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Here’s a link to the results from the equivalent Saturday in 1998, the year before the first Shergar Cup.
http://www.racingpost.com/horses2/resul … 1998-08-08
Can you look at that Ascot card and honestly say that we have lost a wonderful day’s racing which should immediately be reinstated?
You’d get a smaller crowd, containing fewer first-time racegoers. How would that be a victory?
Not sure there’s much point in debating this with you, Pinza, since you seem very entrenched in your position, not to say a little angry.
But for what it’s worth, my reaction in defending this event is no knee-jerk. In the early years of the Shergar Cup, the idea of it used to bore me something terrible, but then I actually went along one year and enjoyed it, when Russell Baze and Jorge Ricardo took part. There was a large crowd from long before the first race and it seemed to me that at least half of it left after the last race, before the concert.
Clearly, it’s not your thing, but there are many other days when the racing is arranged to suit your wishes, and there was Newmarket, Haydock and Redcar today. Why does this one race-meeting have to be the same as all the others just because you want it that way?
Whether you like it or not, the event is a success, even when it attracts almost no advance publicity. There is no reason to suspect it might be killed off, despite your prayers.
It’ll be difficult for you to absorb the lesson that the world doesn’t revolve around you and your desires but everyone has to learn it eventually.
Oh cheer up. It’s one race-meeting in the entire year. OK, you don’t like it but, as you’ve all noticed, it has drawn a big crowd. I’m sure the pop concert is part of the draw but the crowd has been there all afternoon so it seems that racing is also part of it.
It’s odd to me that anyone who cares about racing would happily wish away an event that attracts 30,000 people to the track, people who are probably not confirmed racegoers. Yes, we should make more effort to get them to come back, but there is no down side to getting them there in the first place.
If you can’t get over your purist natures, why not take an interest in the presence of excellent jockeys who normally ply their trade thousands of miles from here. Doug Whyte has been champion jockey in Hong Kong for 11 years in a row. Can’t you all suppress your knee-jerk reactions for long enough to watch him in action, whether he’s winning or not?
Theoretically, I suppose a post-mortem might be done if it had been suggested to the authorities that there would be something to find
@ apracing
In relation to a different case a couple of years ago, I was advised by a chap at the BHA that the stable lad in question had probably peed into the horse’s bedding rather than cross the stable yard to the loo. Apparently this happens all the time. Then the horse ingests the human pee while rootling around in his bedding for food.
It’s all very edifying.
@cormack
Certainly better quality than Giants Causeway v Kalanisi?
Don’t know about that. After all, GC won G1s on his next 3 starts and was beaten a neck in the Breeders’ Cup Classic on dirt. Kalanisi won 2 G1s later that year, incl Breeders’ Cup Turf.
4th horse was Sakhee, who won the next year’s Arc by 6 lengths.
5th horse was Fantastic Light, who went on to win 6 G1s, 2 in America, 1 in Hong Kong and a defeat of Galileo in the Irish Champion.
Only exceptional races can beat that one for depth of quality. Can’t be sure yet but today’s is no certainty to measure up, especially since we’re only really talking about 2 horses because Snow Fairy totally failed to run her race on 1st run for 7 months and after an injury.
In case of interest, I wrote about greys in the Grand National on the Guardian’s website a week ago:
FWIW Greg wouldn’t write his own headline and nor would most journalists. He sends in his copy, sub-editor adds a headline
New piece on this subject on the Guardian site:
I remember Hill of Slane running in the National one year in the mid-80s, ridden by Steve Smith-Eccles I think. He stood off at least a stride too soon at Becher’s and met the fence coming down. There probably are fences at Aintree where you can get away with that, but not Becher’s, not even now. I’m sure he was fine after that, but I don’t remember much else about him.
