250/1 shot. Again, I was convinced that the horse was better than that and I convinced the ould fella to have an each way tickle. Sadly, At Talaq couldn’t quite hold on to third behind Secreto and El Gran Senor but justified my opinion by winning the Grand Prix de Paris and eventually the Melbourne Cup.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.