- This topic has 24 replies, 12 voices, and was last updated 15 years, 6 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Actually, I thought the only race that I knew any stats about was the Grand National, which is why I am baffled that people are saying that Mon Mome wasn’t a stats/trends horse.
Back to this issue though. I think that things can be learned from studying small things. Perhaps some people should read Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirsig.
I subsequently looked up Pickering, the 2.40 Pontefract sprint h’cap winner I backed at 17.5, on the Racing Post website. This is the quote after his win on 4Apr07:
He was very green and backward last year, but I’ve always thought a fair bit of him and he’s going to be a nice horse when he matures. Six furlongs and some cut in the ground will probably suit him best
– Eric Alston, trainer.
So, the horse will take some time to mature. Unusually for a sprinter, he only had 5 runs last year as a 4yo, so something wasn’t right with the horse.
Now, he is older and more mature, and ready to do himself justice.
So previously, I had noticed that certain 4yos or 5yos come out and win at the start of the season, having not done much the previous year. Now, using the Racing Post website, I can look for these types of horse in a race, rather than backing all 5yos or what have you that are making their seasonal debut in Spring.
There is a famous Australian bridge player called Michael Courtney. Before Courtney played bridge, he was also a top chess player. When he moved over to playing bridge the thing that really took hold of him was that he could now take part in deception, confusing the opponents as to which player holds which cards. In chess you can’t do that, because there are only two players, and all the pieces are out in the open.
Similarly, my eyes opened up when I got Internet access at the end of November, and could now look at a horse’s racing career in one glance. Before that, I was either looking at my own figures, or going back race to race in a formbook, not having enough fingers and thumbs to keep track of the races.
You see, before, I was just looking at the numbers. Now I can see the gaps between the numbers.
Please don’t move this thread to Daily Lays & Plays. As the great Chinese gambler Confucious said: "Give a man a bet, and you feed him for a day; teach him how to bet, and you feed him for life."
I had better find the winner of the Irish Grand National now, or that will come across as a load of bollox.
I’ve noted the criticisms of this thread.
I’m not in favour of it being moved.
What do you suggest then, Gerald? We rename this section the "Big Races and Utterly Pointless Sand-Dancing Forum"?
If you want to discuss the wider aspects of 2yo racing, start a post in the main Horse-Racing section. You will get plenty of replies, I’m sure (though obviously none from yours truly).
Can a Moderator (who knows what they are doing in terms of shifting thingd around) please move this thread into another section, so that casual visitors don’t die laughing at the irony of it.
I thought I was going to be reading about some new race I had never heard of. Get a grip mate
One of the major criticisms of sand racing is that it’s bent. Oh the irony, Grass. The irony!!
You see everyone lay the boot into it: The Inconsistency of the horses being a major criticism, and also how peak performances tend to come when the money’s down.
Jump racing’s peak performances tend to come in festival races, don’t they. Those Super Seven days of Cheltenham and Aintree.
Halcyon days. Blue Remembered Hills. Sunday Best. Freshly polished Hunters. Buffed flasks of Courvoisier. Grouse suppers, cutlery ranked around the mirrored china in order of use. Well fed trainers.
I thought about the lovely Ms Venetia Williams. Hardly run a horse on the AW to my knowledge, bless her. Not much sand in deepest Hereford, (but plenty of cows).
There she was, dazzling, three weeks ago, greeting a prized Cheltenham winner (heavily backed) when, in the RP in the morning,.she was quoted as saying her horse had no chance.
An hour later, the fragrant Ms Williams sends out a well backed second string who does a more widely fancied horse on the line. Now that
RILLY
fecks off the average punter. Doesn’t it? Doesn’t happen very often on the sand. Bring in coupling, I say. Only Hereford’s cows could possibly argue…but then…
they knew.
.
And for the conclusion of Ms William’s magnficent Spring Plan (Ernst Stavro Blofeld never formulated such a masterpiece), a horse fancied by everyone and her husband for the Welsh National (a bet of five grand in one hand recorded), badly disappoints.
People leave Chepstow saying they’ll never bet again. Angry. Frustrated. Muddied brogues and tarnished Barbours. The horse returns, is tailed off in his last but one race. Nelson with a telescope to his functioning eye couldn’t find him. He’s back again in blackest Uttoxeter. He’s never put in the race at any stage. Not once did he threaten to catch the eye of the judge.
Then, when it matters, The Kid comes out in National Hunt’s most exciting showpiece and wins pulling a double decker bus. I had to check my card.
Who dat?
By some distance the easiest national winner I’ve ever seen, probably the easiest winner of the National there has
ever
been. There has been NO winner on the sand this year as incomprehensible and yes, sneaky as this one, a plot pulled off in full view of the public.
And of course, the delectable Ms Williams didn’t fancy it at all.
The All Weather?
Ropey? In comparison to what, exactly?National Hunt?
Don’t make me faccin LARF!
One of the major criticisms of sand racing is that it’s bent. Oh the irony, Grass. The irony!!
Speak for yourself, Max.
I don’t hate All-Weather racing because it’s ‘bent’. I hate it because it’s even more boring than Turf Flat racing. Both are utterly dreadful and dreary fare – it has nothing to do with the quality of animal on display, or how straight or crooked the game is or isn’t. It’s just shite. That’s it. No forensic analysis required. S-H-I-T-E.
This is a personal opinion of course, which I trust I have now made clear to you.
I’m not in favour of it being moved. The Big Races Discussion section is my natural home. If it was moved to Daily Lays and Plays I wouldn’t bother contributing to it.
Too many "I’s" and "My’s" there Gerald. This is OUR forum and I think its fair to say the majority would like to keep this section for the big races only. Would be good if you would respect that thanks.
(I thought Mon Mome ran well in the Blue Square at Haydock.)
Why are people more concerned about where a thread is, rather than actually having a discussion?
On another issue I find it amusing that people are going at each other hammer and tongs about Hurricane Fly, when I’d have thought the majority of people on this Forum haven’t actually seen him run yet. I’ll arbitrate on that discussion at some stage by deciding where to invest my pennies.
One of the major criticisms of sand racing is that it’s bent. Oh the irony, Grass. The irony!!
Speak for yourself, Max.
I don’t hate All-Weather racing because it’s ‘bent’. I hate it because it’s even more boring than Turf Flat racing. Both are utterly dreadful and dreary fare – it has nothing to do with the quality of animal on display, or how straight or crooked the game is or isn’t. It’s just shite. That’s it. No forensic analysis required. S-H-I-T-E.
This is a personal opinion of course, which I trust I have now made clear to you. 8)
Hear Hear Grasshopper, give me small fields at Towcester to any of the moderate dross on the all-weather or flat turf. And anyway, if you have ever been point to pointing on a regular basis then that is reall all weather racing. At Horseheath a fortnight ago we copped the lot and the same with Charing last Easter, snow, wind, sun, rain, the lot.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.