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He rarely bets these days. He admitted in an interview last year on Irish TV that he enjoys following racing as a hobby but doesn’t follow form as closely as he used to and relies on others judgment and opinions(hopefully not Frank Berry’s!). At the likes of Cheltenham and Royal Ascot he will get involved but again its just a bit of fun plus it provides fodder for the High Street firms via the red tops to generate betting interest via ‘ JP wins 250k at Cheltenham……..’ type headlines.
I generally avoid the BBC coverage and when I do watch it its with the mute button on. Not being at home this weekend, there was no alternative and every race was ruined by the sound of horses galloping/jumping and crowd chering that was dubbed over every race (as if the commentary & presentation weren’t poor enough anyway). RTE racing tried this nonsense a couple of years back and quickly discarded it after complaints.
It has got to the stage where BBC Racing is almost unwatchable – I remember looking forward to their coverage of the big meetings years ago with Julian Wilson, O’Sullevan etc – now its just another afternoon tv programme with horse racing as its ‘product’.I travel from Ireland for this meeting each year and while I generally prefer the flat, I consider it to be be the most enjoyable meeting of the year.
As an aside to this, the majority of underwriters at banks tend to be women, the most of whom automatically baulk at the site of gambling transactions, especially significant ones ………. how many punters hide bank/bookmaker statements from their partners to conceal losses or turnover ? …….
I think its fair to assume at this stage that Heffernan will never become a top jockey. Whilst he is professional and dependable, those who have watched ride on a daily basis in Ireland know his limitations – he uses the whip poorly in the backhand position for one and unbalances horses. I would imagine the other leading home based jockeys will be amongst the riders …. Smullen, Berry, McDonogh etc
Chris Hayes was announced as her retained rider at the start of the flat season. Apparently, she was unhappy that McDonogh rode another of Prendergasts in a two year old maiden last backened when he was title chasing instead of one of hers as he was her retained jockey at the time. May prove to be to McDonogh’s advantage in any case.
It is hard to see him winning all these races with Kevin Manning riding regardless of how good the horse might be.
American Jennie for me too ………. nearly a ton on BF now which is huge. She has been trained for this and has Slippers Madden up. Patsy Hall could go well too.
I’m not sure Leopardstown is ideal as a flat track for 7/8f races with more than 10 runners. With a lot of the race on the turn and resulting traffic problems it is difficult to come from behind or a wide box.<br>I’m not sure how much the ‘Chester’ rail helps either.
There was a nice illustration of the time delays at Limerick racecouse on Sunday. At the main info point in the Tote hall there were three screens showing the home meeting – the racecourse feed, SIS and ATR.<br>The racecourse feed was at leat three seconds ahead of SIS which was in turn 2 seconds ahead of ATR (illustrated nicely by the on-screen clocks).<br>Most punters seemed to be happy watching the ATR feed though as it was on the biggest screen!
The ground won’t be any worse than soft and quite possibly a bit better, there has been no rain here all week.
I wouldn’t doubt Iktitaf’s resolution, he slogged through the mud to win the Irish Cesarewitch this year. I think he will win tomorrow.
Most of you can count yourselves lucky that you don’t have to watch Tracey Piggott on Irish tv.
